"DANIEL DERONDA\n\nBy George Eliot\n\n\n\n  Let thy chief terror be of thine own soul:\n  There, 'mid the throng of hurrying desires\n  That trample on the dead to seize their spoil,\n  Lurks vengeance, footless, irresistible\n  As exhalations laden with slow death,\n  And o'er the fairest troop of captured joys\n  Breathes pallid pestilence.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n BOOK   I. THE SPOILED CHILD\n  \"    II. MEETING STREAMS\n  \"   III. MAIDENS CHOOSING\n  \"    IV. GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE\n  \"     V. MORDECAI\n  \"    VI. REVELATIONS\n  \"   VII. THE MOTHER AND THE SON\n  \"  VIII. FRUIT AND SEED\n\n\n\n\nDANIEL DERONDA.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK I.--THE SPOILED CHILD.\n\n\nCHAPTER I.\n\n    Men can do nothing without the make-believe of a beginning. Even\n    science, the strict measurer, is obliged to start with a make-believe\n    unit, and must fix on a point in the stars' unceasing journey when his\n    sidereal clock shall pretend that time is at Nought. His less accurate\n    grandmother Poetry has always been understood to start in the middle;\n    but on reflection it appears that her proceeding is not very different\n    from his; since Science, too, reckons backward as well as forward,\n    divides his unit into billions, and with his clock-finger at Nought\n    really sets off _in medias res_. No retrospect will take us to\n    the true beginning; and whether our prologue be in heaven or on earth,\n    it is but a fraction of that all-presupposing fact with which our\n    story sets out.\n\n\nWas she beautiful or not beautiful? and what was the secret of form or\nexpression which gave the dynamic quality to her glance? Was the good\nor the evil genius dominant in those beams? Probably the evil; else why\nwas the effect that of unrest rather than of undisturbed charm? Why was\nthe wish to look again felt as coercion and not as a longing in which\nthe whole being consents?\n\nShe who raised these questions in Daniel Deronda's mind was occupied in\ngambling: not in the open air under a southern sky, tossing coppers on\na ruined wall, with rags about her limbs; but in one of those splendid\nresorts which the enlightenment of ages has prepared for the same\nspecies of pleasure at a heavy cost of gilt mouldings, dark-toned\ncolor and chubby nudities, all correspondingly heavy--forming a\nsuitable condenser for human breath belonging, in great part, to the\nhighest fashion, and not easily procurable to be breathed in elsewhere\nin the like proportion, at least by persons of little fashion.\n\nIt was near four o'clock on a September day, so that the atmosphere was\nwell-brewed to a visible haze. There was deep stillness, broken only by\na light rattle, a light chink, a small sweeping sound, and an\noccasional monotone in French, such as might be expected to issue from\nan ingeniously constructed automaton. Round two long tables were\ngathered two serried crowds of human beings, all save one having their\nfaces and attention bent on the tables. The one exception was a\nmelancholy little boy, with his knees and calves simply in their\nnatural clothing of epidermis, but for the rest of his person in a\nfancy dress. He alone had his face turned toward the doorway, and\nfixing on it the blank gaze of a bedizened child stationed as a\nmasquerading advertisement on the platform of an itinerant show, stood\nclose behind a lady deeply engaged at the roulette-table.\n\nAbout this table fifty or sixty persons were assembled, many in the\nouter rows, where there was occasionally a deposit of new-comers, being\nmere spectators, only that one of them, usually a woman, might now and\nthen be observed putting down a five-franc with a simpering air, just\nto see what the passion of gambling really was. Those who were taking\ntheir pleasure at a higher strength, and were absorbed in play, showed\nvery distant varieties of European type: Livonian and Spanish,\nGraeco-Italian and miscellaneous German, English aristocratic and\nEnglish plebeian. Here certainly was a striking admission of human\nequality. The white bejewelled fingers of an English countess were very\nnear touching a bony, yellow, crab-like hand stretching a bared wrist\nto clutch a heap of coin--a hand easy to sort with the square, gaunt\nface, deep-set eyes, grizzled eyebrows, and ill-combed scanty hair\nwhich seemed a slight metamorphosis of the vulture. And where else\nwould her ladyship have graciously consented to sit by that dry-lipped\nfeminine figure prematurely old, withered after short bloom like her\nartificial flowers, holding a shabby velvet reticule before her, and\noccasionally putting in her mouth the point with which she pricked her\ncard? There too, very near the fair countess, was a respectable London\ntradesman, blonde and soft-handed, his sleek hair scrupulously parted\nbehind and before, conscious of circulars addressed to the nobility and\ngentry, whose distinguished patronage enabled him to take his holidays\nfashionably, and to a certain extent in their distinguished company.\nNot his gambler's passion that nullifies appetite, but a well-fed\nleisure, which, in the intervals of winning money in business and\nspending it showily, sees no better resource than winning money in play\nand spending it yet more showily--reflecting always that Providence had\nnever manifested any disapprobation of his amusement, and dispassionate\nenough to leave off if the sweetness of winning much and seeing others\nlose had turned to the sourness of losing much and seeing others win.\nFor the vice of gambling lay in losing money at it. In his bearing\nthere might be something of the tradesman, but in his pleasures he was\nfit to rank with the owners of the oldest titles. Standing close to his\nchair was a handsome Italian, calm, statuesque, reaching across him to\nplace the first pile of napoleons from a new bagful just brought him by\nan envoy with a scrolled mustache. The pile was in half a minute pushed\nover to an old bewigged woman with eye-glasses pinching her nose. There\nwas a slight gleam, a faint mumbling smile about the lips of the old\nwoman; but the statuesque Italian remained impassive, and--probably\nsecure in an infallible system which placed his foot on the neck of\nchance--immediately prepared a new pile. So did a man with the air of\nan emaciated beau or worn-out libertine, who looked at life through one\neye-glass, and held out his hand tremulously when he asked for change.\nIt could surely be no severity of system, but rather some dream of\nwhite crows, or the induction that the eighth of the month was lucky,\nwhich inspired the fierce yet tottering impulsiveness of his play.\n\nBut, while every single player differed markedly from every other,\nthere was a certain uniform negativeness of expression which had the\neffect of a mask--as if they had all eaten of some root that for the\ntime compelled the brains of each to the same narrow monotony of action.\n\nDeronda's first thought when his eyes fell on this scene of dull,\ngas-poisoned absorption, was that the gambling of Spanish shepherd-boys\nhad seemed to him more enviable:--so far Rousseau might be justified in\nmaintaining that art and science had done a poor service to mankind.\nBut suddenly he felt the moment become dramatic. His attention was\narrested by a young lady who, standing at an angle not far from him,\nwas the last to whom his eyes traveled. She was bending and speaking\nEnglish to a middle-aged lady seated at play beside her: but the next\ninstant she returned to her play, and showed the full height of a\ngraceful figure, with a face which might possibly be looked at without\nadmiration, but could hardly be passed with indifference.\n\nThe inward debate which she raised in Deronda gave to his eyes a\ngrowing expression of scrutiny, tending farther and farther away from\nthe glow of mingled undefined sensibilities forming admiration. At one\nmoment they followed the movements of the figure, of the arms and\nhands, as this problematic sylph bent forward to deposit her stake with\nan air of firm choice; and the next they returned to the face which, at\npresent unaffected by beholders, was directed steadily toward the game.\nThe sylph was a winner; and as her taper fingers, delicately gloved in\npale-gray, were adjusting the coins which had been pushed toward her in\norder to pass them back again to the winning point, she looked round\nher with a survey too markedly cold and neutral not to have in it a\nlittle of that nature which we call art concealing an inward exultation.\n\nBut in the course of that survey her eyes met Deronda's, and instead of\naverting them as she would have desired to do, she was unpleasantly\nconscious that they were arrested--how long? The darting sense that he\nwas measuring her and looking down on her as an inferior, that he was\nof different quality from the human dross around her, that he felt\nhimself in a region outside and above her, and was examining her as a\nspecimen of a lower order, roused a tingling resentment which stretched\nthe moment with conflict. It did not bring the blood to her cheeks, but\nit sent it away from her lips. She controlled herself by the help of an\ninward defiance, and without other sign of emotion than this\nlip-paleness turned to her play. But Deronda's gaze seemed to have\nacted as an evil eye. Her stake was gone. No matter; she had been\nwinning ever since she took to roulette with a few napoleons at\ncommand, and had a considerable reserve. She had begun to believe in\nher luck, others had begun to believe in it: she had visions of being\nfollowed by a _cortège_ who would worship her as a goddess of luck and\nwatch her play as a directing augury. Such things had been known of\nmale gamblers; why should not a woman have a like supremacy? Her friend\nand chaperon who had not wished her to play at first was beginning to\napprove, only administering the prudent advice to stop at the right\nmoment and carry money back to England--advice to which Gwendolen had\nreplied that she cared for the excitement of play, not the winnings. On\nthat supposition the present moment ought to have made the flood-tide\nin her eager experience of gambling. Yet, when her next stake was swept\naway, she felt the orbits of her eyes getting hot, and the certainty\nshe had (without looking) of that man still watching her was something\nlike a pressure which begins to be torturing. The more reason to her\nwhy she should not flinch, but go on playing as if she were indifferent\nto loss or gain. Her friend touched her elbow and proposed that they\nshould quit the table. For reply Gwendolen put ten louis on the same\nspot: she was in that mood of defiance in which the mind loses sight of\nany end beyond the satisfaction of enraged resistance; and with the\npuerile stupidity of a dominant impulse includes luck among its objects\nof defiance. Since she was not winning strikingly, the next best thing\nwas to lose strikingly. She controlled her muscles, and showed no\ntremor of mouth or hands. Each time her stake was swept off she doubled\nit. Many were now watching her, but the sole observation she was\nconscious of was Deronda's, who, though she never looked toward him,\nshe was sure had not moved away. Such a drama takes no long while to\nplay out: development and catastrophe can often be measured by nothing\nclumsier than the moment-hand. \"Faites votre jeu, mesdames et\nmessieurs,\" said the automatic voice of destiny from between the\nmustache and imperial of the croupier: and Gwendolen's arm was\nstretched to deposit her last poor heap of napoleons. \"Le jeu ne va\nplus,\" said destiny. And in five seconds Gwendolen turned from the\ntable, but turned resolutely with her face toward Deronda and looked at\nhim. There was a smile of irony in his eyes as their glances met; but\nit was at least better that he should have disregarded her as one of an\ninsect swarm who had no individual physiognomy. Besides, in spite of\nhis superciliousness and irony, it was difficult to believe that he did\nnot admire her spirit as well as her person: he was young, handsome,\ndistinguished in appearance--not one of these ridiculous and dowdy\nPhilistines who thought it incumbent on them to blight the gaming-table\nwith a sour look of protest as they passed by it. The general\nconviction that we are admirable does not easily give way before a\nsingle negative; rather when any of Vanity's large family, male or\nfemale, find their performance received coldly, they are apt to believe\nthat a little more of it will win over the unaccountable dissident. In\nGwendolen's habits of mind it had been taken for granted that she knew\nwhat was admirable and that she herself was admired. This basis of her\nthinking had received a disagreeable concussion, and reeled a little,\nbut was not easily to be overthrown.\n\nIn the evening the same room was more stiflingly heated, was brilliant\nwith gas and with the costumes of ladies who floated their trains along\nit or were seated on the ottomans.\n\nThe Nereid in sea-green robes and silver ornaments, with a pale\nsea-green feather fastened in silver falling backward over her green\nhat and light brown hair, was Gwendolen Harleth. She was under the\nwing, or rather soared by the shoulder, of the lady who had sat by her\nat the roulette-table; and with them was a gentleman with a white\nmustache and clipped hair: solid-browed, stiff and German. They were\nwalking about or standing to chat with acquaintances, and Gwendolen was\nmuch observed by the seated groups.\n\n\"A striking girl--that Miss Harleth--unlike others.\"\n\n\"Yes, she has got herself up as a sort of serpent now--all green and\nsilver, and winds her neck about a little more than usual.\"\n\n\"Oh, she must always be doing something extraordinary. She is that kind\nof girl, I fancy. Do you think her pretty, Mr. Vandernoodt?\"\n\n\"Very. A man might risk hanging for her--I mean a fool might.\"\n\n\"You like a _nez retroussé_, then, and long narrow eyes?\"\n\n\"When they go with such an _ensemble_.\"\n\n\"The _ensemble du serpent_?\"\n\n\"If you will. Woman was tempted by a serpent; why not man?\"\n\n\"She is certainly very graceful; but she wants a tinge of color in her\ncheeks. It is a sort of Lamia beauty she has.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, I think her complexion one of her chief charms. It is\na warm paleness; it looks thoroughly healthy. And that delicate nose\nwith its gradual little upward curve is distracting. And then her\nmouth--there never was a prettier mouth, the lips curled backward so\nfinely, eh, Mackworth?\"\n\n\"Think so? I cannot endure that sort of mouth. It looks so\nself-complacent, as if it knew its own beauty--the curves are too\nimmovable. I like a mouth that trembles more.\"\n\n\"For my part, I think her odious,\" said a dowager. \"It is wonderful\nwhat unpleasant girls get into vogue. Who are these Langens? Does\nanybody know them?\"\n\n\"They are quite _comme il faut_. I have dined with them several times\nat the _Russie_. The baroness is English. Miss Harleth calls her\ncousin. The girl herself is thoroughly well-bred, and as clever as\npossible.\"\n\n\"Dear me! and the baron?\".\n\n\"A very good furniture picture.\"\n\n\"Your baroness is always at the roulette-table,\" said Mackworth. \"I\nfancy she has taught the girl to gamble.\"\n\n\"Oh, the old woman plays a very sober game; drops a ten-franc piece\nhere and there. The girl is more headlong. But it is only a freak.\"\n\n\"I hear she has lost all her winnings to-day. Are they rich? Who knows?\"\n\n\"Ah, who knows? Who knows that about anybody?\" said Mr. Vandernoodt,\nmoving off to join the Langens.\n\nThe remark that Gwendolen wound her neck about more than usual this\nevening was true. But it was not that she might carry out the serpent\nidea more completely: it was that she watched for any chance of seeing\nDeronda, so that she might inquire about this stranger, under whose\nmeasuring gaze she was still wincing. At last her opportunity came.\n\n\"Mr. Vandernoodt, you know everybody,\" said Gwendolen, not too eagerly,\nrather with a certain languor of utterance which she sometimes gave to\nher clear soprano. \"Who is that near the door?\"\n\n\"There are half a dozen near the door. Do you mean that old Adonis in\nthe George the Fourth wig?\"\n\n\"No, no; the dark-haired young man on the right with the dreadful\nexpression.\"\n\n\"Dreadful, do you call it? I think he is an uncommonly fine fellow.\"\n\n\"But who is he?\"\n\n\"He is lately come to our hotel with Sir Hugo Mallinger.\"\n\n\"Sir Hugo Mallinger?\"\n\n\"Yes. Do you know him?\"\n\n\"No.\" (Gwendolen colored slightly.) \"He has a place near us, but he\nnever comes to it. What did you say was the name of that gentleman near\nthe door?\"\n\n\"Deronda--Mr. Deronda.\"\n\n\"What a delightful name! Is he an Englishman?\"\n\n\"Yes. He is reported to be rather closely related to the baronet. You\nare interested in him?\"\n\n\"Yes. I think he is not like young men in general.\"\n\n\"And you don't admire young men in general?\"\n\n\"Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can't at all\nguess what this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?\"\n\n\"Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on\nthe terrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. He looked\nbored.\"\n\n\"Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored.\"\n\n\"I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I\nbring it about? Will you allow it, baroness?\"\n\n\"Why not?--since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new\n_rôle_ of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored,\" continued Madame von\nLangen, when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. \"Until now you have always\nseemed eager about something from morning till night.\"\n\n\"That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play I\nmust break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen;\nunless you will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn.\"\n\n\"Perhaps this Mr. Deronda's acquaintance will do instead of the\nMatterhorn.\"\n\n\"Perhaps.\"\n\nBut Gwendolen did not make Deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. Mr.\nVandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and\nwhen she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II.\n\n  This man contrives a secret 'twixt us two,\n  That he may quell me with his meeting eyes\n  Like one who quells a lioness at bay.\n\n\nThis was the letter Gwendolen found on her table:--\n\n    DEAREST CHILD.--I have been expecting to hear from you for a week. In\n    your last you said the Langens thought of leaving Leubronn and going\n    to Baden. How could you be so thoughtless as to leave me in\n    uncertainty about your address? I am in the greatest anxiety lest this\n    should not reach you. In any case, you were to come home at the end of\n    September, and I must now entreat you to return as quickly as\n    possible, for if you spent all your money it would be out of my power\n    to send you any more, and you must not borrow of the Langens, for I\n    could not repay them. This is the sad truth, my child--I wish I could\n    prepare you for it better--but a dreadful calamity has befallen us\n    all. You know nothing about business and will not understand it; but\n    Grapnell & Co. have failed for a million, and we are totally\n    ruined--your aunt Gascoigne as well as I, only that your uncle has his\n    benefice, so that by putting down their carriage and getting interest\n    for the boys, the family can go on. All the property our poor father\n    saved for us goes to pay the liabilities. There is nothing I can call\n    my own. It is better you should know this at once, though it rends my\n    heart to have to tell it you. Of course we cannot help thinking what a\n    pity it was that you went away just when you did. But I shall never\n    reproach you, my dear child; I would save you from all trouble if I\n    could. On your way home you will have time to prepare yourself for the\n    change you will find. We shall perhaps leave Offendene at once, for we\n    hope that Mr. Haynes, who wanted it before, may be ready to take it\n    off my hands. Of course we cannot go to the rectory--there is not a\n    corner there to spare. We must get some hut or other to shelter us,\n    and we must live on your uncle Gascoigne's charity, until I see what\n    else can be done. I shall not be able to pay the debts to the\n    tradesmen besides the servants' wages. Summon up your fortitude, my\n    dear child; we must resign ourselves to God's will. But it is hard to\n    resign one's self to Mr. Lassman's wicked recklessness, which they say\n    was the cause of the failure. Your poor sisters can only cry with me\n    and give me no help. If you were once here, there might be a break in\n    the cloud--I always feel it impossible that you can have been meant\n    for poverty. If the Langens wish to remain abroad, perhaps you can put\n    yourself under some one else's care for the journey. But come as soon\n    as you can to your afflicted and loving mamma,\n\n    FANNY DAVILOW.\n\nThe first effect of this letter on Gwendolen was half-stupefying. The\nimplicit confidence that her destiny must be one of luxurious ease,\nwhere any trouble that occurred would be well clad and provided for,\nhad been stronger in her own mind than in her mamma's, being fed there\nby her youthful blood and that sense of superior claims which made a\nlarge part of her consciousness. It was almost as difficult for her to\nbelieve suddenly that her position had become one of poverty and of\nhumiliating dependence, as it would have been to get into the strong\ncurrent of her blooming life the chill sense that her death would\nreally come. She stood motionless for a few minutes, then tossed off\nher hat and automatically looked in the glass. The coils of her smooth\nlight-brown hair were still in order perfect enough for a ball-room;\nand as on other nights, Gwendolen might have looked lingeringly at\nherself for pleasure (surely an allowable indulgence); but now she took\nno conscious note of her reflected beauty, and simply stared right\nbefore her as if she had been jarred by a hateful sound and was waiting\nfor any sign of its cause. By-and-by she threw herself in the corner of\nthe red velvet sofa, took up the letter again and read it twice\ndeliberately, letting it at last fall on the ground, while she rested\nher clasped hands on her lap and sat perfectly still, shedding no\ntears. Her impulse was to survey and resist the situation rather than\nto wail over it. There was no inward exclamation of \"Poor mamma!\" Her\nmamma had never seemed to get much enjoyment out of life, and if\nGwendolen had been at this moment disposed to feel pity she would have\nbestowed it on herself--for was she not naturally and rightfully the\nchief object of her mamma's anxiety too? But it was anger, it was\nresistance that possessed her; it was bitter vexation that she had lost\nher gains at roulette, whereas if her luck had continued through this\none day she would have had a handsome sum to carry home, or she might\nhave gone on playing and won enough to support them all. Even now was\nit not possible? She had only four napoleons left in her purse, but she\npossessed some ornaments which she could sell: a practice so common in\nstylish society at German baths that there was no need to be ashamed of\nit; and even if she had not received her mamma's letter, she would\nprobably have decided to get money for an Etruscan necklace which she\nhappened not to have been wearing since her arrival; nay, she might\nhave done so with an agreeable sense that she was living with some\nintensity and escaping humdrum. With ten louis at her disposal and a\nreturn of her former luck, which seemed probable, what could she do\nbetter than go on playing for a few days? If her friends at home\ndisapproved of the way in which she got the money, as they certainly\nwould, still the money would be there. Gwendolen's imagination dwelt on\nthis course and created agreeable consequences, but not with unbroken\nconfidence and rising certainty as it would have done if she had been\ntouched with the gambler's mania. She had gone to the roulette-table\nnot because of passion, but in search of it: her mind was still sanely\ncapable of picturing balanced probabilities, and while the chance of\nwinning allured her, the chance of losing thrust itself on her with\nalternate strength and made a vision from which her pride sank\nsensitively. For she was resolved not to tell the Langens that any\nmisfortune had befallen her family, or to make herself in any way\nindebted to their compassion; and if she were to part with her jewelry\nto any observable extent, they would interfere by inquiries and\nremonstrances. The course that held the least risk of intolerable\nannoyance was to raise money on her necklace early in the morning, tell\nthe Langens that her mother desired her immediate return without giving\na reason, and take the train for Brussels that evening. She had no maid\nwith her, and the Langens might make difficulties about her returning\nhome, but her will was peremptory.\n\nInstead of going to bed she made as brilliant a light as she could and\nbegan to pack, working diligently, though all the while visited by the\nscenes that might take place on the coming day--now by the tiresome\nexplanations and farewells, and the whirling journey toward a changed\nhome, now by the alternative of staying just another day and standing\nagain at the roulette-table. But always in this latter scene there was\nthe presence of that Deronda, watching her with exasperating irony,\nand--the two keen experiences were inevitably revived\ntogether--beholding her again forsaken by luck. This importunate image\ncertainly helped to sway her resolve on the side of immediate\ndeparture, and to urge her packing to the point which would make a\nchange of mind inconvenient. It had struck twelve when she came into\nher room, and by the time she was assuring herself that she had left\nout only what was necessary, the faint dawn was stealing through the\nwhite blinds and dulling her candles. What was the use of going to bed?\nHer cold bath was refreshment enough, and she saw that a slight trace\nof fatigue about the eyes only made her look the more interesting.\nBefore six o'clock she was completely equipped in her gray traveling\ndress even to her felt hat, for she meant to walk out as soon as she\ncould count on seeing other ladies on their way to the springs. And\nhappening to be seated sideways before the long strip of mirror between\nher two windows she turned to look at herself, leaning her elbow on the\nback of the chair in an attitude that might have been chosen for her\nportrait. It is possible to have a strong self-love without any\nself-satisfaction, rather with a self-discontent which is the more\nintense because one's own little core of egoistic sensibility is a\nsupreme care; but Gwendolen knew nothing of such inward strife. She had\na _naïve_ delight in her fortunate self, which any but the harshest\nsaintliness will have some indulgence for in a girl who had every day\nseen a pleasant reflection of that self in her friends' flattery as\nwell as in the looking-glass. And even in this beginning of troubles,\nwhile for lack of anything else to do she sat gazing at her image in\nthe growing light, her face gathered a complacency gradual as the\ncheerfulness of the morning. Her beautiful lips curled into a more and\nmore decided smile, till at last she took off her hat, leaned forward\nand kissed the cold glass which had looked so warm. How could she\nbelieve in sorrow? If it attacked her, she felt the force to crush it,\nto defy it, or run away from it, as she had done already. Anything\nseemed more possible than that she could go on bearing miseries, great\nor small.\n\nMadame von Langen never went out before breakfast, so that Gwendolen\ncould safely end her early walk by taking her way homeward through the\nObere Strasse in which was the needed shop, sure to be open after\nseven. At that hour any observers whom she minded would be either on\ntheir walks in the region of the springs, or would be still in their\nbedrooms; but certainly there was one grand hotel, the _Czarina_ from\nwhich eyes might follow her up to Mr. Wiener's door. This was a chance\nto be risked: might she not be going in to buy something which had\nstruck her fancy? This implicit falsehood passed through her mind as\nshe remembered that the _Czarina_ was Deronda's hotel; but she was then\nalready far up the Obere Strasse, and she walked on with her usual\nfloating movement, every line in her figure and drapery falling in\ngentle curves attractive to all eyes except those which discerned in\nthem too close a resemblance to the serpent, and objected to the\nrevival of serpent-worship. She looked neither to the right hand nor to\nthe left, and transacted her business in the shop with a coolness which\ngave little Mr. Weiner nothing to remark except her proud grace of\nmanner, and the superior size and quality of the three central\nturquoises in the necklace she offered him. They had belonged to a\nchain once her father's: but she had never known her father; and the\nnecklace was in all respects the ornament she could most conveniently\npart with. Who supposes that it is an impossible contradiction to be\nsuperstitious and rationalizing at the same time? Roulette encourages a\nromantic superstition as to the chances of the game, and the most\nprosaic rationalism as to human sentiments which stand in the way of\nraising needful money. Gwendolen's dominant regret was that after all\nshe had only nine louis to add to the four in her purse: these Jew\ndealers were so unscrupulous in taking advantage of Christians\nunfortunate at play! But she was the Langens' guest in their hired\napartment, and had nothing to pay there: thirteen louis would do more\nthan take her home; even if she determined on risking three, the\nremaining ten would more than suffice, since she meant to travel right\non, day and night. As she turned homeward, nay, entered and seated\nherself in the _salon_ to await her friends and breakfast, she still\nwavered as to her immediate departure, or rather she had concluded to\ntell the Langens simply that she had had a letter from her mamma\ndesiring her return, and to leave it still undecided when she should\nstart. It was already the usual breakfast-time, and hearing some one\nenter as she was leaning back rather tired and hungry with her eyes\nshut, she rose expecting to see one or other of the Langens--the words\nwhich might determine her lingering at least another day, ready-formed\nto pass her lips. But it was the servant bringing in a small packet for\nMiss Harleth, which had at that moment been left at the door. Gwendolen\ntook it in her hand and immediately hurried into her own room. She\nlooked paler and more agitated than when she had first read her mamma's\nletter. Something--she never quite knew what--revealed to her before\nshe opened the packet that it contained the necklace she had just\nparted with. Underneath the paper it was wrapped in a cambric\nhandkerchief, and within this was a scrap of torn-off note-paper, on\nwhich was written with a pencil, in clear but rapid handwriting--\"_A\nstranger who has found Miss Harleth's necklace returns it to her with\nthe hope that she will not again risk the loss of it._\"\n\nGwendolen reddened with the vexation of wounded pride. A large corner\nof the handkerchief seemed to have been recklessly torn off to get rid\nof a mark; but she at once believed in the first image of \"the\nstranger\" that presented itself to her mind. It was Deronda; he must\nhave seen her go into the shop; he must have gone in immediately after\nand repurchased the necklace. He had taken an unpardonable liberty, and\nhad dared to place her in a thoroughly hateful position. What could she\ndo?--Not, assuredly, act on her conviction that it was he who had sent\nher the necklace and straightway send it back to him: that would be to\nface the possibility that she had been mistaken; nay, even if the\n\"stranger\" were he and no other, it would be something too gross for\nher to let him know that she had divined this, and to meet him again\nwith that recognition in their minds. He knew very well that he was\nentangling her in helpless humiliation: it was another way of smiling\nat her ironically, and taking the air of a supercilious mentor.\nGwendolen felt the bitter tears of mortification rising and rolling\ndown her cheeks. No one had ever before dared to treat her with irony\nand contempt. One thing was clear: she must carry out her resolution to\nquit this place at once; it was impossible for her to reappear in the\npublic _salon_, still less stand at the gaming-table with the risk of\nseeing Deronda. Now came an importunate knock at the door: breakfast\nwas ready. Gwendolen with a passionate movement thrust necklace,\ncambric, scrap of paper, and all into her _nécessaire_, pressed her\nhandkerchief against her face, and after pausing a minute or two to\nsummon back her proud self-control, went to join her friends. Such\nsigns of tears and fatigue as were left seemed accordant enough with\nthe account she at once gave of her having sat up to do her packing,\ninstead of waiting for help from her friend's maid. There was much\nprotestation, as she had expected, against her traveling alone, but she\npersisted in refusing any arrangements for companionship. She would be\nput into the ladies' compartment and go right on. She could rest\nexceedingly well in the train, and was afraid of nothing.\n\nIn this way it happened that Gwendolen never reappeared at the\nroulette-table, but that Thursday evening left Leubronn for Brussels,\nand on Saturday morning arrived at Offendene, the home to which she and\nher family were soon to say a last good-bye.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III.\n\n    \"Let no flower of the spring pass by us; let us crown ourselves with\n    rosebuds before they be withered.\"--BOOK OF WISDOM.\n\n\nPity that Offendene was not the home of Miss Harleth's childhood, or\nendeared to her by family memories! A human life, I think, should be\nwell rooted in some spot of a native land, where it may get the love of\ntender kinship for the face of earth, for the labors men go forth to,\nfor the sounds and accents that haunt it, for whatever will give that\nearly home a familiar unmistakable difference amid the future widening\nof knowledge: a spot where the definiteness of early memories may be\ninwrought with affection, and--kindly acquaintance with all neighbors,\neven to the dogs and donkeys, may spread not by sentimental effort and\nreflection, but as a sweet habit of the blood. At five years old,\nmortals are not prepared to be citizens of the world, to be stimulated\nby abstract nouns, to soar above preference into impartiality; and that\nprejudice in favor of milk with which we blindly begin, is a type of\nthe way body and soul must get nourished at least for a time. The best\nintroduction to astronomy is to think of the nightly heavens as a\nlittle lot of stars belonging to one's own homestead.\n\nBut this blessed persistence in which affection can take root had been\nwanting in Gwendolen's life. It was only a year before her recall from\nLeubronn that Offendene had been chosen as her mamma's home, simply for\nits nearness to Pennicote Rectory, and that Mrs. Davilow, Gwendolen,\nand her four half-sisters (the governess and the maid following in\nanother vehicle) had been driven along the avenue for the first time,\non a late October afternoon when the rooks were crawing loudly above\nthem, and the yellow elm-leaves were whirling.\n\nThe season suited the aspect of the old oblong red-brick house, rather\ntoo anxiously ornamented with stone at every line, not excepting the\ndouble row of narrow windows and the large square portico. The stone\nencouraged a greenish lichen, the brick a powdery gray, so that though\nthe building was rigidly rectangular there was no harshness in the\nphysiognomy which it turned to the three avenues cut east, west and\nsouth in the hundred yards' breadth of old plantation encircling the\nimmediate grounds. One would have liked the house to have been lifted\non a knoll, so as to look beyond its own little domain to the long\nthatched roofs of the distant villages, the church towers, the\nscattered homesteads, the gradual rise of surging woods, and the green\nbreadths of undulating park which made the beautiful face of the earth\nin that part of Wessex. But though standing thus behind, a screen amid\nflat pastures, it had on one side a glimpse of the wider world in the\nlofty curves of the chalk downs, grand steadfast forms played over by\nthe changing days.\n\nThe house was but just large enough to be called a mansion, and was\nmoderately rented, having no manor attached to it, and being rather\ndifficult to let with its sombre furniture and faded upholstery. But\ninside and outside it was what no beholder could suppose to be\ninhabited by retired trades-people: a certainty which was worth many\nconveniences to tenants who not only had the taste that shrinks from\nnew finery, but also were in that border-territory of rank where\nannexation is a burning topic: and to take up her abode in a house\nwhich had once sufficed for dowager countesses gave a perceptible tinge\nto Mrs. Davilow's satisfaction in having an establishment of her own.\nThis, rather mysteriously to Gwendolen, appeared suddenly possible on\nthe death of her step-father, Captain Davilow, who had for the last\nnine years joined his family only in a brief and fitful manner, enough\nto reconcile them to his long absences; but she cared much more for the\nfact than for the explanation. All her prospects had become more\nagreeable in consequence. She had disliked their former way of life,\nroving from one foreign watering-place or Parisian apartment to\nanother, always feeling new antipathies to new suites of hired\nfurniture, and meeting new people under conditions which made her\nappear of little importance; and the variation of having passed two\nyears at a showy school, where, on all occasions of display, she had\nbeen put foremost, had only deepened her sense that so exceptional a\nperson as herself could hardly remain in ordinary circumstances or in a\nsocial position less than advantageous. Any fear of this latter evil\nwas banished now that her mamma was to have an establishment; for on\nthe point of birth Gwendolen was quite easy. She had no notion how her\nmaternal grandfather got the fortune inherited by his two daughters;\nbut he had been a West Indian--which seemed to exclude further\nquestion; and she knew that her father's family was so high as to take\nno notice of her mamma, who nevertheless preserved with much pride the\nminiature of a Lady Molly in that connection. She would probably have\nknown much more about her father but for a little incident which\nhappened when she was twelve years old. Mrs. Davilow had brought out,\nas she did only at wide intervals, various memorials of her first\nhusband, and while showing his miniature to Gwendolen recalled with a\nfervor which seemed to count on a peculiar filial sympathy, the fact\nthat dear papa had died when his little daughter was in long clothes.\nGwendolen, immediately thinking of the unlovable step-father whom she\nhad been acquainted with the greater part of her life while her frocks\nwere short, said--\n\n\"Why did you marry again, mamma? It would have been nicer if you had\nnot.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow colored deeply, a slight convulsive movement passed over\nher face, and straightway shutting up the memorials she said, with a\nviolence quite unusual in her--\n\n\"You have no feeling, child!\"\n\nGwendolen, who was fond of her mamma, felt hurt and ashamed, and had\nnever since dared to ask a question about her father.\n\nThis was not the only instance in which she had brought on herself the\npain of some filial compunction. It was always arranged, when possible,\nthat she should have a small bed in her mamma's room; for Mrs.\nDavilow's motherly tenderness clung chiefly to her eldest girl, who had\nbeen born in her happier time. One night under an attack of pain she\nfound that the specific regularly placed by her bedside had been\nforgotten, and begged Gwendolen to get out of bed and reach it for her.\nThat healthy young lady, snug and warm as a rosy infant in her little\ncouch, objected to step out into the cold, and lying perfectly still,\ngrumbling a refusal. Mrs. Davilow went without the medicine and never\nreproached her daughter; but the next day Gwendolen was keenly\nconscious of what must be in her mamma's mind, and tried to make amends\nby caresses which cost her no effort. Having always been the pet and\npride of the household, waited on by mother, sisters, governess and\nmaids, as if she had been a princess in exile, she naturally found it\ndifficult to think her own pleasure less important than others made it,\nand when it was positively thwarted felt an astonished resentment apt,\nin her cruder days, to vent itself in one of those passionate acts\nwhich look like a contradiction of habitual tendencies. Though never\neven as a child thoughtlessly cruel, nay delighting to rescue drowning\ninsects and watch their recovery, there was a disagreeable silent\nremembrance of her having strangled her sister's canary-bird in a final\nfit of exasperation at its shrill singing which had again and again\njarringly interrupted her own. She had taken pains to buy a white mouse\nfor her sister in retribution, and though inwardly excusing herself on\nthe ground of a peculiar sensitiveness which was a mark of her general\nsuperiority, the thought of that infelonious murder had always made her\nwince. Gwendolen's nature was not remorseless, but she liked to make\nher penances easy, and now that she was twenty and more, some of her\nnative force had turned into a self-control by which she guarded\nherself from penitential humiliation. There was more show of fire and\nwill in her than ever, but there was more calculation underneath it.\n\nOn this day of arrival at Offendene, which not even Mrs. Davilow had\nseen before--the place having been taken for her by her brother-in-law,\nMr. Gascoigne--when all had got down from the carriage, and were\nstanding under the porch in front of the open door, so that they could\nhave a general view of the place and a glimpse of the stone hall and\nstaircase hung with sombre pictures, but enlivened by a bright wood\nfire, no one spoke; mamma, the four sisters and the governess all\nlooked at Gwendolen, as if their feelings depended entirely on her\ndecision. Of the girls, from Alice in her sixteenth year to Isabel in\nher tenth, hardly anything could be said on a first view, but that they\nwere girlish, and that their black dresses were getting shabby. Miss\nMerry was elderly and altogether neutral in expression. Mrs. Davilow's\nworn beauty seemed the more pathetic for the look of entire appeal\nwhich she cast at Gwendolen, who was glancing round at the house, the\nlandscape and the entrance hall with an air of rapid judgment. Imagine\na young race-horse in the paddock among untrimmed ponies and patient\nhacks.\n\n\"Well, dear, what do you think of the place,\" said Mrs. Davilow at\nlast, in a gentle, deprecatory tone.\n\n\"I think it is charming,\" said Gwendolen, quickly. \"A romantic place;\nanything delightful may happen in it; it would be a good background for\nanything. No one need be ashamed of living here.\"\n\n\"There is certainly nothing common about it.\"\n\n\"Oh, it would do for fallen royalty or any sort of grand poverty. We\nought properly to have been living in splendor, and have come down to\nthis. It would have been as romantic as could be. But I thought my\nuncle and aunt Gascoigne would be here to meet us, and my cousin Anna,\"\nadded Gwendolen, her tone changed to sharp surprise.\n\n\"We are early,\" said Mrs. Davilow, and entering the hall, she said to\nthe housekeeper who came forward, \"You expect Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne?\"\n\n\"Yes, madam; they were here yesterday to give particular orders about\nthe fires and the dinner. But as to fires, I've had 'em in all the\nrooms for the last week, and everything is well aired. I could wish\nsome of the furniture paid better for all the cleaning it's had, but I\n_think_ you'll see the brasses have been done justice to. I _think_\nwhen Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne come, they'll tell you nothing has been\nneglected. They'll be here at five, for certain.\"\n\nThis satisfied Gwendolen, who was not prepared to have their arrival\ntreated with indifference; and after tripping a little way up the\nmatted stone staircase to take a survey there, she tripped down again,\nand followed by all the girls looked into each of the rooms opening\nfrom the hall--the dining-room all dark oak and worn red satin damask,\nwith a copy of snarling, worrying dogs from Snyders over the\nside-board, and a Christ breaking bread over the mantel-piece; the\nlibrary with a general aspect and smell of old brown-leather; and\nlastly, the drawing-room, which was entered through a small antechamber\ncrowded with venerable knick-knacks.\n\n\"Mamma, mamma, pray come here!\" said Gwendolen, Mrs. Davilow having\nfollowed slowly in talk with the housekeeper. \"Here is an organ. I will\nbe Saint Cecilia: some one shall paint me as Saint Cecilia. Jocosa\n(this was her name for Miss Merry), let down my hair. See, mamma?\"\n\nShe had thrown off her hat and gloves, and seated herself before the\norgan in an admirable pose, looking upward; while the submissive and\nsad Jocosa took out the one comb which fastened the coil of hair, and\nthen shook out the mass till it fell in a smooth light-brown stream far\nbelow its owner's slim waist.\n\nMrs. Davilow smiled and said, \"A charming picture, my dear!\" not\nindifferent to the display of her pet, even in the presence of a\nhousekeeper. Gwendolen rose and laughed with delight. All this seemed\nquite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a\nbackground.\n\n\"What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!\" she went on, looking about\nher. \"I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the\nwainscot, and the pictures that may be anything. That one with the\nribs--nothing but ribs and darkness--I should think that is Spanish,\nmamma.\"\n\n\"Oh, Gwendolen!\" said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment,\nwhile she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of\nthe room.\n\nEvery one, Gwendolen first, went to look. The opened panel had\ndisclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure\nfigure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. \"How horrible!\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered\nsilently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an\nalarming memory, said--\n\n\"You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen.\"\n\n\"How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse\nlittle creature?\" said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching\nthe panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily,\nsaying, \"There is a lock--where is the key? Let the key be found, or\nelse let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the\nkey be brought to me.\"\n\nAt this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face\nwhich was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, \"Let us\ngo up to our own room, mamma.\"\n\nThe housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet\nclose by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady's-maid,\ntelling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness.\n\n\"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Startin,\" said Bugle, who had been\nbusy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather\noffended at this irony in a new servant.\n\n\"I mean the young lady that's to command us all-and well worthy for\nlooks and figure,\" replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. \"She'll know\nwhat key it is.\"\n\n\"If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,\"\nGwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and\nyellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the\nside of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. \"I will\nhelp mamma.\"\n\nBut her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the\nwindows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her\nmamma sat down and also looked at the reflection.\n\n\"That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color\nthat sets you off?\" said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely\nwith her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand\nbrushing back the stream of hair.\n\n\"I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my\nhead,\" said Gwendolen,--\"only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint's\nnoses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your\nperfectly straight nose; it would have done for any sort of\ncharacter--a nose of all work. Mine is only a happy nose; it would not\ndo so well for tragedy.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, any nose will do to be miserable with in this world,\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, with a deep, weary sigh, throwing her black bonnet\non the table, and resting her elbow near it.\n\n\"Now, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in a strongly remonstrant tone, turning\naway from the glass with an air of vexation, \"don't begin to be dull\nhere. It spoils all my pleasure, and everything may be so happy now.\nWhat have you to be gloomy about _now_?\"\n\n\"Nothing, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, seeming to rouse herself, and\nbeginning to take off her dress. \"It is always enough for me to see you\nhappy.\"\n\n\"But you should be happy yourself,\" said Gwendolen, still\ndiscontentedly, though going to help her mamma with caressing touches.\n\"Can nobody be happy after they are quite young? You have made me feel\nsometimes as if nothing were of any use. With the girls so troublesome,\nand Jocosa so dreadfully wooden and ugly, and everything make-shift\nabout us, and you looking so dull--what was the use of my being\nanything? But now you _might_ be happy.\"\n\n\"So I shall, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, patting the cheek that was\nbending near her.\n\n\"Yes, but really. Not with a sort of make-believe,\" said Gwendolen,\nwith resolute perseverance. \"See what a hand and arm!--much more\nbeautiful than mine. Any one can see you were altogether more\nbeautiful.\"\n\n\"No, no, dear; I was always heavier. Never half so charming as you are.\"\n\n\"Well, but what is the use of my being charming, if it is to end in my\nbeing dull and not minding anything? Is that what marriage always comes\nto?\"\n\n\"No, child, certainly not. Marriage is the only happy state for a\nwoman, as I trust you will prove.\"\n\n\"I will not put up with it if it is not a happy state. I am determined\nto be happy--at least not to go on muddling away my life as other\npeople do, being and doing nothing remarkable. I have made up my mind\nnot to let other people interfere with me as they have done. Here is\nsome warm water ready for you, mamma,\" Gwendolen ended, proceeding to\ntake off her own dress and then waiting to have her hair wound up by\nher mamma.\n\nThere was silence for a minute or two, till Mrs. Davilow said, while\ncoiling the daughter's hair, \"I am sure I have never crossed you,\nGwendolen.\"\n\n\"You often want me to do what I don't like.\"\n\n\"You mean, to give Alice lessons?\"\n\n\"Yes. And I have done it because you asked me. But I don't see why I\nshould, else. It bores me to death, she is so slow. She has no ear for\nmusic, or language, or anything else. It would be much better for her\nto be ignorant, mamma: it is her _rôle_, she would do it well.\"\n\n\"That is a hard thing to say of your poor sister, Gwendolen, who is so\ngood to you, and waits on you hand and foot.\"\n\n\"I don't see why it is hard to call things by their right names, and\nput them in their proper places. The hardship is for me to have to\nwaste my time on her. Now let me fasten up your hair, mamma.\"\n\n\"We must make haste; your uncle and aunt will be here soon. For\nheaven's sake, don't be scornful to _them_, my dear child! or to your\ncousin Anna, whom you will always be going out with. Do promise me,\nGwendolen. You know, you can't expect Anna to be equal to you.\"\n\n\"I don't want her to be equal,\" said Gwendolen, with a toss of her head\nand a smile, and the discussion ended there.\n\nWhen Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne and their daughter came, Gwendolen, far\nfrom being scornful, behaved as prettily as possible to them. She was\nintroducing herself anew to relatives who had not seen her since the\ncomparatively unfinished age of sixteen, and she was anxious--no, not\nanxious, but resolved that they should admire her.\n\nMrs. Gascoigne bore a family likeness to her sister. But she was darker\nand slighter, her face was unworn by grief, her movements were less\nlanguid, her expression more alert and critical as that of a rector's\nwife bound to exert a beneficent authority. Their closest resemblance\nlay in a non-resistant disposition, inclined to imitation and\nobedience; but this, owing to the difference in their circumstances,\nhad led them to very different issues. The younger sister had been\nindiscreet, or at least unfortunate in her marriages; the elder\nbelieved herself the most enviable of wives, and her pliancy had ended\nin her sometimes taking shapes of surprising definiteness. Many of her\nopinions, such as those on church government and the character of\nArchbishop Laud, seemed too decided under every alteration to have been\narrived at otherwise than by a wifely receptiveness. And there was much\nto encourage trust in her husband's authority. He had some agreeable\nvirtues, some striking advantages, and the failings that were imputed\nto him all leaned toward the side of success.\n\nOne of his advantages was a fine person, which perhaps was even more\nimpressive at fifty-seven than it had been earlier in life. There were\nno distinctively clerical lines in the face, no tricks of starchiness\nor of affected ease: in his Inverness cape he could not have been\nidentified except as a gentleman with handsome dark features, a nose\nwhich began with an intention to be aquiline but suddenly became\nstraight, and iron-gray, hair. Perhaps he owed this freedom from the\nsort of professional make-up which penetrates skin, tones and gestures\nand defies all drapery, to the fact that he had once been Captain\nGaskin, having taken orders and a diphthong but shortly before his\nengagement to Miss Armyn. If any one had objected that his preparation\nfor the clerical function was inadequate, his friends might have asked\nwho made a better figure in it, who preached better or had more\nauthority in his parish? He had a native gift for administration, being\ntolerant both of opinions and conduct, because he felt himself able to\noverrule them, and was free from the irritations of conscious\nfeebleness. He smiled pleasantly at the foible of a taste which he did\nnot share--at floriculture or antiquarianism for example, which were\nmuch in vogue among his fellow-clergyman in the diocese: for himself,\nhe preferred following the history of a campaign, or divining from his\nknowledge of Nesselrode's motives what would have been his conduct if\nour cabinet had taken a different course. Mr. Gascoigne's tone of\nthinking after some long-quieted fluctuations had become ecclesiastical\nrather than theological; not the modern Anglican, but what he would\nhave called sound English, free from nonsense; such as became a man who\nlooked at a national religion by daylight, and saw it in its relation\nto other things. No clerical magistrate had greater weight at sessions,\nor less of mischievous impracticableness in relation to worldly\naffairs. Indeed, the worst imputation thrown out against him was\nworldliness: it could not be proved that he forsook the less fortunate,\nbut it was not to be denied that the friendships he cultivated were of\na kind likely to be useful to the father of six sons and two daughters;\nand bitter observers--for in Wessex, say ten years ago, there were\npersons whose bitterness may now seem incredible--remarked that the\ncolor of his opinions had changed in consistency with this principle of\naction. But cheerful, successful worldliness has a false air of being\nmore selfish than the acrid, unsuccessful kind, whose secret history is\nsummed up in the terrible words, \"Sold, but not paid for.\"\n\nGwendolen wondered that she had not better remembered how very fine a\nman her uncle was; but at the age of sixteen she was a less capable and\nmore indifferent judge. At present it was a matter of extreme interest\nto her that she was to have the near countenance of a dignified male\nrelative, and that the family life would cease to be entirely,\ninsipidly feminine. She did not intend that her uncle should control\nher, but she saw at once that it would be altogether agreeable to her\nthat he should be proud of introducing her as his niece. And there was\nevery sign of his being likely to feel that pride. He certainly looked\nat her with admiration as he said--\n\n\"You have outgrown Anna, my dear,\" putting his arm tenderly round his\ndaughter, whose shy face was a tiny copy of his own, and drawing her\nforward. \"She is not so old as you by a year, but her growing days are\ncertainly over. I hope you will be excellent companions.\"\n\nHe did give a comparing glance at his daughter, but if he saw her\ninferiority, he might also see that Anna's timid appearance and\nminiature figure must appeal to a different taste from that which was\nattracted by Gwendolen, and that the girls could hardly be rivals.\nGwendolen at least, was aware of this, and kissed her cousin with real\ncordiality as well as grace, saying, \"A companion is just what I want.\nI am so glad we are come to live here. And mamma will be much happier\nnow she is near you, aunt.\"\n\nThe aunt trusted indeed that it would be so, and felt it a blessing\nthat a suitable home had been vacant in their uncle's parish. Then, of\ncourse, notice had to be taken of the four other girls, whom Gwendolen\nhad always felt to be superfluous: all of a girlish average that made\nfour units utterly unimportant, and yet from her earliest days an\nobtrusive influential fact in her life. She was conscious of having\nbeen much kinder to them than could have been expected. And it was\nevident to her that her uncle and aunt also felt it a pity there were\nso many girls:--what rational person could feel otherwise, except poor\nmamma, who never would see how Alice set up her shoulders and lifted\nher eyebrows till she had no forehead left, how Bertha and Fanny\nwhispered and tittered together about everything, or how Isabel was\nalways listening and staring and forgetting where she was, and treading\non the toes of her suffering elders?\n\n\"You have brothers, Anna,\" said Gwendolen, while the sisters were being\nnoticed. \"I think you are enviable there.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Anna, simply. \"I am very fond of them; but of course their\neducation is a great anxiety to papa. He used to say they made me a\ntomboy. I really was a great romp with Rex. I think you will like Rex.\nHe will come home before Christmas.\"\n\n\"I remember I used to think you rather wild and shy; but it is\ndifficult now to imagine you a romp,\" said Gwendolen, smiling.\n\n\"Of course, I am altered now; I am come out, and all that. But in\nreality I like to go blackberrying with Edwy and Lotta as well as ever.\nI am not very fond of going out; but I dare say I shall like it better\nnow you will be often with me. I am not at all clever, and I never know\nwhat to say. It seems so useless to say what everybody knows, and I can\nthink of nothing else, except what papa says.\"\n\n\"I shall like going out with you very much,\" said Gwendolen, well\ndisposed toward this _naïve_ cousin. \"Are you fond of riding?\"\n\n\"Yes, but we have only one Shetland pony amongst us. Papa says he can't\nafford more, besides the carriage-horses and his own nag; he has so\nmany expenses.\"\n\n\"I intend to have a horse and ride a great deal now,\" said Gwendolen,\nin a tone of decision. \"Is the society pleasant in this neighborhood?\"\n\n\"Papa says it is, very. There are the clergymen all about, you know;\nand the Quallons, and the Arrowpoints, and Lord Brackenshaw, and Sir\nHugo Mallinger's place, where there is nobody--that's very nice,\nbecause we make picnics there--and two or three families at Wanchester:\noh, and old Mrs. Vulcany, at Nuttingwood, and--\"\n\nBut Anna was relieved of this tax on her descriptive powers by the\nannouncement of dinner, and Gwendolen's question was soon indirectly\nanswered by her uncle, who dwelt much on the advantages he had secured\nfor them in getting a place like Offendene. Except the rent, it\ninvolved no more expense than an ordinary house at Wanchester would\nhave done.\n\n\"And it is always worth while to make a little sacrifice for a good\nstyle of house,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, in his easy, pleasantly confident\ntone, which made the world in general seem a very manageable place of\nresidence: \"especially where there is only a lady at the head. All the\nbest people will call upon you; and you need give no expensive dinners.\nOf course, I have to spend a good deal in that way; it is a large item.\nBut then I get my house for nothing. If I had to pay three hundred a\nyear for my house I could not keep a table. My boys are too great a\ndrain on me. You are better off than we are, in proportion; there is no\ngreat drain on you now, after your house and carriage.\"\n\n\"I assure you, Fanny, now that the children are growing up, I am\nobliged to cut and contrive,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne. \"I am not a good\nmanager by nature, but Henry has taught me. He is wonderful for making\nthe best of everything; he allows himself no extras, and gets his\ncurates for nothing. It is rather hard that he has not been made a\nprebendary or something, as others have been, considering the friends\nhe has made and the need there is for men of moderate opinions in all\nrespects. If the Church is to keep its position, ability and character\nought to tell.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear Nancy, you forget the old story--thank Heaven, there are\nthree hundred as good as I. And ultimately, we shall have no reason to\ncomplain, I am pretty sure. There could hardly be a more thorough\nfriend than Lord Brackenshaw--your landlord, you know, Fanny. Lady\nBrackenshaw will call upon you. And I have spoken for Gwendolen to be a\nmember of our Archery Club--the Brackenshaw Archery Club--the most\nselect thing anywhere. That is, if she has no objection,\" added Mr.\nGascoigne, looking at Gwendolen with pleasant irony.\n\n\"I should like it of all things,\" said Gwendolen. \"There is nothing I\nenjoy more than taking aim--and hitting,\" she ended, with a pretty nod\nand smile.\n\n\"Our Anna, poor child, is too short-sighed for archery. But I consider\nmyself a first-rate shot, and you shall practice with me. I must make\nyou an accomplished archer before our great meeting in July. In fact,\nas to neighborhood, you could hardly be better placed. There are the\nArrowpoints--they are some of our best people. Miss Arrowpoint is a\ndelightful girl--she has been presented at Court. They have a\nmagnificent place--Quetcham Hall--worth seeing in point of art; and\ntheir parties, to which you are sure to be invited, are the best things\nof the sort we have. The archdeacon is intimate there, and they have\nalways a good kind of people staying in the house. Mrs. Arrowpoint is\npeculiar, certainly; something of a caricature, in fact; but\nwell-meaning. And Miss Arrowpoint is as nice as possible. It is not all\nyoung ladies who have mothers as handsome and graceful as yours and\nAnna's.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow smiled faintly at this little compliment, but the husband\nand wife looked affectionately at each other, and Gwendolen thought,\n\"My uncle and aunt, at least, are happy: they are not dull and dismal.\"\nAltogether, she felt satisfied with her prospects at Offendene, as a\ngreat improvement on anything she had known. Even the cheap curates,\nshe incidentally learned, were almost always young men of family, and\nMr. Middleton, the actual curate, was said to be quite an acquisition:\nit was only a pity he was so soon to leave.\n\nBut there was one point which she was so anxious to gain that she could\nnot allow the evening to pass without taking her measures toward\nsecuring it. Her mamma, she knew, intended to submit entirely to her\nuncle's judgment with regard to expenditure; and the submission was not\nmerely prudential, for Mrs. Davilow, conscious that she had always been\nseen under a cloud as poor dear Fanny, who had made a sad blunder with\nher second marriage, felt a hearty satisfaction in being frankly and\ncordially identified with her sister's family, and in having her\naffairs canvassed and managed with an authority which presupposed a\ngenuine interest. Thus the question of a suitable saddle-horse, which\nhad been sufficiently discussed with mamma, had to be referred to Mr.\nGascoigne; and after Gwendolen had played on the piano, which had been\nprovided from Wanchester, had sung to her hearers' admiration, and had\ninduced her uncle to join her in a duet--what more softening influence\nthan this on any uncle who would have sung finely if his time had not\nbeen too much taken up by graver matters?--she seized the opportune\nmoment for saying, \"Mamma, you have not spoken to my uncle about my\nriding.\"\n\n\"Gwendolen desires above all things to have a horse to ride--a pretty,\nlight, lady's horse,\" said Mrs. Davilow, looking at Mr. Gascoigne. \"Do\nyou think we can manage it?\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne projected his lower lip and lifted his handsome eyebrows\nsarcastically at Gwendolen, who had seated herself with much grace on\nthe elbow of her mamma's chair.\n\n\"We could lend her the pony sometimes,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, watching\nher husband's face, and feeling quite ready to disapprove if he did.\n\n\"That might be inconveniencing others, aunt, and would be no pleasure\nto me. I cannot endure ponies,\" said Gwendolen. \"I would rather give up\nsome other indulgence and have a horse.\" (Was there ever a young lady\nor gentleman not ready to give up an unspecified indulgence for the\nsake of the favorite one specified?)\n\n\"She rides so well. She has had lessons, and the riding-master said she\nhad so good a seat and hand she might be trusted with any mount,\" said\nMrs. Davilow, who, even if she had not wished her darling to have the\nhorse, would not have dared to be lukewarm in trying to get it for her.\n\n\"There is the price of the horse--a good sixty with the best chance,\nand then his keep,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, in a tone which, though\ndemurring, betrayed the inward presence of something that favored the\ndemand. \"There are the carriage-horses--already a heavy item. And\nremember what you ladies cost in toilet now.\"\n\n\"I really wear nothing but two black dresses,\" said Mrs. Davilow,\nhastily. \"And the younger girls, of course, require no toilet at\npresent. Besides, Gwendolen will save me so much by giving her sisters\nlessons.\" Here Mrs. Davilow's delicate cheek showed a rapid blush. \"If\nit were not for that, I must really have a more expensive governess,\nand masters besides.\"\n\nGwendolen felt some anger with her mamma, but carefully concealed it.\n\n\"That is good--that is decidedly good,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, heartily,\nlooking at his wife. And Gwendolen, who, it must be owned, was a deep\nyoung lady, suddenly moved away to the other end of the long\ndrawing-room, and busied herself with arranging pieces of music.\n\n\"The dear child has had no indulgences, no pleasures,\" said Mrs.\nDavilow, in a pleading undertone. \"I feel the expense is rather\nimprudent in this first year of our settling. But she really needs the\nexercise--she needs cheering. And if you were to see her on horseback,\nit is something splendid.\"\n\n\"It is what we could not afford for Anna,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne. \"But\nshe, dear child, would ride Lotta's donkey and think it good enough.\"\n(Anna was absorbed in a game with Isabel, who had hunted out an old\nback-gammon-board, and had begged to sit up an extra hour.)\n\n\"Certainly, a fine woman never looks better than on horseback,\" said\nMr. Gascoigne. \"And Gwendolen has the figure for it. I don't say the\nthing should not be considered.\"\n\n\"We might try it for a time, at all events. It can be given up, if\nnecessary,\" said Mrs. Davilow.\n\n\"Well, I will consult Lord Brackenshaw's head groom. He is my _fidus\nAchates_ in the horsey way.\"\n\n\"Thanks,\" said Mrs. Davilow, much relieved. \"You are very kind.\"\n\n\"That he always is,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne. And later that night, when\nshe and her husband were in private, she said--\n\n\"I thought you were almost too indulgent about the horse for Gwendolen.\nShe ought not to claim so much more than your own daughter would think\nof. Especially before we see how Fanny manages on her income. And you\nreally have enough to do without taking all this trouble on yourself.\"\n\n\"My dear Nancy, one must look at things from every point of view. This\ngirl is really worth some expense: you don't often see her equal. She\nought to make a first-rate marriage, and I should not be doing my duty\nif I spared my trouble in helping her forward. You know yourself she\nhas been under a disadvantage with such a father-in-law, and a second\nfamily, keeping her always in the shade. I feel for the girl, And I\nshould like your sister and her family now to have the benefit of your\nhaving married rather a better specimen of our kind than she did.\"\n\n\"Rather better! I should think so. However, it is for me to be grateful\nthat you will take so much on your shoulders for the sake of my sister\nand her children. I am sure I would not grudge anything to poor Fanny.\nBut there is one thing I have been thinking of, though you have never\nmentioned it.\"\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"The boys. I hope they will not be falling in love with Gwendolen.\"\n\n\"Don't presuppose anything of the kind, my dear, and there will be no\ndanger. Rex will never be at home for long together, and Warham is\ngoing to India. It is the wiser plan to take it for granted that\ncousins will not fall in love. If you begin with precautions, the\naffair will come in spite of them. One must not undertake to act for\nProvidence in these matters, which can no more be held under the hand\nthan a brood of chickens. The boys will have nothing, and Gwendolen\nwill have nothing. They can't marry. At the worst there would only be a\nlittle crying, and you can't save boys and girls from that.\"\n\nMrs. Gascoigne's mind was satisfied: if anything did happen, there was\nthe comfort of feeling that her husband would know what was to be done,\nand would have the energy to do it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV.\n\n    \"_Gorgibus._-- * * * Je te dis que le mariage est une chose sainte\n    et sacrée: et que c'est faire en honnêtes gens, que de débuter par là.\n\n    \"_Madelon._--Mon Dieu! que si tout le monde vous ressemblait, un\n    roman serait bientôt fini! La belle chose que ce serait, si d'abord\n    Cyrus épousait Mandane, et qu'Aronce de plain-pied fût marié à Clélie!\n    * * * Laissez-nous faire à loisir le tissu de notre roman, et n'en\n    pressez pas tant la conclusion.\"\n                               MOLIÈRE. _Les Précieuses Ridicules._\n\n\nIt would be a little hard to blame the rector of Pennicote that in the\ncourse of looking at things from every point of view, he looked at\nGwendolen as a girl likely to make a brilliant marriage. Why should he\nbe expected to differ from his contemporaries in this matter, and wish\nhis niece a worse end of her charming maidenhood than they would\napprove as the best possible? It is rather to be set down to his credit\nthat his feelings on the subject were entirely good-natured. And in\nconsidering the relation of means to ends, it would have been mere\nfolly to have been guided by the exceptional and idyllic--to have\nrecommended that Gwendolen should wear a gown as shabby as Griselda's\nin order that a marquis might fall in love with her, or to have\ninsisted that since a fair maiden was to be sought, she should keep\nherself out of the way. Mr. Gascoigne's calculations were of the kind\ncalled rational, and he did not even think of getting a too frisky\nhorse in order that Gwendolen might be threatened with an accident and\nbe rescued by a man of property. He wished his niece well, and he meant\nher to be seen to advantage in the best society of the neighborhood.\n\nHer uncle's intention fell in perfectly with Gwendolen's own wishes.\nBut let no one suppose that she also contemplated a brilliant marriage\nas the direct end of her witching the world with her grace on\nhorseback, or with any other accomplishment. That she was to be married\nsome time or other she would have felt obliged to admit; and that her\nmarriage would not be of a middling kind, such as most girls were\ncontented with, she felt quietly, unargumentatively sure. But her\nthoughts never dwelt on marriage as the fulfillment of her ambition;\nthe dramas in which she imagined herself a heroine were not wrought up\nto that close. To be very much sued or hopelessly sighed for as a bride\nwas indeed an indispensable and agreeable guarantee of womanly power;\nbut to become a wife and wear all the domestic fetters of that\ncondition, was on the whole a vexatious necessity. Her observation of\nmatrimony had inclined her to think it rather a dreary state in which a\nwoman could not do what she liked, had more children than were\ndesirable, was consequently dull, and became irrevocably immersed in\nhumdrum. Of course marriage was social promotion; she could not look\nforward to a single life; but promotions have sometimes to be taken\nwith bitter herbs--a peerage will not quite do instead of leadership to\nthe man who meant to lead; and this delicate-limbed sylph of twenty\nmeant to lead. For such passions dwell in feminine breasts also. In\nGwendolen's, however, they dwelt among strictly feminine furniture, and\nhad no disturbing reference to the advancement of learning or the\nbalance of the constitution; her knowledge being such as with no sort\nof standing-room or length of lever could have been expected to move\nthe world. She meant to do what was pleasant to herself in a striking\nmanner; or rather, whatever she could do so as to strike others with\nadmiration and get in that reflected way a more ardent sense of living,\nseemed pleasant to her fancy.\n\n\"Gwendolen will not rest without having the world at her feet,\" said\nMiss Merry, the meek governess: hyperbolical words which have long come\nto carry the most moderate meanings; for who has not heard of private\npersons having the world at their feet in the shape of some half-dozen\nitems of flattering regard generally known in a genteel suburb? And\nwords could hardly be too wide or vague to indicate the prospect that\nmade a hazy largeness about poor Gwendolen on the heights of her young\nself-exultation. Other people allowed themselves to be made slaves of,\nand to have their lives blown hither and thither like empty ships in\nwhich no will was present. It was not to be so with her; she would no\nlonger be sacrificed to creatures worth less than herself, but would\nmake the very best of the chances that life offered her, and conquer\ncircumstances by her exceptional cleverness. Certainly, to be settled\nat Offendene, with the notice of Lady Brackenshaw, the archery club,\nand invitations to dine with the Arrowpoints, as the highest lights in\nher scenery, was not a position that seemed to offer remarkable\nchances; but Gwendolen's confidence lay chiefly in herself. She felt\nwell equipped for the mastery of life. With regard to much in her lot\nhitherto, she held herself rather hardly dealt with, but as to her\n\"education,\" she would have admitted that it had left her under no\ndisadvantages. In the school-room her quick mind had taken readily that\nstrong starch of unexplained rules and disconnected facts which saves\nignorance from any painful sense of limpness; and what remained of all\nthings knowable, she was conscious of being sufficiently acquainted\nwith through novels, plays and poems. About her French and music, the\ntwo justifying accomplishments of a young lady, she felt no ground for\nuneasiness; and when to all these qualifications, negative and\npositive, we add the spontaneous sense of capability some happy persons\nare born with, so that any subject they turn their attention to\nimpresses them with their own power of forming a correct judgment on\nit, who can wonder if Gwendolen felt ready to manage her own destiny?\n\nThere were many subjects in the world--perhaps the majority--in which\nshe felt no interest, because they were stupid; for subjects are apt to\nappear stupid to the young as light seems dull to the old; but she\nwould not have felt at all helpless in relation to them if they had\nturned up in conversation. It must be remembered that no one had\ndisputed her power or her general superiority. As on the arrival at\nOffendene, so always, the first thought of those about her had been,\nwhat will Gwendolen think?--if the footman trod heavily in creaking\nboots, or if the laundress's work was unsatisfactory, the maid said,\n\"This will never do for Miss Harleth\"; if the wood smoked in the\nbedroom fireplace, Mrs. Davilow, whose own weak eyes suffered much from\nthis inconvenience, spoke apologetically of it to Gwendolen. If, when\nthey were under the stress of traveling, she did not appear at the\nbreakfast table till every one else had finished, the only question\nwas, how Gwendolen's coffee and toast should still be of the hottest\nand crispest; and when she appeared with her freshly-brushed\nlight-brown hair streaming backward and awaiting her mamma's hand to\ncoil it up, her large brown eyes glancing bright as a wave-washed onyx\nfrom under their long lashes, it was always she herself who had to be\ntolerant--to beg that Alice who sat waiting on her would not stick up\nher shoulders in that frightful manner, and that Isabel, instead of\npushing up to her and asking questions, would go away to Miss Merry.\n\nAlways she was the princess in exile, who in time of famine was to have\nher breakfast-roll made of the finest-bolted flour from the seven thin\nears of wheat, and in a general decampment was to have her silver fork\nkept out of the baggage. How was this to be accounted for? The answer\nmay seem to lie quite on the surface:--in her beauty, a certain\nunusualness about her, a decision of will which made itself felt in her\ngraceful movements and clear unhesitating tones, so that if she came\ninto the room on a rainy day when everybody else was flaccid and the\nuse of things in general was not apparent to them, there seemed to be a\nsudden, sufficient reason for keeping up the forms of life; and even\nthe waiters at hotels showed the more alacrity in doing away with\ncrumbs and creases and dregs with struggling flies in them. This potent\ncharm, added to the fact that she was the eldest daughter, toward whom\nher mamma had always been in an apologetic state of mind for the evils\nbrought on her by a step-father, may seem so full a reason for\nGwendolen's domestic empire, that to look for any other would be to ask\nthe reason of daylight when the sun is shining. But beware of arriving\nat conclusions without comparison. I remember having seen the same\nassiduous, apologetic attention awarded to persons who were not at all\nbeautiful or unusual, whose firmness showed itself in no very graceful\nor euphonious way, and who were not eldest daughters with a tender,\ntimid mother, compunctious at having subjected them to inconveniences.\nSome of them were a very common sort of men. And the only point of\nresemblance among them all was a strong determination to have what was\npleasant, with a total fearlessness in making themselves disagreeable\nor dangerous when they did not get it. Who is so much cajoled and\nserved with trembling by the weak females of a household as the\nunscrupulous male--capable, if he has not free way at home, of going\nand doing worse elsewhere? Hence I am forced to doubt whether even\nwithout her potent charm and peculiar filial position Gwendolen might\nnot still have played the queen in exile, if only she had kept her\ninborn energy of egoistic desire, and her power of inspiring fear as to\nwhat she might say or do. However, she had the charm, and those who\nfeared her were also fond of her; the fear and the fondness being\nperhaps both heightened by what may be called the iridescence of her\ncharacter--the play of various, nay, contrary tendencies. For Macbeth's\nrhetoric about the impossibility of being many opposite things in the\nsame moment, referred to the clumsy necessities of action and not to\nthe subtler possibilities of feeling. We cannot speak a loyal word and\nbe meanly silent; we cannot kill and not kill in the same moment; but a\nmoment is wide enough for the loyal and mean desire, for the outlash of\na murderous thought and the sharp backward stroke of repentance.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V.\n\n                              \"Her wit\n  Values itself so highly, that to her\n  All matter else seems weak.\"\n           --_Much Ado About Nothing._\n\n\nGwendolen's reception in the neighborhood fulfilled her uncle's\nexpectations. From Brackenshaw Castle to the Firs at Wanchester, where\nMr. Quallon the banker kept a generous house, she was welcomed with\nmanifest admiration, and even those ladies who did not quite like her,\nfelt a comfort in having a new, striking girl to invite; for hostesses\nwho entertain much must make up their parties as ministers make up\ntheir cabinets, on grounds other than personal liking. Then, in order\nto have Gwendolen as a guest, it was not necessary to ask any one who\nwas disagreeable, for Mrs. Davilow always made a quiet, picturesque\nfigure as a chaperon, and Mr. Gascoigne was everywhere in request for\nhis own sake.\n\nAmong the houses where Gwendolen was not quite liked, and yet invited,\nwas Quetcham Hall. One of her first invitations was to a large\ndinner-party there, which made a sort of general introduction for her\nto the society of the neighborhood; for in a select party of thirty and\nof well-composed proportions as to age, few visitable families could be\nentirely left out. No youthful figure there was comparable to\nGwendolen's as she passed through the long suite of rooms adorned with\nlight and flowers, and, visible at first as a slim figure floating\nalong in white drapery, approached through one wide doorway after\nanother into fuller illumination and definiteness. She had never had\nthat sort of promenade before, and she felt exultingly that it befitted\nher: any one looking at her for the first time might have supposed that\nlong galleries and lackeys had always been a matter of course in her\nlife; while her cousin Anna, who was really more familiar with these\nthings, felt almost as much embarrassed as a rabbit suddenly deposited\nin that well-lit-space.\n\n\"Who is that with Gascoigne?\" said the archdeacon, neglecting a\ndiscussion of military manoeuvres on which, as a clergyman, he was\nnaturally appealed to. And his son, on the other side of the room--a\nhopeful young scholar, who had already suggested some \"not less elegant\nthan ingenious,\" emendations of Greek texts--said nearly at the same\ntime, \"By George! who is that girl with the awfully well-set head and\njolly figure?\"\n\nBut to a mind of general benevolence, wishing everybody to look well,\nit was rather exasperating to see how Gwendolen eclipsed others: how\neven the handsome Miss Lawe, explained to be the daughter of Lady Lawe,\nlooked suddenly broad, heavy and inanimate; and how Miss Arrowpoint,\nunfortunately also dressed in white, immediately resembled a\n_carte-de-visite_ in which one would fancy the skirt alone to have been\ncharged for. Since Miss Arrowpoint was generally liked for the amiable\nunpretending way in which she wore her fortunes, and made a softening\nscreen for the oddities of her mother, there seemed to be some\nunfitness in Gwendolen's looking so much more like a person of social\nimportance.\n\n\"She is not really so handsome if you come to examine her features,\"\nsaid Mrs. Arrowpoint, later in the evening, confidentially to Mrs.\nVulcany. \"It is a certain style she has, which produces a great effect\nat first, but afterward she is less agreeable.\"\n\nIn fact, Gwendolen, not intending it, but intending the contrary, had\noffended her hostess, who, though not a splenetic or vindictive woman,\nhad her susceptibilities. Several conditions had met in the Lady of\nQuetcham which to the reasoners in that neighborhood seemed to have an\nessential connection with each other. It was occasionally recalled that\nshe had been the heiress of a fortune gained by some moist or dry\nbusiness in the city, in order fully to account for her having a squat\nfigure, a harsh parrot-like voice, and a systematically high\nhead-dress; and since these points made her externally rather\nridiculous, it appeared to many only natural that she should have what\nare called literary tendencies. A little comparison would have shown\nthat all these points are to be found apart; daughters of aldermen\nbeing often well-grown and well-featured, pretty women having sometimes\nharsh or husky voices, and the production of feeble literature being\nfound compatible with the most diverse forms of _physique_, masculine\nas well as feminine.\n\nGwendolen, who had a keen sense of absurdity in others, but was kindly\ndisposed toward any one who could make life agreeable to her, meant to\nwin Mrs. Arrowpoint by giving her an interest and attention beyond what\nothers were probably inclined to show. But self-confidence is apt to\naddress itself to an imaginary dullness in others; as people who are\nwell off speak in a cajoling tone to the poor, and those who are in the\nprime of life raise their voice and talk artificially to seniors,\nhastily conceiving them to be deaf and rather imbecile. Gwendolen, with\nall her cleverness and purpose to be agreeable, could not escape that\nform of stupidity: it followed in her mind, unreflectingly, that\nbecause Mrs. Arrowpoint was ridiculous she was also likely to be\nwanting in penetration, and she went through her little scenes without\nsuspicion that the various shades of her behavior were all noted.\n\n\"You are fond of books as well as of music, riding, and archery, I\nhear,\" Mrs. Arrowpoint said, going to her for a _tete-à-tete_ in the\ndrawing-room after dinner. \"Catherine will be very glad to have so\nsympathetic a neighbor.\" This little speech might have seemed the most\ngraceful politeness, spoken in a low, melodious tone; but with a twang,\nfatally loud, it gave Gwendolen a sense of exercising patronage when\nshe answered, gracefully:\n\n\"It is I who am fortunate. Miss Arrowpoint will teach me what good\nmusic is. I shall be entirely a learner. I hear that she is a thorough\nmusician.\"\n\n\"Catherine has certainly had every advantage. We have a first-rate\nmusician in the house now--Herr Klesmer; perhaps you know all his\ncompositions. You must allow me to introduce him to you. You sing, I\nbelieve. Catherine plays three instruments, but she does not sing. I\nhope you will let us hear you. I understand you are an accomplished\nsinger.\"\n\n\"Oh, no!--'die Kraft ist schwach, allein die Lust ist gross,' as\nMephistopheles says.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are a student of Goethe. Young ladies are so advanced now. I\nsuppose you have read everything.\"\n\n\"No, really. I shall be so glad if you will tell me what to read. I\nhave been looking into all the books in the library at Offendene, but\nthere is nothing readable. The leaves all stick together and smell\nmusty. I wish I could write books to amuse myself, as you can! How\ndelightful it must be to write books after one's own taste instead of\nreading other people's! Home-made books must be so nice.\"\n\nFor an instant Mrs. Arrowpoint's glance was a little sharper, but the\nperilous resemblance to satire in the last sentence took the hue of\ngirlish simplicity when Gwendolen added--\n\n\"I would give anything to write a book!\"\n\n\"And why should you not?\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, encouragingly. \"You\nhave but to begin as I did. Pen, ink, and paper are at everybody's\ncommand. But I will send you all I have written with pleasure.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I shall be so glad to read your writings. Being acquainted\nwith authors must give a peculiar understanding of their books: one\nwould be able to tell then which parts were funny and which serious. I\nam sure I often laugh in the wrong place.\" Here Gwendolen herself\nbecame aware of danger, and added quickly, \"In Shakespeare, you know,\nand other great writers that we can never see. But I always want to\nknow more than there is in the books.\"\n\n\"If you are interested in any of my subjects I can lend you many extra\nsheets in manuscript,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint--while Gwendolen felt\nherself painfully in the position of the young lady who professed to\nlike potted sprats.\n\n\"These are things I dare say I shall publish eventually: several\nfriends have urged me to do so, and one doesn't like to be obstinate.\nMy Tasso, for example--I could have made it twice the size.\"\n\n\"I dote on Tasso,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Well, you shall have all my papers, if you like. So many, you know,\nhave written about Tasso; but they are all wrong. As to the particular\nnature of his madness, and his feelings for Leonora, and the real cause\nof his imprisonment, and the character of Leonora, who, in my opinion,\nwas a cold-hearted woman, else she would have married him in spite of\nher brother--they are all wrong. I differ from everybody.\"\n\n\"How very interesting!\" said Gwendolen. \"I like to differ from\neverybody. I think it is so stupid to agree. That is the worst of\nwriting your opinions; and make people agree with you.\" This speech\nrenewed a slight suspicion in Mrs. Arrowpoint, and again her glance\nbecame for a moment examining. But Gwendolen looked very innocent, and\ncontinued with a docile air:\n\n\"I know nothing of Tasso except the _Gerusalemme Liberata_, which we\nread and learned by heart at school.\"\n\n\"Ah, his life is more interesting than his poetry, I have constructed\nthe early part of his life as a sort of romance. When one thinks of his\nfather Bernardo, and so on, there is much that must be true.\"\n\n\"Imagination is often truer than fact,\" said Gwendolen, decisively,\nthough she could no more have explained these glib words than if they\nhad been Coptic or Etruscan. \"I shall be so glad to learn all about\nTasso--and his madness especially. I suppose poets are always a little\nmad.\"\n\n\"To be sure--'the poet's eye in a fine frenzy rolling'; and somebody\nsays of Marlowe--\n\n  'For that fine madness still he did maintain,\n  Which always should possess the poet's brain.'\"\n\n\"But it was not always found out, was it?\" said Gwendolen innocently.\n\"I suppose some of them rolled their eyes in private. Mad people are\noften very cunning.\"\n\nAgain a shade flitted over Mrs. Arrowpoint's face; but the entrance of\nthe gentlemen prevented any immediate mischief between her and this too\nquick young lady, who had over-acted her _naïveté_.\n\n\"Ah, here comes Herr Klesmer,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, rising; and\npresently bringing him to Gwendolen, she left them to a dialogue which\nwas agreeable on both sides, Herr Klesmer being a felicitous\ncombination of the German, the Sclave and the Semite, with grand\nfeatures, brown hair floating in artistic fashion, and brown eyes in\nspectacles. His English had little foreignness except its fluency; and\nhis alarming cleverness was made less formidable just then by a certain\nsoftening air of silliness which will sometimes befall even genius in\nthe desire of being agreeable to beauty.\n\nMusic was soon begun. Miss Arrowpoint and Herr Klesmer played a\nfour-handed piece on two pianos, which convinced the company in general\nthat it was long, and Gwendolen in particular that the neutral,\nplacid-faced Miss Arrowpoint had a mastery of the instrument which put\nher own execution out of question--though she was not discouraged as to\nher often-praised touch and style. After this every one became anxious\nto hear Gwendolen sing; especially Mr. Arrowpoint; as was natural in a\nhost and a perfect gentleman, of whom no one had anything to say but\nthat he married Miss Cuttler and imported the best cigars; and he led\nher to the piano with easy politeness. Herr Klesmer closed the\ninstrument in readiness for her, and smiled with pleasure at her\napproach; then placed himself at a distance of a few feet so that he\ncould see her as she sang.\n\nGwendolen was not nervous; what she undertook to do she did without\ntrembling, and singing was an enjoyment to her. Her voice was a\nmoderately powerful soprano (some one had told her it was like Jenny\nLind's), her ear good, and she was able to keep in tune, so that her\nsinging gave pleasure to ordinary hearers, and she had been used to\nunmingled applause. She had the rare advantage of looking almost\nprettier when she was singing than at other times, and that Herr\nKlesmer was in front of her seemed not disagreeable. Her song,\ndetermined on beforehand, was a favorite aria of Belini's, in which she\nfelt quite sure of herself.\n\n\"Charming?\" said Mr. Arrowpoint, who had remained near, and the word\nwas echoed around without more insincerity than we recognize in a\nbrotherly way as human. But Herr Klesmer stood like a statue--if a\nstatue can be imagined in spectacles; at least, he was as mute as a\nstatue. Gwendolen was pressed to keep her seat and double the general\npleasure, and she did not wish to refuse; but before resolving to do\nso, she moved a little toward Herr Klesmer, saying with a look of\nsmiling appeal, \"It would be too cruel to a great musician. You cannot\nlike to hear poor amateur singing.\"\n\n\"No, truly; but that makes nothing,\" said Herr Klesmer, suddenly\nspeaking in an odious German fashion with staccato endings, quite\nunobservable in him before, and apparently depending on a change of\nmood, as Irishmen resume their strongest brogue when they are fervid or\nquarrelsome. \"That makes nothing. It is always acceptable to see you\nsing.\"\n\nWas there ever so unexpected an assertion of superiority? at least\nbefore the late Teutonic conquest? Gwendolen colored deeply, but, with\nher usual presence of mind, did not show an ungraceful resentment by\nmoving away immediately; and Miss Arrowpoint, who had been near enough\nto overhear (and also to observe that Herr Klesmer's mode of looking at\nGwendolen was more conspicuously admiring than was quite consistent\nwith good taste), now with the utmost tact and kindness came close to\nher and said--\n\n\"Imagine what I have to go through with this professor! He can hardly\ntolerate anything we English do in music. We can only put up with his\nseverity, and make use of it to find out the worst that can be said of\nus. It is a little comfort to know that; and one can bear it when every\none else is admiring.\"\n\n\"I should be very much obliged to him for telling me the worst,\" said\nGwendolen, recovering herself. \"I dare say I have been extremely ill\ntaught, in addition to having no talent--only liking for music.\" This\nwas very well expressed considering that it had never entered her mind\nbefore.\n\n\"Yes, it is true: you have not been well taught,\" said Herr Klesmer,\nquietly. Woman was dear to him, but music was dearer. \"Still, you are\nnot quite without gifts. You sing in tune, and you have a pretty fair\norgan. But you produce your notes badly; and that music which you sing\nis beneath you. It is a form of melody which expresses a puerile state\nof culture--a dawdling, canting, see-saw kind of stuff--the passion and\nthought of people without any breadth of horizon. There is a sort of\nself-satisfied folly about every phrase of such melody; no cries of\ndeep, mysterious passion--no conflict--no sense of the universal. It\nmakes men small as they listen to it. Sing now something larger. And I\nshall see.\"\n\n\"Oh, not now--by-and-by,\" said Gwendolen, with a sinking of heart at\nthe sudden width of horizon opened round her small musical performance.\nFor a lady desiring to lead, this first encounter in her campaign was\nstartling. But she was bent on not behaving foolishly, and Miss\nArrowpoint helped her by saying--\n\n\"Yes, by-and-by. I always require half an hour to get up my courage\nafter being criticised by Herr Klesmer. We will ask him to play to us\nnow: he is bound to show us what is good music.\"\n\nTo be quite safe on this point Herr Klesmer played a composition of his\nown, a fantasia called _Freudvoll, Leidvoll, Gedankenvoll_--an\nextensive commentary on some melodic ideas not too grossly evident; and\nhe certainly fetched as much variety and depth of passion out of the\npiano as that moderately responsive instrument lends itself to, having\nan imperious magic in his fingers that seem to send a nerve-thrill\nthrough ivory key and wooden hammer, and compel the strings to make a\nquivering lingering speech for him. Gwendolen, in spite of her wounded\negoism, had fullness of nature enough to feel the power of this\nplaying, and it gradually turned her inward sob of mortification into\nan excitement which lifted her for the moment into a desperate\nindifference about her own doings, or at least a determination to get a\nsuperiority over them by laughing at them as if they belonged to\nsomebody else. Her eyes had become brighter, her cheeks slightly\nflushed, and her tongue ready for any mischievous remarks.\n\n\"I wish you would sing to us again, Miss Harleth,\" said young Clintock,\nthe archdeacon's classical son, who had been so fortunate as to take\nher to dinner, and came up to renew conversation as soon as Herr\nKlesmer's performance was ended, \"That is the style of music for me. I\nnever can make anything of this tip-top playing. It is like a jar of\nleeches, where you can never tell either beginnings or endings. I could\nlisten to your singing all day.\"\n\n\"Yes, we should be glad of something popular now--another song from you\nwould be a relaxation,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, who had also come near\nwith polite intentions.\n\n\"That must be because you are in a puerile state of culture, and have\nno breadth of horizon. I have just learned that. I have been taught how\nbad my taste is, and am feeling growing pains. They are never\npleasant,\" said Gwendolen, not taking any notice of Mrs. Arrowpoint,\nand looking up with a bright smile at young Clintock.\n\nMrs. Arrowpoint was not insensible to this rudeness, but merely said,\n\"Well, we will not press anything disagreeably,\" and as there was a\nperceptible outburst of imprisoned conversation just then, and a\nmovement of guests seeking each other, she remained seated where she\nwas, and looked around her with the relief of a hostess at finding she\nis not needed.\n\n\"I am glad you like this neighborhood,\" said young Clintock,\nwell-pleased with his station in front of Gwendolen.\n\n\"Exceedingly. There seems to be a little of everything and not much of\nanything.\"\n\n\"That is rather equivocal praise.\"\n\n\"Not with me. I like a little of everything; a little absurdity, for\nexample, is very amusing. I am thankful for a few queer people; but\nmuch of them is a bore.\"\n\n(Mrs. Arrowpoint, who was hearing this dialogue, perceived quite a new\ntone in Gwendolen's speech, and felt a revival of doubt as to her\ninterest in Tasso's madness.)\n\n\"I think there should be more croquet, for one thing,\" young Clintock;\n\"I am usually away, but if I were more here I should go in for a\ncroquet club. You are one of the archers, I think. But depend upon it\ncroquet is the game of the future. It wants writing up, though. One of\nour best men has written a poem on it, in four cantos;--as good as\nPope. I want him to publish it--You never read anything better.\"\n\n\"I shall study croquet to-morrow. I shall take to it instead of\nsinging.\"\n\n\"No, no, not that; but do take to croquet. I will send you Jenning's\npoem if you like. I have a manuscript copy.\"\n\n\"Is he a great friend of yours?\"\n\n\"Well, rather.\"\n\n\"Oh, if he is only rather, I think I will decline. Or, if you send it\nto me, will you promise not to catechise me upon it and ask me which\npart I like best? Because it is not so easy to know a poem without\nreading it as to know a sermon without listening.\"\n\n\"Decidedly,\" Mrs. Arrowpoint thought, \"this girl is double and\nsatirical. I shall be on my guard against her.\"\n\nBut Gwendolen, nevertheless, continued to receive polite attentions\nfrom the family at Quetcham, not merely because invitations have larger\ngrounds than those of personal liking, but because the trying little\nscene at the piano had awakened a kindly solicitude toward her in the\ngentle mind of Miss Arrowpoint, who managed all the invitations and\nvisits, her mother being otherwise occupied.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI.\n\n    \"Croyez-vous m'avoir humiliée pour m'avoir appris que la terre tourne\n    autour du soleil? Je vous jure que je ne m'en estime pas moins.\"\n                                --FONTENELLE: _Pluralité des Mondes_.\n\n\nThat lofty criticism had caused Gwendolen a new sort of pain. She would\nnot have chosen to confess how unfortunate she thought herself in not\nhaving had Miss Arrowpoint's musical advantages, so as to be able to\nquestion Herr Klesmer's taste with the confidence of thorough\nknowledge; still less, to admit even to herself that Miss Arrowpoint\neach time they met raised an unwonted feeling of jealousy in her: not\nin the least because she was an heiress, but because it was really\nprovoking that a girl whose appearance you could not characterize\nexcept by saying that her figure was slight and of middle stature, her\nfeatures small, her eyes tolerable, and her complexion sallow, had\nnevertheless a certain mental superiority which could not be explained\naway--an exasperating thoroughness in her musical accomplishment, a\nfastidious discrimination in her general tastes, which made it\nimpossible to force her admiration and kept you in awe of her standard.\nThis insignificant-looking young lady of four-and-twenty, whom any\none's eyes would have passed over negligently if she had not been Miss\nArrowpoint, might be suspected of a secret opinion that Miss Harleth's\nacquirements were rather of a common order, and such an opinion was not\nmade agreeable to think of by being always veiled under a perfect\nkindness of manner.\n\nBut Gwendolen did not like to dwell on facts which threw an unfavorable\nlight on itself. The musical Magus who had so suddenly widened her\nhorizon was not always on the scene; and his being constantly backward\nand forward between London and Quetcham soon began to be thought of as\noffering opportunities for converting him to a more admiring state of\nmind. Meanwhile, in the manifest pleasure her singing gave at\nBrackenshaw Castle, the Firs, and elsewhere, she recovered her\nequanimity, being disposed to think approval more trustworthy than\nobjection, and not being one of the exceptional persons who have a\nparching thirst for a perfection undemanded by their neighbors. Perhaps\nit would have been rash to say then that she was at all exceptional\ninwardly, or that the unusual in her was more than her rare grace of\nmovement and bearing, and a certain daring which gave piquancy to a\nvery common egoistic ambition, such as exists under many clumsy\nexteriors and is taken no notice of. For I suppose that the set of the\nhead does not really determine the hunger of the inner self for\nsupremacy: it only makes a difference sometimes as to the way in which\nthe supremacy is held attainable, and a little also to the degree in\nwhich it can be attained; especially when the hungry one is a girl,\nwhose passion for doing what is remarkable has an ideal limit in\nconsistency with the highest breeding and perfect freedom from the\nsordid need of income. Gwendolen was as inwardly rebellious against the\nrestraints of family conditions, and as ready to look through\nobligations into her own fundamental want of feeling for them, as if\nshe had been sustained by the boldest speculations; but she really had\nno such speculations, and would at once have marked herself off from\nany sort of theoretical or practically reforming women by satirizing\nthem. She rejoiced to feel herself exceptional; but her horizon was\nthat of the genteel romance where the heroine's soul poured out in her\njournal is full of vague power, originality, and general rebellion,\nwhile her life moves strictly in the sphere of fashion; and if she\nwanders into a swamp, the pathos lies partly, so to speak, in her\nhaving on her satin shoes. Here is a restraint which nature and society\nhave provided on the pursuit of striking adventure; so that a soul\nburning with a sense of what the universe is not, and ready to take all\nexistence as fuel, is nevertheless held captive by the ordinary\nwirework of social forms and does nothing particular.\n\nThis commonplace result was what Gwendolen found herself threatened\nwith even in the novelty of the first winter at Offendene. What she was\nclear upon was, that she did not wish to lead the same sort of life as\nordinary young ladies did; but what she was not clear upon was, how she\nshould set about leading any other, and what were the particular acts\nwhich she would assert her freedom by doing. Offendene remained a good\nbackground, if anything would happen there; but on the whole the\nneighborhood was in fault.\n\nBeyond the effect of her beauty on a first presentation, there was not\nmuch excitement to be got out of her earliest invitations, and she came\nhome after little sallies of satire and knowingness, such as had\noffended Mrs. Arrowpoint, to fill the intervening days with the most\ngirlish devices. The strongest assertion she was able to make of her\nindividual claims was to leave out Alice's lessons (on the principle\nthat Alice was more likely to excel in ignorance), and to employ her\nwith Miss Merry, and the maid who was understood to wait on all the\nladies, in helping to arrange various dramatic costumes which Gwendolen\npleased herself with having in readiness for some future occasions of\nacting in charades or theatrical pieces, occasions which she meant to\nbring about by force of will or contrivance. She had never acted--only\nmade a figure in _tableaux vivans_ at school; but she felt assured that\nshe could act well, and having been once or twice to the Théâtre\nFrançais, and also heard her mamma speak of Rachel, her waking dreams\nand cogitations as to how she would manage her destiny sometimes turned\non the question whether she would become an actress like Rachel, since\nshe was more beautiful than that thin Jewess. Meanwhile the wet days\nbefore Christmas were passed pleasantly in the preparation of costumes,\nGreek, Oriental, and Composite, in which Gwendolen attitudinized and\nspeechified before a domestic audience, including even the housekeeper,\nwho was once pressed into it that she might swell the notes of\napplause; but having shown herself unworthy by observing that Miss\nHarleth looked far more like a queen in her own dress than in that\nbaggy thing with her arms all bare, she was not invited a second time.\n\n\"Do I look as well as Rachel, mamma?\" said Gwendolen, one day when she\nhad been showing herself in her Greek dress to Anna, and going through\nscraps of scenes with much tragic intention.\n\n\"You have better arms than Rachel,\" said Mrs. Davilow, \"your arms would\ndo for anything, Gwen. But your voice is not so tragic as hers; it is\nnot so deep.\"\n\n\"I can make it deeper, if I like,\" said Gwendolen, provisionally; then\nshe added, with decision, \"I think a higher voice is more tragic: it is\nmore feminine; and the more feminine a woman is, the more tragic it\nseems when she does desperate actions.\"\n\n\"There may be something in that,\" said Mrs. Davilow, languidly. \"But I\ndon't know what good there is in making one's blood creep. And if there\nis anything horrible to be done, I should like it to be left to the\nmen.\"\n\n\"Oh, mamma, you are so dreadfully prosaic! As if all the great poetic\ncriminals were not women! I think the men are poor cautious creatures.\"\n\n\"Well, dear, and you--who are afraid to be alone in the night--I don't\nthink you would be very bold in crime, thank God.\"\n\n\"I am not talking about reality, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, impatiently.\nThen her mamma being called out of the room, she turned quickly to her\ncousin, as if taking an opportunity, and said, \"Anna, do ask my uncle\nto let us get up some charades at the rectory. Mr. Middleton and Warham\ncould act with us--just for practice. Mamma says it will not do to have\nMr. Middleton consulting and rehearsing here. He is a stick, but we\ncould give him suitable parts. Do ask, or else I will.\"\n\n\"Oh, not till Rex comes. He is so clever, and such a dear old thing,\nand he will act Napoleon looking over the sea. He looks just like\nNapoleon. Rex can do anything.\"\n\n\"I don't in the least believe in your Rex, Anna,\" said Gwendolen,\nlaughing at her. \"He will turn out to be like those wretched blue and\nyellow water-colors of his which you hang up in your bedroom and\nworship.\"\n\n\"Very well, you will see,\" said Anna. \"It is not that I know what is\nclever, but he has got a scholarship already, and papa says he will get\na fellowship, and nobody is better at games. He is cleverer than Mr.\nMiddleton, and everybody but you call Mr. Middleton clever.\"\n\n\"So he may be in a dark-lantern sort of way. But he _is_ a stick. If he\nhad to say, 'Perdition catch my soul, but I do love her,' he would say\nit in just the same tone as, 'Here endeth the second lesson.'\"\n\n\"Oh, Gwendolen!\" said Anna, shocked at these promiscuous allusions.\n\"And it is very unkind of you to speak so of him, for he admires you\nvery much. I heard Warham say one day to mamma, 'Middleton is regularly\nspooney upon Gwendolen.' She was very angry with him; but I know what\nit means. It is what they say at college for being in love.\"\n\n\"How can I help it?\" said Gwendolen, rather contemptuously. \"Perdition\ncatch my soul if I love _him_.\"\n\n\"No, of course; papa, I think, would not wish it. And he is to go away\nsoon. But it makes me sorry when you ridicule him.\"\n\n\"What shall you do to me when I ridicule Rex?\" said Gwendolen, wickedly.\n\n\"Now, Gwendolen, dear, you _will not_?\" said Anna, her eyes filling\nwith tears. \"I could not bear it. But there really is nothing in him to\nridicule. Only you may find out things. For no one ever thought of\nlaughing at Mr. Middleton before you. Every one said he was\nnice-looking, and his manners perfect. I am sure I have always been\nfrightened at him because of his learning and his square-cut coat, and\nhis being a nephew of the bishop's, and all that. But you will not\nridicule Rex--promise me.\" Anna ended with a beseeching look which\ntouched Gwendolen.\n\n\"You are a dear little coz,\" she said, just touching the tip of Anna's\nchin with her thumb and forefinger. \"I don't ever want to do anything\nthat will vex you. Especially if Rex is to make everything come\noff--charades and everything.\"\n\nAnd when at last Rex was there, the animation he brought into the life\nof Offendene and the rectory, and his ready partnership in Gwendolen's\nplans, left her no inclination for any ridicule that was not of an open\nand flattering kind, such as he himself enjoyed. He was a fine\nopen-hearted youth, with a handsome face strongly resembling his\nfather's and Anna's, but softer in expression than the one, and larger\nin scale than the other: a bright, healthy, loving nature, enjoying\nordinary innocent things so much that vice had no temptation for him,\nand what he knew of it lay too entirely in the outer courts and\nlittle-visited chambers of his mind for him to think of it with great\nrepulsion. Vicious habits were with him \"what some fellows\ndid\"--\"stupid stuff\" which he liked to keep aloof from. He returned\nAnna's affection as fully as could be expected of a brother whose\npleasures apart from her were more than the sum total of hers; and he\nhad never known a stronger love.\n\nThe cousins were continually together at the one house or the\nother--chiefly at Offendene, where there was more freedom, or rather\nwhere there was a more complete sway for Gwendolen; and whatever she\nwished became a ruling purpose for Rex. The charades came off according\nto her plans; and also some other little scenes not contemplated by her\nin which her acting was more impromptu. It was at Offendene that the\ncharades and _tableaux_ were rehearsed and presented, Mrs. Davilow\nseeing no objection even to Mr. Middleton's being invited to share in\nthem, now that Rex too was there--especially as his services were\nindispensable: Warham, who was studying for India with a Wanchester\n\"coach,\" having no time to spare, and being generally dismal under a\ncram of everything except the answers needed at the forthcoming\nexamination, which might disclose the welfare of our Indian Empire to\nbe somehow connected with a quotable knowledge of Browne's Pastorals.\n\nMr. Middleton was persuaded to play various grave parts, Gwendolen\nhaving flattered him on his enviable immobility of countenance; and at\nfirst a little pained and jealous at her comradeship with Rex, he\npresently drew encouragement from the thought that this sort of\ncousinly familiarity excluded any serious passion. Indeed, he\noccasionally felt that her more formal treatment of himself was such a\nsign of favor as to warrant his making advances before he left\nPennicote, though he had intended to keep his feelings in reserve until\nhis position should be more assured. Miss Gwendolen, quite aware that\nshe was adored by this unexceptionable young clergyman with pale\nwhiskers and square-cut collar, felt nothing more on the subject than\nthat she had no objection to being adored: she turned her eyes on him\nwith calm mercilessness and caused him many mildly agitating hopes by\nseeming always to avoid dramatic contact with him--for all meanings, we\nknow, depend on the key of interpretation.\n\nSome persons might have thought beforehand that a young man of Anglican\nleanings, having a sense of sacredness much exercised on small things\nas well as great, rarely laughing save from politeness, and in general\nregarding the mention of spades by their naked names as rather coarse,\nwould not have seen a fitting bride for himself in a girl who was\ndaring in ridicule, and showed none of the special grace required in\nthe clergyman's wife; or, that a young man informed by theological\nreading would have reflected that he was not likely to meet the taste\nof a lively, restless young lady like Miss Harleth. But are we always\nobliged to explain why the facts are not what some persons thought\nbeforehand? The apology lies on their side, who had that erroneous way\nof thinking.\n\nAs for Rex, who would possibly have been sorry for poor Middleton if he\nhad been aware of the excellent curate's inward conflict, he was too\ncompletely absorbed in a first passion to have observation for any\nperson or thing. He did not observe Gwendolen; he only felt what she\nsaid or did, and the back of his head seemed to be a good organ of\ninformation as to whether she was in the room or out. Before the end of\nthe first fortnight he was so deeply in love that it was impossible for\nhim to think of his life except as bound up with Gwendolen's. He could\nsee no obstacles, poor boy; his own love seemed a guarantee of hers,\nsince it was one with the unperturbed delight in her image, so that he\ncould no more dream of her giving him pain than an Egyptian could dream\nof snow. She sang and played to him whenever he liked, was always glad\nof his companionship in riding, though his borrowed steeds were often\ncomic, was ready to join in any fun of his, and showed a right\nappreciation of Anna. No mark of sympathy seemed absent. That because\nGwendolen was the most perfect creature in the world she was to make a\ngrand match, had not occurred to him. He had no conceit--at least not\nmore than goes to make up the necessary gum and consistence of a\nsubstantial personality: it was only that in the young bliss of loving\nhe took Gwendolen's perfection as part of that good which had seemed\none with life to him, being the outcome of a happy, well-embodied\nnature.\n\nOne incident which happened in the course of their dramatic attempts\nimpressed Rex as a sign of her unusual sensibility. It showed an aspect\nof her nature which could not have been preconceived by any one who,\nlike him, had only seen her habitual fearlessness in active exercises\nand her high spirits in society.\n\nAfter a good deal of rehearsing it was resolved that a select party\nshould be invited to Offendene to witness the performances which went\nwith so much satisfaction to the actors. Anna had caused a pleasant\nsurprise; nothing could be neater than the way in which she played her\nlittle parts; one would even have suspected her of hiding much sly\nobservation under her simplicity. And Mr. Middleton answered very well\nby not trying to be comic. The main source of doubt and retardation had\nbeen Gwendolen's desire to appear in her Greek dress. No word for a\ncharade would occur to her either waking or dreaming that suited her\npurpose of getting a statuesque pose in this favorite costume. To\nchoose a motive from Racine was of no use, since Rex and the others\ncould not declaim French verse, and improvised speeches would turn the\nscene into burlesque. Besides, Mr. Gascoigne prohibited the acting of\nscenes from plays: he usually protested against the notion that an\namusement which was fitting for every one else was unfitting for a\nclergyman; but he would not in this matter overstep the line of decorum\nas drawn in that part of Wessex, which did not exclude his sanction of\nthe young people's acting charades in his sister-in-law's house--a very\ndifferent affair from private theatricals in the full sense of the word.\n\nEverybody of course was concerned to satisfy this wish of Gwendolen's,\nand Rex proposed that they should wind up with a tableau in which the\neffect of her majesty would not be marred by any one's speech. This\npleased her thoroughly, and the only question was the choice of the\ntableau.\n\n\"Something pleasant, children, I beseech you,\" said Mrs. Davilow; \"I\ncan't have any Greek wickedness.\"\n\n\"It is no worse than Christian wickedness, mamma,\" said Gwendolen,\nwhose mention of Rachelesque heroines had called forth that remark.\n\n\"And less scandalous,\" said Rex. \"Besides, one thinks of it as all gone\nby and done with. What do you say to Briseis being led away? I would be\nAchilles, and you would be looking round at me--after the print we have\nat the rectory.\"\n\n\"That would be a good attitude for me,\" said Gwendolen, in a tone of\nacceptance. But afterward she said with decision, \"No. It will not do.\nThere must be three men in proper costume, else it will be ridiculous.\"\n\n\"I have it,\" said Rex, after a little reflection. \"Hermione as the\nstatue in Winter's Tale? I will be Leontes, and Miss Merry, Paulina,\none on each side. Our dress won't signify,\" he went on laughingly; \"it\nwill be more Shakespearian and romantic if Leontes looks like Napoleon,\nand Paulina like a modern spinster.\"\n\nAnd Hermione was chosen; all agreeing that age was of no consequence,\nbut Gwendolen urged that instead of the mere tableau there should be\njust enough acting of the scene to introduce the striking up of the\nmusic as a signal for her to step down and advance; when Leontes,\ninstead of embracing her, was to kneel and kiss the hem of her garment,\nand so the curtain was to fall. The antechamber with folding doors lent\nitself admirably to the purpose of a stage, and the whole of the\nestablishment, with the addition of Jarrett the village carpenter, was\nabsorbed in the preparations for an entertainment, which, considering\nthat it was an imitation of acting, was likely to be successful, since\nwe know from ancient fable that an imitation may have more chance of\nsuccess than the original.\n\nGwendolen was not without a special exultation in the prospect of this\noccasion, for she knew that Herr Klesmer was again at Quetcham, and she\nhad taken care to include him among the invited.\n\nKlesmer came. He was in one of his placid, silent moods, and sat in\nserene contemplation, replying to all appeals in benignant-sounding\nsyllables more or less articulate--as taking up his cross meekly in a\nworld overgrown with amateurs, or as careful how he moved his lion paws\nlest he should crush a rampant and vociferous mouse.\n\nEverything indeed went off smoothly and according to expectation--all\nthat was improvised and accidental being of a probable sort--until the\nincident occurred which showed Gwendolen in an unforeseen phase of\nemotion. How it came about was at first a mystery.\n\nThe tableau of Hermione was doubly striking from its dissimilarity with\nwhat had gone before: it was answering perfectly, and a murmur of\napplause had been gradually suppressed while Leontes gave his\npermission that Paulina should exercise her utmost art and make the\nstatue move.\n\nHermione, her arm resting on a pillar, was elevated by about six\ninches, which she counted on as a means of showing her pretty foot and\ninstep, when at the given signal she should advance and descend.\n\n\"Music, awake her, strike!\" said Paulina (Mrs. Davilow, who, by special\nentreaty, had consented to take the part in a white burnous and hood).\n\nHerr Klesmer, who had been good-natured enough to seat himself at the\npiano, struck a thunderous chord--but in the same instant, and before\nHermione had put forth her foot, the movable panel, which was on a line\nwith the piano, flew open on the right opposite the stage and disclosed\nthe picture of the dead face and the fleeing figure, brought out in\npale definiteness by the position of the wax-lights. Everyone was\nstartled, but all eyes in the act of turning toward the open panel were\nrecalled by a piercing cry from Gwendolen, who stood without change of\nattitude, but with a change of expression that was terrifying in its\nterror. She looked like a statue into which a soul of Fear had entered:\nher pallid lips were parted; her eyes, usually narrowed under their\nlong lashes, were dilated and fixed. Her mother, less surprised than\nalarmed, rushed toward her, and Rex, too, could not help going to her\nside. But the touch of her mother's arm had the effect of an electric\ncharge; Gwendolen fell on her knees and put her hands before her face.\nShe was still trembling, but mute, and it seemed that she had\nself-consciousness enough to aim at controlling her signs of terror,\nfor she presently allowed herself to be raised from her kneeling\nposture and led away, while the company were relieving their minds by\nexplanation.\n\n\"A magnificent bit of _plastik_ that!\" said Klesmer to Miss Arrowpoint.\nAnd a quick fire of undertoned question and answer went round.\n\n\"Was it part of the play?\"\n\n\"Oh, no, surely not. Miss Harleth was too much affected. A sensitive\ncreature!\"\n\n\"Dear me! I was not aware that there was a painting behind that panel;\nwere you?\"\n\n\"No; how should I? Some eccentricity in one of the Earl's family long\nago, I suppose.\"\n\n\"How very painful! Pray shut it up.\"\n\n\"Was the door locked? It is very mysterious. It must be the spirits.\"\n\n\"But there is no medium present.\"\n\n\"How do you know that? We must conclude that there is, when such things\nhappen.\"\n\n\"Oh, the door was not locked; it was probably the sudden vibration from\nthe piano that sent it open.\"\n\nThis conclusion came from Mr. Gascoigne, who begged Miss Merry if\npossible to get the key. But this readiness to explain the mystery was\nthought by Mrs. Vulcany unbecoming in a clergyman, and she observed in\nan undertone that Mr. Gascoigne was always a little too worldly for her\ntaste. However, the key was produced, and the rector turned it in the\nlock with an emphasis rather offensively rationalizing--as who should\nsay, \"it will not start open again\"--putting the key in his pocket as a\nsecurity.\n\nHowever, Gwendolen soon reappeared, showing her usual spirits, and\nevidently determined to ignore as far as she could the striking change\nshe had made in the part of Hermione.\n\nBut when Klesmer said to her, \"We have to thank you for devising a\nperfect climax: you could not have chosen a finer bit of _plastik_,\"\nthere was a flush of pleasure in her face. She liked to accept as a\nbelief what was really no more than delicate feigning. He divined that\nthe betrayal into a passion of fear had been mortifying to her, and\nwished her to understand that he took it for good acting. Gwendolen\ncherished the idea that now he was struck with her talent as well as\nher beauty, and her uneasiness about his opinion was half turned to\ncomplacency.\n\nBut too many were in the secret of what had been included in the\nrehearsals, and what had not, and no one besides Klesmer took the\ntrouble to soothe Gwendolen's imagined mortification. The general\nsentiment was that the incident should be let drop.\n\nThere had really been a medium concerned in the starting open of the\npanel: one who had quitted the room in haste and crept to bed in much\nalarm of conscience. It was the small Isabel, whose intense curiosity,\nunsatisfied by the brief glimpse she had had of the strange picture on\nthe day of arrival at Offendene, had kept her on the watch for an\nopportunity of finding out where Gwendolen had put the key, of stealing\nit from the discovered drawer when the rest of the family were out, and\ngetting on a stool to unlock the panel. While she was indulging her\nthirst for knowledge in this way, a noise which she feared was an\napproaching footstep alarmed her: she closed the door and attempted\nhurriedly to lock it, but failing and not daring to linger, she\nwithdrew the key and trusted that the panel would stick, as it seemed\nwell inclined to do. In this confidence she had returned the key to its\nformer place, stilling any anxiety by the thought that if the door were\ndiscovered to be unlocked nobody would know how the unlocking came\nabout. The inconvenient Isabel, like other offenders, did not foresee\nher own impulse to confession, a fatality which came upon her the\nmorning after the party, when Gwendolen said at the breakfast-table, \"I\nknow the door was locked before the housekeeper gave me the key, for I\ntried it myself afterward. Some one must have been to my drawer and\ntaken the key.\"\n\nIt seemed to Isabel that Gwendolen's awful eyes had rested on her more\nthan on the other sisters, and without any time for resolve, she said,\nwith a trembling lip:\n\n\"Please forgive me, Gwendolen.\"\n\nThe forgiveness was sooner bestowed than it would have been if\nGwendolen had not desired to dismiss from her own and every one else's\nmemory any case in which she had shown her susceptibility to terror.\nShe wondered at herself in these occasional experiences, which seemed\nlike a brief remembered madness, an unexplained exception from her\nnormal life; and in this instance she felt a peculiar vexation that her\nhelpless fear had shown itself, not, as usual, in solitude, but in\nwell-lit company. Her ideal was to be daring in speech and reckless in\nbraving dangers, both moral and physical; and though her practice fell\nfar behind her ideal, this shortcoming seemed to be due to the\npettiness of circumstances, the narrow theatre which life offers to a\ngirl of twenty, who cannot conceive herself as anything else than a\nlady, or as in any position which would lack the tribute of respect.\nShe had no permanent consciousness of other fetters, or of more\nspiritual restraints, having always disliked whatever was presented to\nher under the name of religion, in the same way that some people\ndislike arithmetic and accounts: it had raised no other emotion in her,\nno alarm, no longing; so that the question whether she believed it had\nnot occurred to her any more than it had occurred to her to inquire\ninto the conditions of colonial property and banking, on which, as she\nhad had many opportunities of knowing, the family fortune was\ndependent. All these facts about herself she would have been ready to\nadmit, and even, more or less indirectly, to state. What she\nunwillingly recognized, and would have been glad for others to be\nunaware of, was that liability of hers to fits of spiritual dread,\nthough this fountain of awe within her had not found its way into\nconnection with the religion taught her or with any human relations.\nShe was ashamed and frightened, as at what might happen again, in\nremembering her tremor on suddenly feeling herself alone, when, for\nexample, she was walking without companionship and there came some\nrapid change in the light. Solitude in any wide scene impressed her\nwith an undefined feeling of immeasurable existence aloof from her, in\nthe midst of which she was helplessly incapable of asserting herself.\nThe little astronomy taught her at school used sometimes to set her\nimagination at work in a way that made her tremble: but always when\nsome one joined her she recovered her indifference to the vastness in\nwhich she seemed an exile; she found again her usual world in which her\nwill was of some avail, and the religious nomenclature belonging to\nthis world was no more identified for her with those uneasy impressions\nof awe than her uncle's surplices seen out of use at the rectory. With\nhuman ears and eyes about her, she had always hitherto recovered her\nconfidence, and felt the possibility of winning empire.\n\nTo her mamma and others her fits of timidity or terror were\nsufficiently accounted for by her \"sensitiveness\" or the \"excitability\nof her nature\"; but these explanatory phrases required conciliation\nwith much that seemed to be blank indifference or rare self-mastery.\nHeat is a great agent and a useful word, but considered as a means of\nexplaining the universe it requires an extensive knowledge of\ndifferences; and as a means of explaining character \"sensitiveness\" is\nin much the same predicament. But who, loving a creature like\nGwendolen, would not be inclined to regard every peculiarity in her as\na mark of preeminence? That was what Rex did. After the Hermione scene\nhe was more persuaded than ever that she must be instinct with all\nfeeling, and not only readier to respond to a worshipful love, but able\nto love better than other girls. Rex felt the summer on his young wings\nand soared happily.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII.\n\n  \"_Perigot_. As the bonny lasse passed by,\n    _Willie_. Hey, ho, bonnilasse!\n         _P_. She roode at me with glauncing eye,\n         _W_. As clear as the crystal glasse.\n         _P_. All as the sunny beame so bright,\n         _W_. Hey, ho, the sunnebeame!\n         _P_. Glaunceth from Phoebus' face forthright,\n         _W_. So love into thy heart did streame.\"\n                                    --SPENSER: _Shepard's Calendar_.\n\n    \"The kindliest symptom, yet the most alarming crisis in the ticklish\n    state of youth; the nourisher and destroyer of hopeful wits; * * * the\n    servitude above freedom; the gentle mind's religion; the liberal\n    superstition.\"--CHARLES LAMB.\n\n\nThe first sign of the unimagined snow-storm was like the transparent\nwhite cloud that seems to set off the blue. Anna was in the secret of\nRex's feeling; though for the first time in their lives he had said\nnothing to her about what he most thought of, and he only took it for\ngranted that she knew it. For the first time, too, Anna could not say\nto Rex what was continually in her mind. Perhaps it might have been a\npain which she would have had to conceal, that he should so soon care\nfor some one else more than for herself, if such a feeling had not been\nthoroughly neutralized by doubt and anxiety on his behalf. Anna admired\nher cousin--would have said with simple sincerity, \"Gwendolen is always\nvery good to me,\" and held it in the order of things for herself to be\nentirely subject to this cousin; but she looked at her with mingled\nfear and distrust, with a puzzled contemplation as of some wondrous and\nbeautiful animal whose nature was a mystery, and who, for anything Anna\nknew, might have an appetite for devouring all the small creatures that\nwere her own particular pets. And now Anna's heart was sinking under\nthe heavy conviction which she dared not utter, that Gwendolen would\nnever care for Rex. What she herself held in tenderness and reverence\nhad constantly seemed indifferent to Gwendolen, and it was easier to\nimagine her scorning Rex than returning any tenderness of his. Besides,\nshe was always thinking of being something extraordinary. And poor Rex!\nPapa would be angry with him if he knew. And of course he was too young\nto be in love in that way; and she, Anna had thought that it would be\nyears and years before any thing of that sort came, and that she would\nbe Rex's housekeeper ever so long. But what a heart must that be which\ndid not return his love! Anna, in the prospect of his suffering, was\nbeginning to dislike her too fascinating cousin.\n\nIt seemed to her, as it did to Rex, that the weeks had been filled with\na tumultuous life evident to all observers: if he had been questioned\non the subject he would have said that he had no wish to conceal what\nhe hoped would be an engagement which he should immediately tell his\nfather of: and yet for the first time in his life he was reserved not\nonly about his feelings but--which was more remarkable to Anna--about\ncertain actions. She, on her side, was nervous each time her father or\nmother began to speak to her in private lest they should say anything\nabout Rex and Gwendolen. But the elders were not in the least alive to\nthis agitating drama, which went forward chiefly in a sort of pantomime\nextremely lucid in the minds thus expressing themselves, but easily\nmissed by spectators who were running their eyes over the _Guardian_ or\nthe _Clerical Gazette_, and regarded the trivialities of the young ones\nwith scarcely more interpretation than they gave to the action of\nlively ants.\n\n\"Where are you going, Rex?\" said Anna one gray morning when her father\nhad set off in his carriage to the sessions, Mrs. Gascoigne with him,\nand she had observed that her brother had on his antigropelos, the\nutmost approach he possessed to a hunting equipment.\n\n\"Going to see the hounds throw off at the Three Barns.\"\n\n\"Are you going to take Gwendolen?\" said Anna, timidly.\n\n\"She told you, did she?\"\n\n\"No, but I thought--Does papa know you are going?\"\n\n\"Not that I am aware of. I don't suppose he would trouble himself about\nthe matter.\"\n\n\"You are going to use his horse?\"\n\n\"He knows I do that whenever I can.\"\n\n\"Don't let Gwendolen ride after the hounds, Rex,\" said Anna, whose\nfears gifted her with second-sight.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Rex, smiling rather provokingly.\n\n\"Papa and mamma and aunt Davilow all wish her not to. They think it is\nnot right for her.\"\n\n\"Why should you suppose she is going to do what is not right?\"\n\n\"Gwendolen minds nobody sometimes,\" said Anna getting bolder by dint of\na little anger.\n\n\"Then she would not mind me,\" said Rex, perversely making a joke of\npoor Anna's anxiety.\n\n\"Oh Rex, I cannot bear it. You will make yourself very unhappy.\" Here\nAnna burst into tears.\n\n\"Nannie, Nannie, what on earth is the matter with you?\" said Rex, a\nlittle impatient at being kept in this way, hat on and whip in hand.\n\n\"She will not care for you one bit--I know she never will!\" said the\npoor child in a sobbing whisper. She had lost all control of herself.\n\nRex reddened and hurried away from her out of the hall door, leaving\nher to the miserable consciousness of having made herself disagreeable\nin vain.\n\nHe did think of her words as he rode along; they had the unwelcomeness\nwhich all unfavorable fortune-telling has, even when laughed at; but he\nquickly explained them as springing from little Anna's tenderness, and\nbegan to be sorry that he was obliged to come away without soothing\nher. Every other feeling on the subject, however, was quickly merged in\na resistant belief to the contrary of hers, accompanied with a new\ndetermination to prove that he was right. This sort of certainty had\njust enough kinship to doubt and uneasiness to hurry on a confession\nwhich an untouched security might have delayed.\n\nGwendolen was already mounted and riding up and down the avenue when\nRex appeared at the gate. She had provided herself against\ndisappointment in case he did not appear in time by having the groom\nready behind her, for she would not have waited beyond a reasonable\ntime. But now the groom was dismissed, and the two rode away in\ndelightful freedom. Gwendolen was in her highest spirits, and Rex\nthought that she had never looked so lovely before; her figure, her\nlong white throat, and the curves of her cheek and chin were always set\noff to perfection by the compact simplicity of her riding dress. He\ncould not conceive a more perfect girl; and to a youthful lover like\nRex it seems that the fundamental identity of the good, the true and\nthe beautiful, is already extant and manifest in the object of his\nlove. Most observers would have held it more than equally accountable\nthat a girl should have like impressions about Rex, for in his handsome\nface there was nothing corresponding to the undefinable stinging\nquality--as it were a trace of demon ancestry--which made some\nbeholders hesitate in their admiration of Gwendolen.\n\nIt was an exquisite January morning in which there was no threat of\nrain, but a gray sky making the calmest background for the charms of a\nmild winter scene--the grassy borders of the lanes, the hedgerows\nsprinkled with red berries and haunted with low twitterings, the purple\nbareness of the elms, the rich brown of the furrows. The horses' hoofs\nmade a musical chime, accompanying their young voices. She was laughing\nat his equipment, for he was the reverse of a dandy, and he was\nenjoying her laughter; the freshness of the morning mingled with the\nfreshness of their youth; and every sound that came from their clear\nthroats, every glance they gave each other, was the bubbling outflow\nfrom a spring of joy. It was all morning to them, within and without.\nAnd thinking of them in these moments one is tempted to that futile\nsort of wishing--if only things could have been a little otherwise\nthen, so as to have been greatly otherwise after--if only these two\nbeautiful young creatures could have pledged themselves to each other\nthen and there, and never through life have swerved from that pledge!\nFor some of the goodness which Rex believed in was there. Goodness is a\nlarge, often a prospective word; like harvest, which at one stage when\nwe talk of it lies all underground, with an indeterminate future; is\nthe germ prospering in the darkness? at another, it has put forth\ndelicate green blades, and by-and-by the trembling blossoms are ready\nto be dashed off by an hour of rough wind or rain. Each stage has its\npeculiar blight, and may have the healthy life choked out of it by a\nparticular action of the foul land which rears or neighbors it, or by\ndamage brought from foulness afar.\n\n\"Anna had got it into her head that you would want to ride after the\nhounds this morning,\" said Rex, whose secret associations with Anna's\nwords made this speech seem quite perilously near the most momentous of\nsubjects.\n\n\"Did she?\" said Gwendolen, laughingly. \"What a little clairvoyant she\nis!\"\n\n\"Shall you?\" said Rex, who had not believed in her intending to do it\nif the elders objected, but confided in her having good reasons.\n\n\"I don't know. I can't tell what I shall do till I get there.\nClairvoyants are often wrong: they foresee what is likely. I am not\nfond of what is likely: it is always dull. I do what is unlikely.\"\n\n\"Ah, there you tell me a secret. When once I knew what people in\ngeneral would be likely to do, I should know you would do the opposite.\nSo you would have come round to a likelihood of your own sort. I shall\nbe able to calculate on you. You couldn't surprise me.\"\n\n\"Yes, I could. I should turn round and do what was likely for people in\ngeneral,\" said Gwendolen, with a musical laugh.\n\n\"You see you can't escape some sort of likelihood. And\ncontradictoriness makes the strongest likelihood of all. You must give\nup a plan.\"\n\n\"No, I shall not. My plan is to do what pleases me.\" (Here should any\nyoung lady incline to imitate Gwendolen, let her consider the set of\nher head and neck: if the angle there had been different, the chin\nprotrusive, and the cervical vertebrae a trifle more curved in their\nposition, ten to one Gwendolen's words would have had a jar in them for\nthe sweet-natured Rex. But everything odd in her speech was humor and\npretty banter, which he was only anxious to turn toward one point.)\n\n\"Can you manage to feel only what pleases you?\" said he.\n\n\"Of course not; that comes from what other people do. But if the world\nwere pleasanter, one would only feel what was pleasant. Girls' lives\nare so stupid: they never do what they like.\"\n\n\"I thought that was more the case of the men. They are forced to do\nhard things, and are often dreadfully bored, and knocked to pieces too.\nAnd then, if we love a girl very dearly we want to do as she likes, so\nafter all you have your own way.\"\n\n\"I don't believe it. I never saw a married woman who had her own way.\"\n\n\"What should you like to do?\" said Rex, quite guilelessly, and in real\nanxiety.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know!--go to the North Pole, or ride steeple-chases, or go\nto be a queen in the East like Lady Hester Stanhope,\" said Gwendolen,\nflightily. Her words were born on her lips, but she would have been at\na loss to give an answer of deeper origin.\n\n\"You don't mean you would never be married?\"\n\n\"No; I didn't say that. Only when I married, I should not do as other\nwomen do.\"\n\n\"You might do just as you liked if you married a man who loved you more\ndearly than anything else in the world,\" said Rex, who, poor youth, was\nmoving in themes outside the curriculum in which he had promised to win\ndistinction. \"I know one who does.\"\n\n\"Don't talk of Mr. Middleton, for heaven's sake,\" said Gwendolen,\nhastily, a quick blush spreading over her face and neck; \"that is\nAnna's chant. I hear the hounds. Let us go on.\"\n\nShe put her chestnut to a canter, and Rex had no choice but to follow\nher. Still he felt encouraged. Gwendolen was perfectly aware that her\ncousin was in love with her; but she had no idea that the matter was of\nany consequence, having never had the slightest visitation of painful\nlove herself. She wished the small romance of Rex's devotion to fill up\nthe time of his stay at Pennicote, and to avoid explanations which\nwould bring it to an untimely end. Besides, she objected, with a sort\nof physical repulsion, to being directly made love to. With all her\nimaginative delight in being adored, there was a certain fierceness of\nmaidenhood in her.\n\nBut all other thoughts were soon lost for her in the excitement of the\nscene at the Three Barns. Several gentlemen of the hunt knew her, and\nshe exchanged pleasant greetings. Rex could not get another word with\nher. The color, the stir of the field had taken possession of Gwendolen\nwith a strength which was not due to habitual associations, for she had\nnever yet ridden after the hounds--only said she should like to do it,\nand so drawn forth a prohibition; her mamma dreading the danger, and\nher uncle declaring that for his part he held that kind of violent\nexercise unseemly in a woman, and that whatever might be done in other\nparts of the country, no lady of good position followed the Wessex\nhunt: no one but Mrs. Gadsby, the yeomanry captain's wife, who had been\na kitchenmaid and still spoke like one. This last argument had some\neffect on Gwendolen, and had kept her halting between her desire to\nassert her freedom and her horror of being classed with Mrs. Gadsby.\n\nSome of the most unexceptionable women in the neighborhood occasionally\nwent to see the hounds throw off; but it happened that none of them\nwere present this morning to abstain from following, while Mrs. Gadsby,\nwith her doubtful antecedents, grammatical and otherwise, was not\nvisible to make following seem unbecoming. Thus Gwendolen felt no check\non the animal stimulus that came from the stir and tongue of the\nhounds, the pawing of the horses, the varying voices of men, the\nmovement hither and thither of vivid color on the background of green\nand gray stillness:--that utmost excitement of the coming chase which\nconsists in feeling something like a combination of dog and horse, with\nthe superadded thrill of social vanities and consciousness of\ncentaur-power which belongs to humankind.\n\nRex would have felt more of the same enjoyment if he could have kept\nnearer to Gwendolen, and not seen her constantly occupied with\nacquaintances, or looked at by would-be acquaintances, all on lively\nhorses which veered about and swept the surrounding space as\neffectually as a revolving lever.\n\n\"Glad to see you here this fine morning, Miss Harleth,\" said Lord\nBrackenshaw, a middle-aged peer of aristocratic seediness in stained\npink, with easy-going manners which would have made the threatened\ndeluge seem of no consequence. \"We shall have a first-rate run. A pity\nyou didn't go with us. Have you ever tried your little chestnut at a\nditch? you wouldn't be afraid, eh?\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world,\" said Gwendolen. And that was true: she\nwas never fearful in action and companionship. \"I have often taken him\nat some rails and a ditch too, near--\"\n\n\"Ah, by Jove!\" said his lordship, quietly, in notation that something\nwas happening which must break off the dialogue: and as he reined off\nhis horse, Rex was bringing his sober hackney up to Gwendolen's side\nwhen--the hounds gave tongue, and the whole field was in motion as if\nthe whirl of the earth were carrying it; Gwendolen along with\neverything else; no word of notice to Rex, who without a second thought\nfollowed too. Could he let Gwendolen go alone? under other\ncircumstances he would have enjoyed the run, but he was just now\nperturbed by the check which had been put on the impetus to utter his\nlove, and get utterance in return, an impetus which could not at once\nresolve itself into a totally different sort of chase, at least with\nthe consciousness of being on his father's gray nag, a good horse\nenough in his way, but of sober years and ecclesiastical habits.\nGwendolen on her spirited little chestnut was up with the best, and\nfelt as secure as an immortal goddess, having, if she had thought of\nrisk, a core of confidence that no ill luck would happen to her. But\nshe thought of no such thing, and certainly not of any risk there might\nbe for her cousin. If she had thought of him, it would have struck her\nas a droll picture that he should be gradually falling behind, and\nlooking round in search of gates: a fine lithe youth, whose heart must\nbe panting with all the spirit of a beagle, stuck as if under a\nwizard's spell on a stiff clerical hackney, would have made her laugh\nwith a sense of fun much too strong for her to reflect on his\nmortification. But Gwendolen was apt to think rather of those who saw\nher than of those whom she could not see; and Rex was soon so far\nbehind that if she had looked she would not have seen him. For I grieve\nto say that in the search for a gate, along a lane lately mended,\nPrimrose fell, broke his knees, and undesignedly threw Rex over his\nhead.\n\nFortunately a blacksmith's son who also followed the hounds under\ndisadvantages, namely, on foot (a loose way of hunting which had struck\nsome even frivolous minds as immoral), was naturally also in the rear,\nand happened to be within sight of Rex's misfortune. He ran to give\nhelp which was greatly needed, for Rex was a great deal stunned, and\nthe complete recovery of sensation came in the form of pain. Joel Dagge\non this occasion showed himself that most useful of personages, whose\nknowledge is of a kind suited to the immediate occasion: he not only\nknew perfectly well what was the matter with the horse, how far they\nwere both from the nearest public-house and from Pennicote Rectory, and\ncould certify to Rex that his shoulder was only a bit out of joint, but\nalso offered experienced surgical aid.\n\n\"Lord, sir, let me shove it in again for you! I's seen Nash, the\nbone-setter, do it, and done it myself for our little Sally twice over.\nIt's all one and the same, shoulders is. If you'll trusten to me and\ntighten your mind up a bit, I'll do it for you in no time.\"\n\n\"Come then, old fellow,\" said Rex, who could tighten his mind better\nthan his seat in the saddle. And Joel managed the operation, though not\nwithout considerable expense of pain to his patient, who turned so\npitiably pale while tightening his mind, that Joel remarked, \"Ah, sir,\nyou aren't used to it, that's how it is. I's see lots and lots o'\njoints out. I see a man with his eye pushed out once--that was a rum go\nas ever I see. You can't have a bit o' fun wi'out such sort o' things.\nBut it went in again. I's swallowed three teeth mysen, as sure as I'm\nalive. Now, sirrey\" (this was addressed to Primrose), \"come alonk--you\nmusn't make believe as you can't.\"\n\nJoel being clearly a low character, it is, happily, not necessary to\nsay more of him to the refined reader, than that he helped Rex to get\nhome with as little delay as possible. There was no alternative but to\nget home, though all the while he was in anxiety about Gwendolen, and\nmore miserable in the thought that she, too, might have had an\naccident, than in the pain of his own bruises and the annoyance he was\nabout to cause his father. He comforted himself about her by reflecting\nthat every one would be anxious to take care of her, and that some\nacquaintance would be sure to conduct her home.\n\nMr. Gascoigne was already at home, and was writing letters in his\nstudy, when he was interrupted by seeing poor Rex come in with a face\nwhich was not the less handsome and ingratiating for being pale and a\nlittle distressed. He was secretly the favorite son, and a young\nportrait of the father; who, however, never treated him with any\npartiality--rather, with an extra rigor. Mr. Gascoigne having inquired\nof Anna, knew that Rex had gone with Gwendolen to the meet at the Three\nBarns.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" he said hastily, not laying down his pen.\n\n\"I'm very sorry, sir; Primrose has fallen down and broken his knees.\"\n\n\"Where have you been with him?\" said Mr. Gascoigne, with a touch of\nseverity. He rarely gave way to temper.\n\n\"To the Three Barns to see the hounds throw off.\"\n\n\"And you were fool enough to follow?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. I didn't go at any fences, but the horse got his leg into a\nhole.\"\n\n\"And you got hurt yourself, I hope, eh!\"\n\n\"I got my shoulder put out, but a young blacksmith put it in again for\nme. I'm just a little battered, that's all.\"\n\n\"Well, sit down.\"\n\n\"I'm very sorry about the horse, sir; I knew it would be a vexation to\nyou.\"\n\n\"And what has become of Gwendolen?\" said Mr. Gascoigne, abruptly. Rex,\nwho did not imagine that his father had made any inquiries about him,\nanswered at first with a blush, which was the more remarkable for his\nprevious paleness. Then he said, nervously--\n\n\"I am anxious to know--I should like to go or send at once to\nOffendene--but she rides so well, and I think she would keep up--there\nwould most likely be many round her.\"\n\n\"I suppose it was she who led you on, eh?\" said Mr. Gascoigne, laying\ndown his pen, leaning back in his chair, and looking at Rex with more\nmarked examination.\n\n\"It was natural for her to want to go: she didn't intend it\nbeforehand--she was led away by the spirit of the thing. And, of\ncourse, I went when she went.\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne left a brief interval of silence, and then said, with\nquiet irony,--\"But now you observe, young gentleman, that you are not\nfurnished with a horse which will enable you to play the squire to your\ncousin. You must give up that amusement. You have spoiled my nag for\nme, and that is enough mischief for one vacation. I shall beg you to\nget ready to start for Southampton to-morrow and join Stilfox, till you\ngo up to Oxford with him. That will be good for your bruises as well as\nyour studies.\"\n\nPoor Rex felt his heart swelling and comporting itself as if it had\nbeen no better than a girl's.\n\n\"I hope you will not insist on my going immediately, sir.\"\n\n\"Do you feel too ill?\"\n\n\"No, not that--but--\" here Rex bit his lips and felt the tears\nstarting, to his great vexation; then he rallied and tried to say more\nfirmly, \"I want to go to Offendene, but I can go this evening.\"\n\n\"I am going there myself. I can bring word about Gwendolen, if that is\nwhat you want.\"\n\nRex broke down. He thought he discerned an intention fatal to his\nhappiness, nay, his life. He was accustomed to believe in his father's\npenetration, and to expect firmness. \"Father, I can't go away without\ntelling her that I love her, and knowing that she loves me.\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne was inwardly going through some self-rebuke for not being\nmore wary, and was now really sorry for the lad; but every\nconsideration was subordinate to that of using the wisest tactics in\nthe case. He had quickly made up his mind and to answer the more\nquietly--\n\n\"My dear boy, you are too young to be taking momentous, decisive steps\nof that sort. This is a fancy which you have got into your head during\nan idle week or two: you must set to work at something and dismiss it.\nThere is every reason against it. An engagement at your age would be\ntotally rash and unjustifiable; and moreover, alliances between first\ncousins are undesirable. Make up your mind to a brief disappointment.\nLife is full of them. We have all got to be broken in; and this is a\nmild beginning for you.\"\n\n\"No, not mild. I can't bear it. I shall be good for nothing. I\nshouldn't mind anything, if it were settled between us. I could do\nanything then,\" said Rex, impetuously. \"But it's of no use to pretend\nthat I will obey you. I can't do it. If I said I would, I should be\nsure to break my word. I should see Gwendolen again.\"\n\n\"Well, wait till to-morrow morning, that we may talk of the matter\nagain--you will promise me that,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, quietly; and Rex\ndid not, could not refuse.\n\nThe rector did not even tell his wife that he had any other reason for\ngoing to Offendene that evening than his desire to ascertain that\nGwendolen had got home safely. He found her more than safe--elated. Mr.\nQuallon, who had won the brush, had delivered the trophy to her, and\nshe had brought it before her, fastened on the saddle; more than that,\nLord Brackenshaw had conducted her home, and had shown himself\ndelighted with her spirited riding. All this was told at once to her\nuncle, that he might see how well justified she had been in acting\nagainst his advice; and the prudential rector did feel himself in a\nslight difficulty, for at that moment he was particularly sensible that\nit was his niece's serious interest to be well regarded by the\nBrackenshaws, and their opinion as to her following the hounds really\ntouched the essence of his objection. However, he was not obliged to\nsay anything immediately, for Mrs. Davilow followed up Gwendolen's\nbrief triumphant phrases with--\n\n\"Still, I do hope you will not do it again, Gwendolen. I should never\nhave a moment's quiet. Her father died by an accident, you know.\"\n\nHere Mrs. Davilow had turned away from Gwendolen, and looked at Mr.\nGascoigne.\n\n\"Mamma, dear,\" said Gwendolen, kissing her merrily, and passing over\nthe question of the fears which Mrs. Davilow had meant to account for,\n\"children don't take after their parents in broken legs.\"\n\nNot one word had yet been said about Rex. In fact there had been no\nanxiety about him at Offendene. Gwendolen had observed to her mamma,\n\"Oh, he must have been left far behind, and gone home in despair,\" and\nit could not be denied that this was fortunate so far as it made way\nfor Lord Brackenshaw's bringing her home. But now Mr. Gascoigne said,\nwith some emphasis, looking at Gwendolen--\n\n\"Well, the exploit has ended better for you than for Rex.\"\n\n\"Yes, I dare say he had to make a terrible round. You have not taught\nPrimrose to take the fences, uncle,\" said Gwendolen, without the\nfaintest shade of alarm in her looks and tone.\n\n\"Rex has had a fall,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, curtly, throwing himself into\nan arm-chair resting his elbows and fitting his palms and fingers\ntogether, while he closed his lips and looked at Gwendolen, who said--\n\n\"Oh, poor fellow! he is not hurt, I hope?\" with a correct look of\nanxiety such as elated mortals try to super-induce when their pulses\nare all the while quick with triumph; and Mrs. Davilow, in the same\nmoment, uttered a low \"Good heavens! There!\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne went on: \"He put his shoulder out, and got some bruises,\nI believe.\" Here he made another little pause of observation; but\nGwendolen, instead of any such symptoms as pallor and silence, had only\ndeepened the compassionateness of her brow and eyes, and said again,\n\"Oh, poor fellow! it is nothing serious, then?\" and Mr. Gascoigne held\nhis diagnosis complete. But he wished to make assurance doubly sure,\nand went on still with a purpose.\n\n\"He got his arm set again rather oddly. Some blacksmith--not a\nparishioner of mine--was on the field--a loose fish, I suppose, but\nhandy, and set the arm for him immediately. So after all, I believe, I\nand Primrose come off worst. The horse's knees are cut to pieces. He\ncame down in a hole, it seems, and pitched Rex over his head.\"\n\nGwendolen's face had allowably become contented again, since Rex's arm\nhad been reset; and now, at the descriptive suggestions in the latter\npart of her uncle's speech, her elated spirits made her features less\nunmanageable than usual; the smiles broke forth, and finally a\ndescending scale of laughter.\n\n\"You are a pretty young lady--to laugh at other people's calamities,\"\nsaid Mr. Gascoigne, with a milder sense of disapprobation than if he\nhad not had counteracting reasons to be glad that Gwendolen showed no\ndeep feeling on the occasion.\n\n\"Pray forgive me, uncle. Now Rex is safe, it is so droll to fancy the\nfigure he and Primrose would cut--in a lane all by themselves--only a\nblacksmith running up. It would make a capital caricature of 'Following\nthe Hounds.'\"\n\nGwendolen rather valued herself on her superior freedom in laughing\nwhere others might only see matter for seriousness. Indeed, the\nlaughter became her person so well that her opinion of its gracefulness\nwas often shared by others; and it even entered into her uncle's course\nof thought at this moment, that it was no wonder a boy should be\nfascinated by this young witch--who, however, was more mischievous than\ncould be desired.\n\n\"How can you laugh at broken bones, child?\" said Mrs. Davilow, still\nunder her dominant anxiety. \"I wish we had never allowed you to have\nthe horse. You will see that we were wrong,\" she added, looking with a\ngrave nod at Mr. Gascoigne--\"at least I was, to encourage her in asking\nfor it.\"\n\n\"Yes, seriously, Gwendolen,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, in a judicious tone of\nrational advice to a person understood to be altogether rational, \"I\nstrongly recommend you--I shall ask you to oblige me so far--not to\nrepeat your adventure of to-day. Lord Brackenshaw is very kind, but I\nfeel sure that he would concur with me in what I say. To be spoken of\nas 'the young lady who hunts' by way of exception, would give a tone to\nthe language about you which I am sure you would not like. Depend upon\nit, his lordship would not choose that Lady Beatrice or Lady Maria\nshould hunt in this part of the country, if they were old enough to do\nso. When you are married, it will be different: you may do whatever\nyour husband sanctions. But if you intend to hunt, you must marry a man\nwho can keep horses.\"\n\n\"I don't know why I should do anything so horrible as to marry without\n_that_ prospect, at least,\" said Gwendolen, pettishly. Her uncle's\nspeech had given her annoyance, which she could not show more directly;\nbut she felt that she was committing herself, and after moving\ncarelessly to another part of the room, went out.\n\n\"She always speaks in that way about marriage,\" said Mrs. Davilow; \"but\nit will be different when she has seen the right person.\"\n\n\"Her heart has never been in the least touched, that you know of?\" said\nMr. Gascoigne.\n\nMrs. Davilow shook her head silently. \"It was only last night she said\nto me, 'Mamma, I wonder how girls manage to fall in love. It is easy to\nmake them do it in books. But men are too ridiculous.'\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne laughed a little, and made no further remark on the\nsubject. The next morning at breakfast he said--\n\n\"How are your bruises, Rex?\"\n\n\"Oh, not very mellow yet, sir; only beginning to turn a little.\"\n\n\"You don't feel quite ready for a journey to Southampton?\"\n\n\"Not quite,\" answered Rex, with his heart metaphorically in his mouth.\n\n\"Well, you can wait till to-morrow, and go to say goodbye to them at\nOffendene.\"\n\nMrs. Gascoigne, who now knew the whole affair, looked steadily at her\ncoffee lest she also should begin to cry, as Anna was doing already.\n\nMr. Gascoigne felt that he was applying a sharp remedy to poor Rex's\nacute attack, but he believed it to be in the end the kindest. To let\nhim know the hopelessness of his love from Gwendolen's own lips might\nbe curative in more ways than one.\n\n\"I can only be thankful that she doesn't care about him,\" said Mrs.\nGascoigne, when she joined her husband in his study. \"There are things\nin Gwendolen I cannot reconcile myself to. My Anna is worth two of her,\nwith all her beauty and talent. It looks very ill in her that she will\nnot help in the schools with Anna--not even in the Sunday-school. What\nyou or I advise is of no consequence to her: and poor Fannie is\ncompletely under her thumb. But I know you think better of her,\" Mrs.\nGascoigne ended with a deferential hesitation.\n\n\"Oh, my dear, there is no harm in the girl. It is only that she has a\nhigh spirit, and it will not do to hold the reins too tight. The point\nis, to get her well married. She has a little too much fire in her for\nher present life with her mother and sisters. It is natural and right\nthat she should be married soon--not to a poor man, but one who can\ngive her a fitting position.\"\n\nPresently Rex, with his arm in a sling, was on his two miles' walk to\nOffendene. He was rather puzzled by the unconditional permission to see\nGwendolen, but his father's real ground of action could not enter into\nhis conjectures. If it had, he would first have thought it horribly\ncold-blooded, and then have disbelieved in his father's conclusions.\n\nWhen he got to the house, everybody was there but Gwendolen. The four\ngirls, hearing him speak in the hall, rushed out of the library, which\nwas their school-room, and hung round him with compassionate inquiries\nabout his arm. Mrs. Davilow wanted to know exactly what had happened,\nand where the blacksmith lived, that she might make him a present;\nwhile Miss Merry, who took a subdued and melancholy part in all family\naffairs, doubted whether it would not be giving too much encouragement\nto that kind of character. Rex had never found the family troublesome\nbefore, but just now he wished them all away and Gwendolen there, and\nhe was too uneasy for good-natured feigning. When at last he had said,\n\"Where is Gwendolen?\" and Mrs. Davilow had told Alice to go and see if\nher sister were come down, adding, \"I sent up her breakfast this\nmorning. She needed a long rest.\" Rex took the shortest way out of his\nendurance by saying, almost impatiently, \"Aunt, I want to speak to\nGwendolen--I want to see her alone.\"\n\n\"Very well, dear; go into the drawing-room. I will send her there,\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, who had observed that he was fond of being with\nGwendolen, as was natural, but had not thought of this as having any\nbearing on the realities of life: it seemed merely part of the\nChristmas holidays which were spinning themselves out.\n\nRex for his part thought that the realities of life were all hanging on\nthis interview. He had to walk up and down the drawing-room in\nexpectation for nearly ten minutes--ample space for all imaginative\nfluctuations; yet, strange to say, he was unvaryingly occupied in\nthinking what and how much he could do, when Gwendolen had accepted\nhim, to satisfy his father that the engagement was the most prudent\nthing in the world, since it inspired him with double energy for work.\nHe was to be a lawyer, and what reason was there why he should not rise\nas high as Eldon did? He was forced to look at life in the light of his\nfather's mind.\n\nBut when the door opened and she whose presence he was longing for\nentered, there came over him suddenly and mysteriously a state of\ntremor and distrust which he had never felt before. Miss Gwendolen,\nsimple as she stood there, in her black silk, cut square about the\nround white pillar of her throat, a black band fastening her hair which\nstreamed backward in smooth silky abundance, seemed more queenly than\nusual. Perhaps it was that there was none of the latent fun and\ntricksiness which had always pierced in her greeting of Rex. How much\nof this was due to her presentiment from what he had said yesterday\nthat he was going to talk of love? How much from her desire to show\nregret about his accident? Something of both. But the wisdom of ages\nhas hinted that there is a side of the bed which has a malign influence\nif you happen to get out on it; and this accident befalls some charming\npersons rather frequently. Perhaps it had befallen Gwendolen this\nmorning. The hastening of her toilet, the way in which Bugle used the\nbrush, the quality of the shilling serial mistakenly written for her\namusement, the probabilities of the coming day, and, in short, social\ninstitutions generally, were all objectionable to her. It was not that\nshe was out of temper, but that the world was not equal to the demands\nof her fine organism.\n\nHowever it might be, Rex saw an awful majesty about her as she entered\nand put out her hand to him, without the least approach to a smile in\neyes or mouth. The fun which had moved her in the evening had quite\nevaporated from the image of his accident, and the whole affair seemed\nstupid to her. But she said with perfect propriety, \"I hope you are not\nmuch hurt, Rex; I deserve that you should reproach me for your\naccident.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Rex, feeling the soul within him spreading itself\nlike an attack of illness. \"There is hardly any thing the matter with\nme. I am so glad you had the pleasure: I would willingly pay for it by\na tumble, only I was sorry to break the horse's knees.\"\n\nGwendolen walked to the hearth and stood looking at the fire in the\nmost inconvenient way for conversation, so that he could only get a\nside view of her face.\n\n\"My father wants me to go to Southampton for the rest of the vacation,\"\nsaid Rex, his baritone trembling a little.\n\n\"Southampton! That's a stupid place to go to, isn't it?\" said\nGwendolen, chilly.\n\n\"It would be to me, because you would not be there.\" Silence.\n\n\"Should you mind about me going away, Gwendolen?\"\n\n\"Of course. Every one is of consequence in this dreary country,\" said\nGwendolen, curtly. The perception that poor Rex wanted to be tender\nmade her curl up and harden like a sea-anemone at the touch of a finger.\n\n\"Are you angry with me, Gwendolen? Why do you treat me in this way all\nat once?\" said Rex, flushing, and with more spirit in his voice, as if\nhe too were capable of being angry.\n\nGwendolen looked round at him and smiled. \"Treat you? Nonsense! I am\nonly rather cross. Why did you come so very early? You must expect to\nfind tempers in dishabille.\"\n\n\"Be as cross with me as you like--only don't treat me with\nindifference,\" said Rex, imploringly. \"All the happiness of my life\ndepends on your loving me--if only a little--better than any one else.\"\n\nHe tried to take her hand, but she hastily eluded his grasp and moved\nto the other end of the hearth, facing him.\n\n\"Pray don't make love to me! I hate it!\" she looked at him fiercely.\n\nRex turned pale and was silent, but could not take his eyes off her,\nand the impetus was not yet exhausted that made hers dart death at him.\nGwendolen herself could not have foreseen that she should feel in this\nway. It was all a sudden, new experience to her. The day before she had\nbeen quite aware that her cousin was in love with her; she did not mind\nhow much, so that he said nothing about it; and if any one had asked\nher why she objected to love-making speeches, she would have said,\nlaughingly, \"Oh I am tired of them all in the books.\" But now the life\nof passion had begun negatively in her. She felt passionately averse to\nthis volunteered love.\n\nTo Rex at twenty the joy of life seemed at an end more absolutely than\nit can do to a man at forty. But before they had ceased to look at each\nother, he did speak again.\n\n\"Is that last word you have to say to me, Gwendolen? Will it always be\nso?\"\n\nShe could not help seeing his wretchedness and feeling a little regret\nfor the old Rex who had not offended her. Decisively, but yet with some\nreturn of kindness, she said--\n\n\"About making love? Yes. But I don't dislike you for anything else.\"\n\nThere was just a perceptible pause before he said a low \"good-bye.\" and\npassed out of the room. Almost immediately after, she heard the heavy\nhall door bang behind him.\n\nMrs. Davilow, too, had heard Rex's hasty departure, and presently came\ninto the drawing-room, where she found Gwendolen seated on the low\ncouch, her face buried, and her hair falling over her figure like a\ngarment. She was sobbing bitterly. \"My child, my child, what is it?\"\ncried the mother, who had never before seen her darling struck down in\nthis way, and felt something of the alarmed anguish that women, feel at\nthe sight of overpowering sorrow in a strong man; for this child had\nbeen her ruler. Sitting down by her with circling arms, she pressed her\ncheek against Gwendolen's head, and then tried to draw it upward.\nGwendolen gave way, and letting her head rest against her mother, cried\nout sobbingly, \"Oh, mamma, what can become of my life? there is nothing\nworth living for!\"\n\n\"Why, dear?\" said Mrs. Davilow. Usually she herself had been rebuked by\nher daughter for involuntary signs of despair.\n\n\"I shall never love anybody. I can't love people. I hate them.\"\n\n\"The time will come, dear, the time will come.\"\n\nGwendolen was more and more convulsed with sobbing; but putting her\narms round her mother's neck with an almost painful clinging, she said\nbrokenly, \"I can't bear any one to be very near me but you.\"\n\nThen the mother began to sob, for this spoiled child had never shown\nsuch dependence on her before: and so they clung to each other.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII.\n\n  What name doth Joy most borrow\n  When life is fair?\n                    \"To-morrow.\"\n  What name doth best fit Sorrow\n  In young despair?\n                    \"To-morrow.\"\n\n\nThere was a much more lasting trouble at the rectory. Rex arrived there\nonly to throw himself on his bed in a state of apparent apathy,\nunbroken till the next day, when it began to be interrupted by more\npositive signs of illness. Nothing could be said about his going to\nSouthampton: instead of that, the chief thought of his mother and Anna\nwas how to tend this patient who did not want to be well, and from\nbeing the brightest, most grateful spirit in the household, was\nmetamorphosed into an irresponsive, dull-eyed creature who met all\naffectionate attempts with a murmur of \"Let me alone.\" His father\nlooked beyond the crisis, and believed it to be the shortest way out of\nan unlucky affair; but he was sorry for the inevitable suffering, and\nwent now and then to sit by him in silence for a few minutes, parting\nwith a gentle pressure of his hand on Rex's blank brow, and a \"God\nbless you, my boy.\" Warham and the younger children used to peep round\nthe edge of the door to see this incredible thing of their lively\nbrother being laid low; but fingers were immediately shaken at them to\ndrive them back. The guardian who was always there was Anna, and her\nlittle hand was allowed to rest within her brother's, though he never\ngave it a welcoming pressure. Her soul was divided between anguish for\nRex and reproach of Gwendolen.\n\n\"Perhaps it is wicked of me, but I think I never _can_ love her again,\"\ncame as the recurrent burden of poor little Anna's inward monody. And\neven Mrs. Gascoigne had an angry feeling toward her niece which she\ncould not refrain from expressing (apologetically) to her husband.\n\n\"I know of course it is better, and we ought to be thankful that she is\nnot in love with the poor boy; but really. Henry, I think she is hard;\nshe has the heart of a coquette. I can not help thinking that she must\nhave made him believe something, or the disappointment would not have\ntaken hold of him in that way. And some blame attaches to poor Fanny;\nshe is quite blind about that girl.\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne answered imperatively: \"The less said on that point the\nbetter, Nancy. I ought to have been more awake myself. As to the boy,\nbe thankful if nothing worse ever happens to him. Let the thing die out\nas quickly as possible; and especially with regard to Gwendolen--let it\nbe as if it had never been.\"\n\nThe rector's dominant feeling was that there had been a great escape.\nGwendolen in love with Rex in return would have made a much harder\nproblem, the solution of which might have been taken out of his hands.\nBut he had to go through some further difficulty.\n\nOne fine morning Rex asked for his bath, and made his toilet as usual.\nAnna, full of excitement at this change, could do nothing but listen\nfor his coming down, and at last hearing his step, ran to the foot of\nthe stairs to meet him. For the first time he gave her a faint smile,\nbut it looked so melancholy on his pale face that she could hardly help\ncrying.\n\n\"Nannie!\" he said gently, taking her hand and leading her slowly along\nwith him to the drawing-room. His mother was there, and when she came\nto kiss him, he said: \"What a plague I am!\"\n\nThen he sat still and looked out of the bow-window on the lawn and\nshrubs covered with hoar-frost, across which the sun was sending faint\noccasional gleams:--something like that sad smile on Rex's face, Anna\nthought. He felt as if he had had a resurrection into a new world, and\ndid not know what to do with himself there, the old interests being\nleft behind. Anna sat near him, pretending to work, but really watching\nhim with yearning looks. Beyond the garden hedge there was a road where\nwagons and carts sometimes went on field-work: a railed opening was\nmade in the hedge, because the upland with its bordering wood and clump\nof ash-trees against the sky was a pretty sight. Presently there came\nalong a wagon laden with timber; the horses were straining their grand\nmuscles, and the driver having cracked his whip, ran along anxiously to\nguide the leader's head, fearing a swerve. Rex seemed to be shaken into\nattention, rose and looked till the last quivering trunk of the timber\nhad disappeared, and then walked once or twice along the room. Mrs.\nGascoigne was no longer there, and when he came to sit down again,\nAnna, seeing a return of speech in her brother's eyes, could not resist\nthe impulse to bring a little stool and seat herself against his knee,\nlooking up at him with an expression which seemed to say, \"Do speak to\nme.\" And he spoke.\n\n\"I'll tell you what I'm thinking of, Nannie. I will go to Canada, or\nsomewhere of that sort.\" (Rex had not studied the character of our\ncolonial possessions.)\n\n\"Oh, Rex, not for always!\"\n\n\"Yes, to get my bread there. I should like to build a hut, and work\nhard at clearing, and have everything wild about me, and a great wide\nquiet.\"\n\n\"And not take me with you?\" said Anna, the big tears coming fast.\n\n\"How could I?\"\n\n\"I should like it better than anything; and settlers go with their\nfamilies. I would sooner go there than stay here in England. I could\nmake the fires, and mend the clothes, and cook the food; and I could\nlearn how to make the bread before we went. It would be nicer than\nanything--like playing at life over again, as we used to do when we\nmade our tent with the drugget, and had our little plates and dishes.\"\n\n\"Father and mother would not let you go.\"\n\n\"Yes, I think they would, when I explained everything. It would save\nmoney; and papa would have more to bring up the boys with.\"\n\nThere was further talk of the same practical kind at intervals, and it\nended in Rex's being obliged to consent that Anna should go with him\nwhen he spoke to his father on the subject.\n\nOf course it was when the rector was alone in his study. Their mother\nwould become reconciled to whatever he decided on, but mentioned to her\nfirst, the question would have distressed her.\n\n\"Well, my children!\" said Mr. Gascoigne, cheerfully, as they entered.\nIt was a comfort to see Rex about again.\n\n\"May we sit down with you a little, papa?\" said Anna. \"Rex has\nsomething to say.\"\n\n\"With all my heart.\"\n\nIt was a noticeable group that these three creatures made, each of them\nwith a face of the same structural type--the straight brow, the nose\nsuddenly straightened from an intention of being aquiline, the short\nupper lip, the short but strong and well-hung chin: there was even the\nsame tone of complexion and set of the eye. The gray-haired father was\nat once massive and keen-looking; there was a perpendicular line in his\nbrow which when he spoke with any force of interest deepened; and the\nhabit of ruling gave him an air of reserved authoritativeness. Rex\nwould have seemed a vision of his father's youth, if it had been\npossible to imagine Mr. Gascoigne without distinct plans and without\ncommand, smitten with a heart sorrow, and having no more notion of\nconcealment than a sick animal; and Anna was a tiny copy of Rex, with\nhair drawn back and knotted, her face following his in its changes of\nexpression, as if they had one soul between them.\n\n\"You know all about what has upset me, father,\" Rex began, and Mr.\nGascoigne nodded.\n\n\"I am quite done up for life in this part of the world. I am sure it\nwill be no use my going back to Oxford. I couldn't do any reading. I\nshould fail, and cause you expense for nothing. I want to have your\nconsent to take another course, sir.\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne nodded more slowly, the perpendicular line on his brow\ndeepened, and Anna's trembling increased.\n\n\"If you would allow me a small outfit, I should like to go to the\ncolonies and work on the land there.\" Rex thought the vagueness of the\nphrase prudential; \"the colonies\" necessarily embracing more\nadvantages, and being less capable of being rebutted on a single ground\nthan any particular settlement.\n\n\"Oh, and with me, papa,\" said Anna, not bearing to be left out from the\nproposal even temporarily. \"Rex would want some one to take care of\nhim, you know--some one to keep house. And we shall never, either of\nus, be married. And I should cost nothing, and I should be so happy. I\nknow it would be hard to leave you and mamma; but there are all the\nothers to bring up, and we two should be no trouble to you any more.\"\n\nAnna had risen from her seat, and used the feminine argument of going\ncloser to her papa as she spoke. He did not smile, but he drew her on\nhis knee and held her there, as if to put her gently out of the\nquestion while he spoke to Rex.\n\n\"You will admit that my experience gives me some power of judging for\nyou, and that I can probably guide you in practical matters better than\nyou can guide yourself?\"\n\nRex was obliged to say, \"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"And perhaps you will admit--though I don't wish to press that\npoint--that you are bound in duty to consider my judgment and wishes?\"\n\n\"I have never yet placed myself in opposition to you, sir.\" Rex in his\nsecret soul could not feel that he was bound not to go to the colonies,\nbut to go to Oxford again--which was the point in question.\n\n\"But you will do so if you persist in setting your mind toward a rash\nand foolish procedure, and deafening yourself to considerations which\nmy experience of life assures me of. You think, I suppose, that you\nhave had a shock which has changed all your inclinations, stupefied\nyour brains, unfitted you for anything but manual labor, and given you\na dislike to society? Is that what you believe?\"\n\n\"Something like that. I shall never be up to the sort of work I must do\nto live in this part of the world. I have not the spirit for it. I\nshall never be the same again. And without any disrespect to you,\nfather, I think a young fellow should be allowed to choose his way of\nlife, if he does nobody any harm. There are plenty to stay at home, and\nthose who like might be allowed to go where there are empty places.\"\n\n\"But suppose I am convinced on good evidence--as I am--that this state\nof mind of yours is transient, and that if you went off as you propose,\nyou would by-and-by repent, and feel that you had let yourself slip\nback from the point you have been gaining by your education till now?\nHave you not strength of mind enough to see that you had better act on\nmy assurance for a time, and test it? In my opinion, so far from\nagreeing with you that you should be free to turn yourself into a\ncolonist and work in your shirt-sleeves with spade and hatchet--in my\nopinion you have no right whatever to expatriate yourself until you\nhave honestly endeavored to turn to account the education you have\nreceived here. I say nothing of the grief to your mother and me.\"\n\n\"I'm very sorry; but what can I do? I can't study--that's certain,\"\nsaid Rex.\n\n\"Not just now, perhaps. You will have to miss a term. I have made\narrangements for you--how you are to spend the next two months. But I\nconfess I am disappointed in you, Rex. I thought you had more sense\nthan to take up such ideas--to suppose that because you have fallen\ninto a very common trouble, such as most men have to go through, you\nare loosened from all bonds of duty--just as if your brain had softened\nand you were no longer a responsible being.\"\n\nWhat could Rex say? Inwardly he was in a state of rebellion, but he had\nno arguments to meet his father's; and while he was feeling, in spite\nof any thing that might be said, that he should like to go off to \"the\ncolonies\" to-morrow, it lay in a deep fold of his consciousness that he\nought to feel--if he had been a better fellow he would have felt--more\nabout his old ties. This is the sort of faith we live by in our soul\nsicknesses.\n\nRex got up from his seat, as if he held the conference to be at an end.\n\"You assent to my arrangement, then?\" said Mr. Gascoigne, with that\ndistinct resolution of tone which seems to hold one in a vise.\n\nThere was a little pause before Rex answered, \"I'll try what I can do,\nsir. I can't promise.\" His thought was, that trying would be of no use.\n\nHer father kept Anna, holding her fast, though she wanted to follow\nRex. \"Oh, papa,\" she said, the tears coming with her words when the\ndoor had closed; \"it is very hard for him. Doesn't he look ill?\"\n\n\"Yes, but he will soon be better; it will all blow over. And now, Anna,\nbe as quiet as a mouse about it all. Never let it be mentioned when he\nis gone.\"\n\n\"No, papa. But I would not be like Gwendolen for any thing--to have\npeople fall in love with me so. It is very dreadful.\"\n\nAnna dared not say that she was disappointed at not being allowed to go\nto the colonies with Rex; but that was her secret feeling, and she\noften afterward went inwardly over the whole affair, saying to herself,\n\"I should have done with going out, and gloves, and crinoline, and\nhaving to talk when I am taken to dinner--and all that!\"\n\nI like to mark the time, and connect the course of individual lives\nwith the historic stream, for all classes of thinkers. This was the\nperiod when the broadening of gauge in crinolines seemed to demand an\nagitation for the general enlargement of churches, ball-rooms, and\nvehicles. But Anna Gascoigne's figure would only allow the size of\nskirt manufactured for young ladies of fourteen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX.\n\n  I'll tell thee, Berthold, what men's hopes are like:\n  A silly child that, quivering with joy,\n  Would cast its little mimic fishing-line\n  Baited with loadstone for a bowl of toys\n  In the salt ocean.\n\n\nEight months after the arrival of the family at Offendene, that is to\nsay in the end of the following June, a rumor was spread in the\nneighborhood which to many persons was matter of exciting interest. It\nhad no reference to the results of the American war, but it was one\nwhich touched all classes within a certain circuit round Wanchester:\nthe corn-factors, the brewers, the horse-dealers, and saddlers, all\nheld it a laudable thing, and one which was to be rejoiced in on\nabstract grounds, as showing the value of an aristocracy in a free\ncountry like England; the blacksmith in the hamlet of Diplow felt that\na good time had come round; the wives of laboring men hoped their\nnimble boys of ten or twelve would be taken into employ by the\ngentlemen in livery; and the farmers about Diplow admitted, with a\ntincture of bitterness and reserve that a man might now again perhaps\nhave an easier market or exchange for a rick of old hay or a wagon-load\nof straw. If such were the hopes of low persons not in society, it may\nbe easily inferred that their betters had better reasons for\nsatisfaction, probably connected with the pleasures of life rather than\nits business. Marriage, however, must be considered as coming under\nboth heads; and just as when a visit of majesty is announced, the dream\nof knighthood or a baronetcy is to be found under various municipal\nnightcaps, so the news in question raised a floating indeterminate\nvision of marriage in several well-bred imaginations.\n\nThe news was that Diplow Hall, Sir Hugo Mallinger's place, which had\nfor a couple of years turned its white window-shutters in a painfully\nwall-eyed manner on its fine elms and beeches, its lilied pool and\ngrassy acres specked with deer, was being prepared for a tenant, and\nwas for the rest of the summer and through the hunting season to be\ninhabited in a fitting style both as to house and stable. But not by\nSir Hugo himself: by his nephew, Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt, who was\npresumptive heir to the baronetcy, his uncle's marriage having produced\nnothing but girls. Nor was this the only contingency with which fortune\nflattered young Grandcourt, as he was pleasantly called; for while the\nchance of the baronetcy came through his father, his mother had given a\nbaronial streak to his blood, so that if certain intervening persons\nslightly painted in the middle distance died, he would become a baron\nand peer of this realm.\n\nIt is the uneven allotment of nature that the male bird alone has the\ntuft, but we have not yet followed the advice of hasty philosophers who\nwould have us copy nature entirely in these matters; and if Mr.\nMallinger Grandcourt became a baronet or a peer, his wife would share\nthe title--which in addition to his actual fortune was certainly a\nreason why that wife, being at present unchosen, should be thought of\nby more than one person with a sympathetic interest as a woman sure to\nbe well provided for.\n\nSome readers of this history will doubtless regard it as incredible\nthat people should construct matrimonial prospects on the mere report\nthat a bachelor of good fortune and possibilities was coming within\nreach, and will reject the statement as a mere outflow of gall: they\nwill aver that neither they nor their first cousins have minds so\nunbridled; and that in fact this is not human nature, which would know\nthat such speculations might turn out to be fallacious, and would\ntherefore not entertain them. But, let it be observed, nothing is here\nnarrated of human nature generally: the history in its present stage\nconcerns only a few people in a corner of Wessex--whose reputation,\nhowever, was unimpeached, and who, I am in the proud position of being\nable to state, were all on visiting terms with persons of rank.\n\nThere were the Arrowpoints, for example, in their beautiful place at\nQuetcham: no one could attribute sordid views in relation to their\ndaughter's marriage to parents who could leave her at least half a\nmillion; but having affectionate anxieties about their Catherine's\nposition (she having resolutely refused Lord Slogan, an unexceptionable\nIrish peer, whose estate wanted nothing but drainage and population),\nthey wondered, perhaps from something more than a charitable impulse,\nwhether Mr. Grandcourt was good-looking, of sound constitution,\nvirtuous, or at least reformed, and if liberal-conservative, not too\nliberal-conservative; and without wishing anybody to die, thought his\nsuccession to the title an event to be desired.\n\nIf the Arrowpoints had such ruminations, it is the less surprising that\nthey were stimulated in Mr. Gascoigne, who for being a clergyman was\nnot the less subject to the anxieties of a parent and guardian; and we\nhave seen how both he and Mrs. Gascoigne might by this time have come\nto feel that he was overcharged with the management of young creatures\nwho were hardly to be held in with bit or bridle, or any sort of\nmetaphor that would stand for judicious advice.\n\nNaturally, people did not tell each other all they felt and thought\nabout young Grandcourt's advent: on no subject is this openness found\nprudently practicable--not even on the generation of acids, or the\ndestination of the fixed stars: for either your contemporary with a\nmind turned toward the same subjects may find your ideas ingenious and\nforestall you in applying them, or he may have other views on acids and\nfixed stars, and think ill of you in consequence. Mr. Gascoigne did not\nask Mr. Arrowpoint if he had any trustworthy source of information\nabout Grandcourt considered as a husband for a charming girl; nor did\nMrs. Arrowpoint observe to Mrs. Davilow that if the possible peer\nsought a wife in the neighborhood of Diplow, the only reasonable\nexpectation was that he would offer his hand to Catherine, who,\nhowever, would not accept him unless he were in all respects fitted to\nsecure her happiness. Indeed, even to his wife the rector was silent as\nto the contemplation of any matrimonial result, from the probability\nthat Mr. Grandcourt would see Gwendolen at the next Archery Meeting;\nthough Mrs. Gascoigne's mind was very likely still more active in the\nsame direction. She had said interjectionally to her sister, \"It would\nbe a mercy, Fanny, if that girl were well married!\" to which Mrs.\nDavilow discerning some criticism of her darling in the fervor of that\nwish, had not chosen to make any audible reply, though she had said\ninwardly, \"You will not get her to marry for your pleasure\"; the mild\nmother becoming rather saucy when she identified herself with her\ndaughter.\n\nTo her husband Mrs. Gascoigne said, \"I hear Mr. Grandcourt has got two\nplaces of his own, but he comes to Diplow for the hunting. It is to be\nhoped he will set a good example in the neighborhood. Have you heard\nwhat sort of a young man he is, Henry?\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne had not heard; at least, if his male acquaintances had\ngossiped in his hearing, he was not disposed to repeat their gossip, or\nto give it any emphasis in his own mind. He held it futile, even if it\nhad been becoming, to show any curiosity as to the past of a young man\nwhose birth, wealth, and consequent leisure made many habits venial\nwhich under other circumstances would have been inexcusable. Whatever\nGrandcourt had done, he had not ruined himself; and it is well-known\nthat in gambling, for example, whether of the business or holiday sort,\na man who has the strength of mind to leave off when he has only ruined\nothers, is a reformed character. This is an illustration merely: Mr.\nGascoigne had not heard that Grandcourt had been a gambler; and we can\nhardly pronounce him singular in feeling that a landed proprietor with\na mixture of noble blood in his veins was not to be an object of\nsuspicious inquiry like a reformed character who offers himself as your\nbutler or footman. Reformation, where a man can afford to do without\nit, can hardly be other than genuine. Moreover, it was not certain on\nany other showing hitherto, that Mr. Grandcourt had needed reformation\nmore than other young men in the ripe youth of five-and-thirty; and, at\nany rate, the significance of what he had been must be determined by\nwhat he actually was.\n\nMrs. Davilow, too, although she would not respond to her sister's\npregnant remark, could not be inwardly indifferent to an advent that\nmight promise a brilliant lot for Gwendolen. A little speculation on\n\"what may be\" comes naturally, without encouragement--comes inevitably\nin the form of images, when unknown persons are mentioned; and Mr.\nGrandcourt's name raised in Mrs. Davilow's mind first of all the\npicture of a handsome, accomplished, excellent young man whom she would\nbe satisfied with as a husband for her daughter; but then came the\nfurther speculation--would Gwendolen be satisfied with him? There was\nno knowing what would meet that girl's taste or touch her\naffections--it might be something else than excellence; and thus the\nimage of the perfect suitor gave way before a fluctuating combination\nof qualities that might be imagined to win Gwendolen's heart. In the\ndifficulty of arriving at the particular combination which would insure\nthat result, the mother even said to herself, \"It would not signify\nabout her being in love, if she would only accept the right person.\"\nFor whatever marriage had been for herself, how could she the less\ndesire it for her daughter? The difference her own misfortunes made\nwas, that she never dared to dwell much to Gwendolen on the\ndesirableness of marriage, dreading an answer something like that of\nthe future Madame Roland, when her gentle mother urging the acceptance\nof a suitor, said, \"Tu seras heureuse, ma chère.\" \"Oui, maman, comme\ntoi.\"\n\nIn relation to the problematic Mr. Grandcourt least of all would Mrs.\nDavilow have willingly let fall a hint of the aerial castle-building\nwhich she had the good taste to be ashamed of; for such a hint was\nlikely enough to give an adverse poise to Gwendolen's own thought, and\nmake her detest the desirable husband beforehand. Since that scene\nafter poor Rex's farewell visit, the mother had felt a new sense of\nperil in touching the mystery of her child's feeling, and in rashly\ndetermining what was her welfare: only she could think of welfare in no\nother shape than marriage.\n\nThe discussion of the dress that Gwendolen was to wear at the Archery\nMeeting was a relevant topic, however; and when it had been decided\nthat as a touch of color on her white cashmere, nothing, for her\ncomplexion, was comparable to pale green--a feather which she was\ntrying in her hat before the looking-glass having settled the\nquestion--Mrs. Davilow felt her ears tingle when Gwendolen, suddenly\nthrowing herself into the attitude of drawing her bow, said with a look\nof comic enjoyment--\n\n\"How I pity all the other girls at the Archery Meeting--all thinking of\nMr. Grandcourt! And they have not a shadow of a chance.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow had not the presence of mind to answer immediately, and\nGwendolen turned round quickly toward her, saying, wickedly--\n\n\"Now you know they have not, mamma. You and my uncle and aunt--you all\nintend him to fall in love with me.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow, piqued into a little stratagem, said, \"Oh, my, dear, that\nis not so certain. Miss Arrowpoint has charms which you have not.\"\n\n\"I know, but they demand thought. My arrow will pierce him before he\nhas time for thought. He will declare himself my slave--I shall send\nhim round the world to bring me back the wedding ring of a happy\nwoman--in the meantime all the men who are between him and the title\nwill die of different diseases--he will come back Lord Grandcourt--but\nwithout the ring--and fall at my feet. I shall laugh at him--he will\nrise in resentment--I shall laugh more--he will call for his steed and\nride to Quetcham, where he will find Miss Arrowpoint just married to a\nneedy musician, Mrs. Arrowpoint tearing her cap off, and Mr. Arrowpoint\nstanding by. Exit Lord Grandcourt, who returns to Diplow, and, like M.\nJabot, _change de linge_.\"\n\nWas ever any young witch like this? You thought of hiding things from\nher--sat upon your secret and looked innocent, and all the while she\nknew by the corner of your eye that it was exactly five pounds ten you\nwere sitting on! As well turn the key to keep out the damp! It was\nprobable that by dint of divination she already knew more than any one\nelse did of Mr. Grandcourt. That idea in Mrs. Davilow's mind prompted\nthe sort of question which often comes without any other apparent\nreason than the faculty of speech and the not knowing what to do with\nit.\n\n\"Why, what kind of a man do you imagine him to be, Gwendolen?\"\n\n\"Let me see!\" said the witch, putting her forefinger to her lips, with\na little frown, and then stretching out the finger with decision.\n\"Short--just above my shoulder--crying to make himself tall by turning\nup his mustache and keeping his beard long--a glass in his right eye to\ngive him an air of distinction--a strong opinion about his waistcoat,\nbut uncertain and trimming about the weather, on which he will try to\ndraw me out. He will stare at me all the while, and the glass in his\neye will cause him to make horrible faces, especially when he smiles in\na flattering way. I shall cast down my eyes in consequence, and he will\nperceive that I am not indifferent to his attentions. I shall dream\nthat night that I am looking at the extraordinary face of a magnified\ninsect--and the next morning he will make an offer of his hand; the\nsequel as before.\"\n\n\"That is a portrait of some one you have seen already, Gwen. Mr.\nGrandcourt may be a delightful young man for what you know.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Gwendolen, with a high note of careless admission,\ntaking off her best hat and turning it round on her hand\ncontemplatively. \"I wonder what sort of behavior a delightful young man\nwould have? I know he would have hunters and racers, and a London house\nand two country-houses--one with battlements and another with a\nveranda. And I feel sure that with a little murdering he might get a\ntitle.\"\n\nThe irony of this speech was of the doubtful sort that has some genuine\nbelief mixed up with it. Poor Mrs. Davilow felt uncomfortable under it.\nHer own meanings being usually literal and in intention innocent; and\nshe said with a distressed brow:\n\n\"Don't talk in that way, child, for heaven's sake! you do read such\nbooks--they give you such ideas of everything. I declare when your aunt\nand I were your age we knew nothing about wickedness. I think it was\nbetter so.\"\n\n\"Why did you not bring me up in that way, mamma?\" said Gwendolen. But\nimmediately perceiving in the crushed look and rising sob that she had\ngiven a deep wound, she tossed down her hat and knelt at her mother's\nfeet crying--\n\n\"Mamma, mamma! I was only speaking in fun. I meant nothing.\"\n\n\"How could I, Gwendolen?\" said poor Mrs. Davilow, unable to hear the\nretraction, and sobbing violently while she made the effort to speak.\n\"Your will was always too strong for me--if everything else had been\ndifferent.\"\n\nThis disjoined logic was intelligible enough to the daughter. \"Dear\nmamma, I don't find fault with you--I love you,\" said Gwendolen, really\ncompunctious. \"How can you help what I am? Besides, I am very charming.\nCome, now.\" Here Gwendolen with her handkerchief gently rubbed away her\nmother's tears. \"Really--I am contented with myself. I like myself\nbetter than I should have liked my aunt and you. How dreadfully dull\nyou must have been!\"\n\nSuch tender cajolery served to quiet the mother, as it had often done\nbefore after like collisions. Not that the collisions had often been\nrepeated at the same point; for in the memory of both they left an\nassociation of dread with the particular topics which had occasioned\nthem: Gwendolen dreaded the unpleasant sense of compunction toward her\nmother, which was the nearest approach to self-condemnation and\nself-distrust that she had known; and Mrs. Davilow's timid maternal\nconscience dreaded whatever had brought on the slightest hint of\nreproach. Hence, after this little scene, the two concurred in\nexcluding Mr. Grandcourt from their conversation.\n\nWhen Mr. Gascoigne once or twice referred to him, Mrs. Davilow feared\nleast Gwendolen should betray some of her alarming keen-sightedness\nabout what was probably in her uncle's mind; but the fear was not\njustified. Gwendolen knew certain differences in the characters with\nwhich she was concerned as birds know climate and weather; and for the\nvery reason that she was determined to evade her uncle's control, she\nwas determined not to clash with him. The good understanding between\nthem was much fostered by their enjoyment of archery together: Mr.\nGascoigne, as one of the best bowmen in Wessex, was gratified to find\nthe elements of like skill in his niece; and Gwendolen was the more\ncareful not to lose the shelter of his fatherly indulgence, because\nsince the trouble with Rex both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna had been unable\nto hide what she felt to be a very unreasonable alienation from her.\nToward Anna she took some pains to behave with a regretful\naffectionateness; but neither of them dared to mention Rex's name, and\nAnna, to whom the thought of him was part of the air she breathed, was\nill at ease with the lively cousin who had ruined his happiness. She\ntried dutifully to repress any sign of her changed feeling; but who in\npain can imitate the glance and hand-touch of pleasure.\n\nThis unfair resentment had rather a hardening effect on Gwendolen, and\nthrew her into a more defiant temper. Her uncle too might be offended\nif she refused the next person who fell in love with her; and one day\nwhen that idea was in her mind she said--\n\n\"Mamma, I see now why girls are glad to be married--to escape being\nexpected to please everybody but themselves.\"\n\nHappily, Mr. Middleton was gone without having made any avowal; and\nnotwithstanding the admiration for the handsome Miss Harleth, extending\nperhaps over thirty square miles in a part of Wessex well studded with\nfamilies whose numbers included several disengaged young men, each glad\nto seat himself by the lively girl with whom it was so easy to get on\nin conversation,--notwithstanding these grounds for arguing that\nGwendolen was likely to have other suitors more explicit than the\ncautious curate, the fact was not so.\n\nCare has been taken not only that the trees should not sweep the stars\ndown, but also that every man who admires a fair girl should not be\nenamored of her, and even that every man who is enamored should not\nnecessarily declare himself. There are various refined shapes in which\nthe price of corn, known to be potent cause in their relation, might,\nif inquired into, show why a young lady, perfect in person,\naccomplishments, and costume, has not the trouble of rejecting many\noffers; and nature's order is certainly benignant in not obliging us\none and all to be desperately in love with the most admirable mortal we\nhave ever seen. Gwendolen, we know, was far from holding that supremacy\nin the minds of all observers. Besides, it was but a poor eight months\nsince she had come to Offendene, and some inclinations become manifest\nslowly, like the sunward creeping of plants.\n\nIn face of this fact that not one of the eligible young men already in\nthe neighborhood had made Gwendolen an offer, why should Mr. Grandcourt\nbe thought of as likely to do what they had left undone?\n\nPerhaps because he was thought of as still more eligible; since a great\ndeal of what passes for likelihood in the world is simply the reflex of\na wish. Mr. and Mrs. Arrowpoint, for example, having no anxiety that\nMiss Harleth should make a brilliant marriage, had quite a different\nlikelihood in their minds.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X.\n\n  _1st Gent._ What woman should be? Sir, consult the taste\n                   Of marriageable men. This planet's store\n                   In iron, cotton, wool, or chemicals--\n                   All matter rendered to our plastic skill,\n                   Is wrought in shapes responsive to demand;\n                   The market's pulse makes index high or low,\n                   By rule sublime. Our daughters must be wives,\n                   And to the wives must be what men will choose;\n                   Men's taste is woman's test. You mark the phrase?\n                   'Tis good, I think?--the sense well-winged and poised\n                   With t's and s's.\n  _2nd Gent._                      Nay, but turn it round;\n                   Give us the test of taste. A fine _menu_--\n                   Is it to-day what Roman epicures\n                   Insisted that a gentleman must eat\n                   To earn the dignity of dining well?\n\n\nBrackenshaw Park, where the Archery Meeting was held, looked out from\nits gentle heights far over the neighboring valley to the outlying\neastern downs and the broad, slow rise of cultivated country, hanging\nlike a vast curtain toward the west. The castle which stood on the\nhighest platform of the clustered hills, was built of rough-hewn\nlimestone, full of lights and shadows made by the dark dust of lichens\nand the washings of the rain. Masses of beech and fir sheltered it on\nthe north, and spread down here and there along the green slopes like\nflocks seeking the water which gleamed below. The archery-ground was a\ncarefully-kept enclosure on a bit of table-land at the farthest end of\nthe park, protected toward the southwest by tall elms and a thick\nscreen of hollies, which kept the gravel walk and the bit of newly-mown\nturf where the targets were placed in agreeable afternoon shade. The\nArchery Hall with an arcade in front showed like a white temple against\nthe greenery on the north side.\n\nWhat could make a better background for the flower-groups of ladies,\nmoving and bowing and turning their necks as it would become the\nleisurely lilies to do if they took to locomotion. The sounds too were\nvery pleasant to hear, even when the military band from Wanchester\nceased to play: musical laughs in all the registers and a harmony of\nhappy, friendly speeches, now rising toward mild excitement, now\nsinking to an agreeable murmur.\n\nNo open-air amusement could be much freer from those noisy, crowding\nconditions which spoil most modern pleasures; no Archery Meeting could\nbe more select, the number of friends accompanying the members being\nrestricted by an award of tickets, so as to keep the maximum within the\nlimits of convenience for the dinner and ball to be held in the castle.\nWithin the enclosure no plebeian spectators were admitted except Lord\nBrackenshaw's tenants and their families, and of these it was chiefly\nthe feminine members who used the privilege, bringing their little boys\nand girls or younger brothers and sisters. The males among them\nrelieved the insipidity of the entertainment by imaginative betting, in\nwhich the stake was \"anything you like,\" on their favorite archers; but\nthe young maidens, having a different principle of discrimination, were\nconsidering which of those sweetly-dressed ladies they would choose to\nbe, if the choice were allowed them. Probably the form these rural\nsouls would most have striven for as a tabernacle, was some other than\nGwendolen's--one with more pink in her cheeks and hair of the most\nfashionable yellow; but among the male judges in the ranks immediately\nsurrounding her there was unusual unanimity in pronouncing her the\nfinest girl present.\n\nNo wonder she enjoyed her existence on that July day. Pre-eminence is\nsweet to those who love it, even under mediocre circumstances. Perhaps\nit was not quite mythical that a slave has been proud to be bought\nfirst; and probably a barn-door fowl on sale, though he may not have\nunderstood himself to be called the best of a bad lot, may have a\nself-informed consciousness of his relative importance, and strut\nconsoled. But for complete enjoyment the outward and the inward must\nconcur. And that concurrence was happening to Gwendolen.\n\nWho can deny that bows and arrows are among the prettiest weapons in\nthe world for feminine forms to play with? They prompt attitudes full\nof grace and power, where that fine concentration of energy seen in all\nmarkmanship, is freed from associations of bloodshed. The time-honored\nBritish resource of \"killing something\" is no longer carried on with\nbow and quiver; bands defending their passes against an invading nation\nfight under another sort of shade than a cloud of arrows; and poisoned\ndarts are harmless survivals either in rhetoric or in regions\ncomfortably remote. Archery has no ugly smell of brimstone; breaks\nnobody's shins, breeds no athletic monsters; its only danger is that of\nfailing, which for generous blood is enough to mould skilful action.\nAnd among the Brackenshaw archers the prizes were all of the nobler\nsymbolic kind; not properly to be carried off in a parcel, degrading\nhonor into gain; but the gold arrow and the silver, the gold star and\nthe silver, to be worn for a long time in sign of achievement and then\ntransferred to the next who did excellently. These signs of\npre-eminence had the virtue of wreaths without their inconveniences,\nwhich might have produced a melancholy effect in the heat of the\nball-room. Altogether the Brackenshaw Archery Club was an institution\nframed with good taste, so as not to have by necessity any ridiculous\nincidents.\n\nAnd to-day all incalculable elements were in its favor. There was mild\nwarmth, and no wind to disturb either hair or drapery or the course of\nthe arrow; all skillful preparation had fair play, and when there was a\ngeneral march to extract the arrows, the promenade of joyous young\ncreatures in light speech and laughter, the graceful movement in common\ntoward a common object, was a show worth looking at. Here Gwendolen\nseemed a Calypso among her nymphs. It was in her attitudes and\nmovements that every one was obliged to admit her surpassing charm.\n\n\"That girl is like a high-mettled racer,\" said Lord Brackenshaw to\nyoung Clintock, one of the invited spectators.\n\n\"First chop! tremendously pretty too,\" said the elegant Grecian, who\nhad been paying her assiduous attention; \"I never saw her look better.\"\n\nPerhaps she had never looked so well. Her face was beaming with young\npleasure in which there was no malign rays of discontent; for being\nsatisfied with her own chances, she felt kindly toward everybody and\nwas satisfied with the universe. Not to have the highest distinction in\nrank, not to be marked out as an heiress, like Miss Arrowpoint, gave an\nadded triumph in eclipsing those advantages. For personal\nrecommendation she would not have cared to change the family group\naccompanying her for any other: her mamma's appearance would have\nsuited an amiable duchess; her uncle and aunt Gascoigne with Anna made\nequally gratifying figures in their way; and Gwendolen was too full of\njoyous belief in herself to feel in the least jealous though Miss\nArrowpoint was one of the best archeresses.\n\nEven the reappearance of the formidable Herr Klesmer, which caused some\nsurprise in the rest of the company, seemed only to fall in with\nGwendolen's inclination to be amused. Short of Apollo himself, what\ngreat musical _maestro_ could make a good figure at an archery meeting?\nThere was a very satirical light in Gwendolen's eyes as she looked\ntoward the Arrowpoint party on their first entrance, when the contrast\nbetween Klesmer and the average group of English country people seemed\nat its utmost intensity in the close neighborhood of his hosts--or\npatrons, as Mrs. Arrowpoint would have liked to hear them called, that\nshe might deny the possibility of any longer patronizing genius, its\nroyalty being universally acknowledged. The contrast might have amused\na graver personage than Gwendolen. We English are a miscellaneous\npeople, and any chance fifty of us will present many varieties of\nanimal architecture or facial ornament; but it must be admitted that\nour prevailing expression is not that of a lively, impassioned race,\npreoccupied with the ideal and carrying the real as a mere make-weight.\nThe strong point of the English gentleman pure is the easy style of his\nfigure and clothing; he objects to marked ins and outs in his costume,\nand he also objects to looking inspired.\n\nFancy an assemblage where the men had all that ordinary stamp of the\nwell-bred Englishman, watching the entrance of Herr Klesmer--his mane\nof hair floating backward in massive inconsistency with the chimney-pot\nhat, which had the look of having been put on for a joke above his\npronounced but well-modeled features and powerful clear-shaven mouth\nand chin; his tall, thin figure clad in a way which, not being strictly\nEnglish, was all the worse for its apparent emphasis of intention.\nDraped in a loose garment with a Florentine _berretta_ on his head, he\nwould have been fit to stand by the side of Leonardo de Vinci; but how\nwhen he presented himself in trousers which were not what English\nfeeling demanded about the knees?--and when the fire that showed itself\nin his glances and the movements of his head, as he looked round him\nwith curiosity, was turned into comedy by a hat which ruled that\nmankind should have well-cropped hair and a staid demeanor, such, for\nexample, as Mr. Arrowsmith's, whose nullity of face and perfect\ntailoring might pass everywhere without ridicule? One feels why it is\noften better for greatness to be dead, and to have got rid of the\noutward man.\n\nMany present knew Klesmer, or knew of him; but they had only seen him\non candle-light occasions when he appeared simply as a musician, and he\nhad not yet that supreme, world-wide celebrity which makes an artist\ngreat to the most ordinary people by their knowledge of his great\nexpensiveness. It was literally a new light for them to see him\nin--presented unexpectedly on this July afternoon in an exclusive\nsociety: some were inclined to laugh, others felt a little disgust at\nthe want of judgment shown by the Arrowpoints in this use of an\nintroductory card.\n\n\"What extreme guys those artistic fellows usually are?\" said young\nClintock to Gwendolen. \"Do look at the figure he cuts, bowing with his\nhand on his heart to Lady Brackenshaw--and Mrs. Arrowpoint's feather\njust reaching his shoulder.\"\n\n\"You are one of the profane,\" said Gwendolen. \"You are blind to the\nmajesty of genius. Herr Klesmer smites me with awe; I feel crushed in\nhis presence; my courage all oozes from me.\"\n\n\"Ah, you understand all about his music.\"\n\n\"No, indeed,\" said Gwendolen, with a light laugh; \"it is he who\nunderstands all about mine and thinks it pitiable.\" Klesmer's verdict\non her singing had been an easier joke to her since he had been struck\nby her _plastik_.\n\n\"It is not addressed to the ears of the future, I suppose. I'm glad of\nthat: it suits mine.\"\n\n\"Oh, you are very kind. But how remarkably well Miss Arrowpoint looks\nto-day! She would make quite a fine picture in that gold-colored dress.\"\n\n\"Too splendid, don't you think?\"\n\n\"Well, perhaps a little too symbolical--too much like the figure of\nWealth in an allegory.\"\n\nThis speech of Gwendolen's had rather a malicious sound, but it was not\nreally more than a bubble of fun. She did not wish Miss Arrowpoint or\nany one else to be out of the way, believing in her own good fortune\neven more than in her skill. The belief in both naturally grew stronger\nas the shooting went on, for she promised to achieve one of the best\nscores--a success which astonished every one in a new member; and to\nGwendolen's temperament one success determined another. She trod on\nair, and all things pleasant seemed possible. The hour was enough for\nher, and she was not obliged to think what she should do next to keep\nher life at the due pitch.\n\n\"How does the scoring stand, I wonder?\" said Lady Brackenshaw, a\ngracious personage who, adorned with two little girls and a boy of\nstout make, sat as lady paramount. Her lord had come up to her in one\nof the intervals of shooting. \"It seems to me that Miss Harleth is\nlikely to win the gold arrow.\"\n\n\"Gad, I think she will, if she carries it on! she is running Juliet\nFenn hard. It is wonderful for one in her first year. Catherine is not\nup to her usual mark,\" continued his lordship, turning to the heiress's\nmother who sat near. \"But she got the gold arrow last time. And there's\na luck even in these games of skill. That's better. It gives the hinder\nones a chance.\"\n\n\"Catherine will be very glad for others to win,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint,\n\"she is so magnanimous. It was entirely her considerateness that made\nus bring Herr Klesmer instead of Canon Stopley, who had expressed a\nwish to come. For her own pleasure, I am sure she would rather have\nbrought the Canon; but she is always thinking of others. I told her it\nwas not quite _en règle_ to bring one so far out of our own set; but\nshe said, 'Genius itself is not _en règle_; it comes into the world to\nmake new rules.' And one must admit that.\"\n\n\"Ay, to be sure,\" said Lord Brackenshaw, in a tone of careless\ndismissal, adding quickly, \"For my part, I am not magnanimous; I should\nlike to win. But, confound it! I never have the chance now. I'm getting\nold and idle. The young ones beat me. As old Nestor says--the gods\ndon't give us everything at one time: I was a young fellow once, and\nnow I am getting an old and wise one. Old, at any rate; which is a gift\nthat comes to everybody if they live long enough, so it raises no\njealousy.\" The Earl smiled comfortably at his wife.\n\n\"Oh, my lord, people who have been neighbors twenty years must not talk\nto each other about age,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. \"Years, as the Tuscans\nsay, are made for the letting of houses. But where is our new neighbor?\nI thought Mr. Grandcourt was to be here to-day.\"\n\n\"Ah, by the way, so he was. The time's getting on too,\" said his\nlordship, looking at his watch. \"But he only got to Diplow the other\nday. He came to us on Tuesday and said he had been a little bothered.\nHe may have been pulled in another direction. Why, Gascoigne!\"--the\nrector was just then crossing at a little distance with Gwendolen on\nhis arm, and turned in compliance with the call--\"this is a little too\nbad; you not only beat us yourself, but you bring up your niece to beat\nall the archeresses.\"\n\n\"It _is_ rather scandalous in her to get the better of elder members,\"\nsaid Mr. Gascoigne, with much inward satisfaction curling his short\nupper lip. \"But it is not my doing, my lord. I only meant her to make a\ntolerable figure, without surpassing any one.\"\n\n\"It is not my fault, either,\" said Gwendolen, with pretty archness. \"If\nI am to aim, I can't help hitting.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, that may be a fatal business for some people,\" said Lord\nBrackenshaw, good-humoredly; then taking out his watch and looking at\nMrs. Arrowpoint again--\"The time's getting on, as you say. But\nGrandcourt is always late. I notice in town he's always late, and he's\nno bowman--understands nothing about it. But I told him he must come;\nhe would see the flower of the neighborhood here. He asked about\nyou--had seen Arrowpoint's card. I think you had not made his\nacquaintance in town. He has been a good deal abroad. People don't know\nhim much.\"\n\n\"No; we are strangers,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. \"But that is not what\nmight have been expected. For his uncle Sir Hugo Mallinger and I are\ngreat friends when we meet.\"\n\n\"I don't know; uncles and nephews are not so likely to be seen together\nas uncles and nieces,\" said his lordship, smiling toward the rector.\n\"But just come with me one instant, Gascoigne, will you? I want to\nspeak a word about the clout-shooting.\"\n\nGwendolen chose to go too and be deposited in the same group with her\nmamma and aunt until she had to shoot again. That Mr. Grandcourt might\nafter all not appear on the archery-ground, had begun to enter into\nGwendolen's thought as a possible deduction from the completeness of\nher pleasure. Under all her saucy satire, provoked chiefly by her\ndivination that her friends thought of him as a desirable match for\nher, she felt something very far from indifference as to the impression\nshe would make on him. True, he was not to have the slightest power\nover her (for Gwendolen had not considered that the desire to conquer\nis itself a sort of subjection); she had made up her mind that he was\nto be one of those complimentary and assiduously admiring men of whom\neven her narrow experience had shown her several with various-colored\nbeards and various styles of bearing; and the sense that her friends\nwould want her to think him delightful, gave her a resistant\ninclination to presuppose him ridiculous. But that was no reason why\nshe could spare his presence: and even a passing prevision of trouble\nin case she despised and refused him, raised not the shadow of a wish\nthat he should save her that trouble by showing no disposition to make\nher an offer. Mr. Grandcourt taking hardly any notice of her, and\nbecoming shortly engaged to Miss Arrowpoint, was not a picture which\nflattered her imagination.\n\nHence Gwendolen had been all ear to Lord Brackenshaw's mode of\naccounting for Grandcourt's non-appearance; and when he did arrive, no\nconsciousness--not even Mrs. Arrowpoint's or Mr. Gascoigne's--was more\nawake to the fact than hers, although she steadily avoided looking\ntoward any point where he was likely to be. There should be no\nslightest shifting of angles to betray that it was of any consequence\nto her whether the much-talked-of Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt presented\nhimself or not. She became again absorbed in the shooting, and so\nresolutely abstained from looking round observantly that, even\nsupposing him to have taken a conspicuous place among the spectators,\nit might be clear she was not aware of him. And all the while the\ncertainty that he was there made a distinct thread in her\nconsciousness. Perhaps her shooting was the better for it: at any rate,\nit gained in precision, and she at last raised a delightful storm of\nclapping and applause by three hits running in the gold--a feat which\namong the Brackenshaw archers had not the vulgar reward of a shilling\npoll-tax, but that of a special gold star to be worn on the breast.\nThat moment was not only a happy one to herself--it was just what her\nmamma and her uncle would have chosen for her. There was a general\nfalling into ranks to give her space that she might advance\nconspicuously to receive the gold star from the hands of Lady\nBrackenshaw; and the perfect movement of her fine form was certainly a\npleasant thing to behold in the clear afternoon light when the shadows\nwere long and still. She was the central object of that pretty picture,\nand every one present must gaze at her. That was enough: she herself\nwas determined to see nobody in particular, or to turn her eyes any way\nexcept toward Lady Brackenshaw, but her thoughts undeniably turned in\nother ways. It entered a little into her pleasure that Herr Klesmer\nmust be observing her at a moment when music was out of the question,\nand his superiority very far in the back-ground; for vanity is as ill\nat ease under indifference as tenderness is under a love which it\ncannot return; and the unconquered Klesmer threw a trace of his malign\npower even across her pleasant consciousness that Mr. Grandcourt was\nseeing her to the utmost advantage, and was probably giving her an\nadmiration unmixed with criticism. She did not expect to admire _him_,\nbut that was not necessary to her peace of mind.\n\nGwendolen met Lady Brackenshaw's gracious smile without blushing (which\nonly came to her when she was taken by surprise), but with a charming\ngladness of expression, and then bent with easy grace to have the star\nfixed near her shoulder. That little ceremony had been over long enough\nfor her to have exchanged playful speeches and received congratulations\nas she moved among the groups who were now interesting themselves in\nthe results of the scoring; but it happened that she stood outside\nexamining the point of an arrow with rather an absent air when Lord\nBrackenshaw came up to her and said:\n\n\"Miss Harleth, here is a gentleman who is not willing to wait any\nlonger for an introduction. He has been getting Mrs. Davilow to send me\nwith him. Will you allow me to introduce Mr. Mallinger Grandcourt?\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK II--MEETING STREAMS.\n\n\nCHAPTER XI.\n\n    The beginning of an acquaintance whether with persons or things is to\n    get a definite outline for our ignorance.\n\n\nMr. Grandcourt's wish to be introduced had no suddenness for Gwendolen;\nbut when Lord Brackenshaw moved aside a little for the prefigured\nstranger to come forward and she felt herself face to face with the\nreal man, there was a little shock which flushed her cheeks and\nvexatiously deepened with her consciousness of it. The shock came from\nthe reversal of her expectations: Grandcourt could hardly have been\nmore unlike all her imaginary portraits of him. He was slightly taller\nthan herself, and their eyes seemed to be on a level; there was not the\nfaintest smile on his face as he looked at her, not a trace of\nself-consciousness or anxiety in his bearing: when he raised his hat he\nshowed an extensive baldness surrounded with a mere fringe of\nreddish-blonde hair, but he also showed a perfect hand; the line of\nfeature from brow to chin undisguised by beard was decidedly handsome,\nwith only moderate departures from the perpendicular, and the slight\nwhisker too was perpendicular. It was not possible for a human aspect\nto be freer from grimace or solicitous wrigglings: also it was perhaps\nnot possible for a breathing man wide awake to look less animated. The\ncorrect Englishman, drawing himself up from his bow into rigidity,\nassenting severely, and seemed to be in a state of internal drill,\nsuggests a suppressed vivacity, and may be suspected of letting go with\nsome violence when he is released from parade; but Grandcourt's bearing\nhad no rigidity, it inclined rather to the flaccid. His complexion had\na faded fairness resembling that of an actress when bare of the\nartificial white and red; his long narrow gray eyes expressed nothing\nbut indifference. Attempts at description are stupid: who can all at\nonce describe a human being? even when he is presented to us we only\nbegin that knowledge of his appearance which must be completed by\ninnumerable impressions under differing circumstances. We recognize the\nalphabet; we are not sure of the language. I am only mentioning the\npoint that Gwendolen saw by the light of a prepared contrast in the\nfirst minutes of her meeting with Grandcourt: they were summed up in\nthe words, \"He is not ridiculous.\" But forthwith Lord Brackenshaw was\ngone, and what is called conversation had begun, the first and constant\nelement in it being that Grandcourt looked at Gwendolen persistently\nwith a slightly exploring gaze, but without change of expression, while\nshe only occasionally looked at him with a flash of observation a\nlittle softened by coquetry. Also, after her answers there was a longer\nor shorter pause before he spoke again.\n\n\"I used to think archery was a great bore,\" Grandcourt began. He spoke\nwith a fine accent, but with a certain broken drawl, as of a\ndistinguished personage with a distinguished cold on his chest.\n\n\"Are you converted to-day?\" said Gwendolen.\n\n(Pause, during which she imagined various degrees and modes of opinion\nabout herself that might be entertained by Grandcourt.)\n\n\"Yes, since I saw you shooting. In things of this sort one generally\nsees people missing and simpering.\"\n\n\"I suppose you are a first-rate shot with a rifle.\"\n\n(Pause, during which Gwendolen, having taken a rapid observation of\nGrandcourt, made a brief graphic description of him to an indefinite\nhearer.)\n\n\"I have left off shooting.\"\n\n\"Oh then you are a formidable person. People who have done things once\nand left them off make one feel very contemptible, as if one were using\ncast-off fashions. I hope you have not left off all follies, because I\npractice a great many.\"\n\n(Pause, during which Gwendolen made several interpretations of her own\nspeech.)\n\n\"What do you call follies?\"\n\n\"Well, in general I think, whatever is agreeable is called a folly. But\nyou have not left off hunting, I hear.\"\n\n(Pause, wherein Gwendolen recalled what she had heard about\nGrandcourt's position, and decided that he was the most\naristocratic-looking man she had ever seen.)\n\n\"One must do something.\"\n\n\"And do you care about the turf?--or is that among the things you have\nleft off?\"\n\n(Pause, during which Gwendolen thought that a man of extremely calm,\ncold manners might be less disagreeable as a husband than other men,\nand not likely to interfere with his wife's preferences.)\n\n\"I run a horse now and then; but I don't go in for the thing as some\nmen do. Are you fond of horses?\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed: I never like my life so well as when I am on horseback,\nhaving a great gallop. I think of nothing. I only feel myself strong\nand happy.\"\n\n(Pause, wherein Gwendolen wondered whether Grandcourt would like what\nshe said, but assured herself that she was not going to disguise her\ntastes.)\n\n\"Do you like danger?\"\n\n\"I don't know. When I am on horseback I never think of danger. It seems\nto me that if I broke my bones I should not feel it. I should go at\nanything that came in my way.\"\n\n(Pause during which Gwendolen had run through a whole hunting season\nwith two chosen hunters to ride at will.)\n\n\"You would perhaps like tiger-hunting or pig-sticking. I saw some of\nthat for a season or two in the East. Everything here is poor stuff\nafter that.\"\n\n\"_You_ are fond of danger, then?\"\n\n(Pause, wherein Gwendolen speculated on the probability that the men of\ncoldest manners were the most adventurous, and felt the strength of her\nown insight, supposing the question had to be decided.)\n\n\"One must have something or other. But one gets used to it.\"\n\n\"I begin to think I am very fortunate, because everything is new to me:\nit is only that I can't get enough of it. I am not used to anything\nexcept being dull, which I should like to leave off as you have left\noff shooting.\"\n\n(Pause, during which it occurred to Gwendolen that a man of cold and\ndistinguished manners might possibly be a dull companion; but on the\nother hand she thought that most persons were dull, that she had not\nobserved husbands to be companions--and that after all she was not\ngoing to accept Grandcourt.)\n\n\"Why are you dull?\"\n\n\"This is a dreadful neighborhood. There is nothing to be done in it.\nThat is why I practiced my archery.\"\n\n(Pause, during which Gwendolen reflected that the life of an unmarried\nwoman who could not go about and had no command of anything must\nnecessarily be dull through all degrees of comparison as time went on.)\n\n\"You have made yourself queen of it. I imagine you will carry the first\nprize.\"\n\n\"I don't know that. I have great rivals. Did you not observe how well\nMiss Arrowpoint shot?\"\n\n(Pause, wherein Gwendolen was thinking that men had been known to\nchoose some one else than the woman they most admired, and recalled\nseveral experiences of that kind in novels.)\n\n\"Miss Arrowpoint. No--that is, yes.\"\n\n\"Shall we go now and hear what the scoring says? Every one is going to\nthe other end now--shall we join them? I think my uncle is looking\ntoward me. He perhaps wants me.\"\n\nGwendolen found a relief for herself by thus changing the situation:\nnot that the _tete-à-tete_ was quite disagreeable to her; but while it\nlasted she apparently could not get rid of the unwonted flush in her\ncheeks and the sense of surprise which made her feel less mistress of\nherself than usual. And this Mr. Grandcourt, who seemed to feel his own\nimportance more than he did hers--a sort of unreasonableness few of us\ncan tolerate--must not take for granted that he was of great moment to\nher, or that because others speculated on him as a desirable match she\nheld herself altogether at his beck. How Grandcourt had filled up the\npauses will be more evident hereafter.\n\n\"You have just missed the gold arrow, Gwendolen,\" said Mr. Gascoigne.\n\"Miss Juliet Fenn scores eight above you.\"\n\n\"I am very glad to hear it. I should have felt that I was making myself\ntoo disagreeable--taking the best of everything,\" said Gwendolen, quite\neasily.\n\nIt was impossible to be jealous of Juliet Fenn, a girl as middling as\nmid-day market in everything but her archery and plainness, in which\nlast she was noticeable like her father: underhung and with receding\nbrow resembling that of the more intelligent fishes. (Surely,\nconsidering the importance which is given to such an accident in female\noffspring, marriageable men, or what the new English calls \"intending\nbridegrooms,\" should look at themselves dispassionately in the glass,\nsince their natural selection of a mate prettier than themselves is not\ncertain to bar the effect of their own ugliness.)\n\nThere was now a lively movement in the mingling groups, which carried\nthe talk along with it. Every one spoke to every one else by turns, and\nGwendolen, who chose to see what was going on around her now, observed\nthat Grandcourt was having Klesmer presented to him by some one unknown\nto her--a middle-aged man, with dark, full face and fat hands, who\nseemed to be on the easiest terms with both, and presently led the way\nin joining the Arrowpoints, whose acquaintance had already been made by\nboth him and Grandcourt. Who this stranger was she did not care much to\nknow; but she wished to observe what was Grandcourt's manner toward\nothers than herself. Precisely the same: except that he did not look\nmuch at Miss Arrowpoint, but rather at Klesmer, who was speaking with\nanimation--now stretching out his long fingers horizontally, now\npointing downward with his fore-finger, now folding his arms and\ntossing his mane, while he addressed himself first to one and then to\nthe other, including Grandcourt, who listened with an impassive face\nand narrow eyes, his left fore-finger in his waistcoat-pocket, and his\nright slightly touching his thin whisker.\n\n\"I wonder which style Miss Arrowpoint admires most,\" was a thought that\nglanced through Gwendolen's mind, while her eyes and lips gathered\nrather a mocking expression. But she would not indulge her sense of\namusement by watching, as if she were curious, and she gave all her\nanimation to those immediately around her, determined not to care\nwhether Mr. Grandcourt came near her again or not.\n\nHe did not come, however, and at a moment when he could propose to\nconduct Mrs. Davilow to her carriage, \"Shall we meet again in the\nball-room?\" she said as he raised his hat at parting. The \"yes\" in\nreply had the usual slight drawl and perfect gravity.\n\n\"You were wrong for once Gwendolen,\" said Mrs. Davilow, during their\nfew minutes' drive to the castle.\n\n\"In what, mamma?\"\n\n\"About Mr. Grandcourt's appearance and manners. You can't find anything\nridiculous in him.\"\n\n\"I suppose I could if I tried, but I don't want to do it,\" said\nGwendolen, rather pettishly; and her mother was afraid to say more.\n\nIt was the rule on these occasions for the ladies and gentlemen to dine\napart, so that the dinner might make a time of comparative ease and\nrest for both. Indeed, the gentlemen had a set of archery stories about\nthe epicurism of the ladies, who had somehow been reported to show a\nrevolting masculine judgment in venison, even asking for the fat--a\nproof of the frightful rate at which corruption might go on in women,\nbut for severe social restraint, and every year the amiable Lord\nBrackenshaw, who was something of a _gourmet_, mentioned Byron's\nopinion that a woman should never be seen eating,--introducing it with\na confidential--\"The fact is\" as if he were for the first time\nadmitting his concurrence in that sentiment of the refined poet.\n\nIn the ladies' dining-room it was evident that Gwendolen was not a\ngeneral favorite with her own sex: there were no beginnings of intimacy\nbetween her and other girls, and in conversation they rather noticed\nwhat she said than spoke to her in free exchange. Perhaps it was that\nshe was not much interested in them, and when left alone in their\ncompany had a sense of empty benches. Mrs. Vulcany once remarked that\nMiss Harleth was too fond of the gentlemen; but we know that she was\nnot in the least fond of them--she was only fond of their homage--and\nwomen did not give her homage. The exception to this willing aloofness\nfrom her was Miss Arrowpoint, who often managed unostentatiously to be\nby her side, and talked to her with quiet friendliness.\n\n\"She knows, as I do, that our friends are ready to quarrel over a\nhusband for us,\" thought Gwendolen, \"and she is determined not to enter\ninto the quarrel.\"\n\n\"I think Miss Arrowpoint has the best manners I ever saw,\" said Mrs.\nDavilow, when she and Gwendolen were in a dressing-room with Mrs.\nGascoigne and Anna, but at a distance where they could have their talk\napart.\n\n\"I wish I were like her,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Why? Are you getting discontented with yourself, Gwen?\"\n\n\"No; but I am discontented with things. She seems contented.\"\n\n\"I am sure you ought to be satisfied to-day. You must have enjoyed the\nshooting. I saw you did.\"\n\n\"Oh, that is over now, and I don't know what will come next,\" said\nGwendolen, stretching herself with a sort of moan and throwing up her\narms. They were bare now; it was the fashion to dance in the archery\ndress, throwing off the jacket; and the simplicity of her white\ncashmere with its border of pale green set off her form to the utmost.\nA thin line of gold round her neck, and the gold star on her breast,\nwere her only ornaments. Her smooth soft hair piled up into a grand\ncrown made a clear line about her brow. Sir Joshua would have been glad\nto take her portrait; and he would have had an easier task than the\nhistorian at least in this, that he would not have had to represent the\ntruth of change--only to give stability to one beautiful moment.\n\n\"The dancing will come next,\" said Mrs. Davilow \"You are sure to enjoy\nthat.\"\n\n\"I shall only dance in the quadrille. I told Mr. Clintock so. I shall\nnot waltz or polk with any one.\"\n\n\"Why in the world do you say that all on a sudden?\"\n\n\"I can't bear having ugly people so near me.\"\n\n\"Whom do you mean by ugly people?\"\n\n\"Oh, plenty.\"\n\n\"Mr. Clintock, for example, is not ugly.\" Mrs. Davilow dared not\nmention Grandcourt.\n\n\"Well, I hate woolen cloth touching me.\"\n\n\"Fancy!\" said Mrs. Davilow to her sister who now came up from the other\nend of the room. \"Gwendolen says she will not waltz or polk.\"\n\n\"She is rather given to whims, I think,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, gravely.\n\"It would be more becoming in her to behave as other young ladies do on\nsuch an occasion as this; especially when she has had the advantage of\nfirst-rate dancing lessons.\"\n\n\"Why should I dance if I don't like it, aunt? It is not in the\ncatechism.\"\n\n\"My _dear_!\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, in a tone of severe check, and Anna\nlooked frightened at Gwendolen's daring. But they all passed on without\nsaying any more.\n\nApparently something had changed Gwendolen's mood since the hour of\nexulting enjoyment in the archery-ground. But she did not look the\nworse under the chandeliers in the ball-room, where the soft splendor\nof the scene and the pleasant odors from the conservatory could not but\nbe soothing to the temper, when accompanied with the consciousness of\nbeing preeminently sought for. Hardly a dancing man but was anxious to\nhave her for a partner, and each whom she accepted was in a state of\nmelancholy remonstrance that she would not waltz or polk.\n\n\"Are you under a vow, Miss Harleth?\"--\"Why are you so cruel to us\nall?\"--\"You waltzed with me in February.\"--\"And you who waltz so\nperfectly!\" were exclamations not without piquancy for her. The ladies\nwho waltzed naturally thought that Miss Harleth only wanted to make\nherself particular; but her uncle when he overheard her refusal\nsupported her by saying--\n\n\"Gwendolen has usually good reasons.\" He thought she was certainly more\ndistinguished in not waltzing, and he wished her to be distinguished.\nThe archery ball was intended to be kept at the subdued pitch that\nsuited all dignities clerical and secular; it was not an escapement for\nyouthful high spirits, and he himself was of opinion that the\nfashionable dances were too much of a romp.\n\nAmong the remonstrant dancing men, however, Mr. Grandcourt was not\nnumbered. After standing up for a quadrille with Miss Arrowpoint, it\nseemed that he meant to ask for no other partner. Gwendolen observed\nhim frequently with the Arrowpoints, but he never took an opportunity\nof approaching her. Mr. Gascoigne was sometimes speaking to him; but\nMr. Gascoigne was everywhere. It was in her mind now that she would\nprobably after all not have the least trouble about him: perhaps he had\nlooked at her without any particular admiration, and was too much used\nto everything in the world to think of her as more than one of the\ngirls who were invited in that part of the country. Of course! It was\nridiculous of elders to entertain notions about what a man would do,\nwithout having seen him even through a telescope. Probably he meant to\nmarry Miss Arrowpoint. Whatever might come, she, Gwendolen, was not\ngoing to be disappointed: the affair was a joke whichever way it\nturned, for she had never committed herself even by a silent confidence\nin anything Mr. Grandcourt would do. Still, she noticed that he did\nsometimes quietly and gradually change his position according to hers,\nso that he could see her whenever she was dancing, and if he did not\nadmire her--so much the worse for him.\n\nThis movement for the sake of being in sight of her was more direct\nthan usual rather late in the evening, when Gwendolen had accepted\nKlesmer as a partner; and that wide-glancing personage, who saw\neverything and nothing by turns, said to her when they were walking,\n\"Mr. Grandcourt is a man of taste. He likes to see you dancing.\"\n\n\"Perhaps he likes to look at what is against his taste,\" said\nGwendolen, with a light laugh; she was quite courageous with Klesmer\nnow. \"He may be so tired of admiring that he likes disgust for variety.\"\n\n\"Those words are not suitable to your lips,\" said Klesmer, quickly,\nwith one of his grand frowns, while he shook his hand as if to banish\nthe discordant sounds.\n\n\"Are you as critical of words as of music?\"\n\n\"Certainly I am. I should require your words to be what your face and\nform are--always among the meanings of a noble music.\"\n\n\"That is a compliment as well as a correction. I am obliged for both.\nBut do you know I am bold enough to wish to correct _you_, and require\nyou to understand a joke?\"\n\n\"One may understand jokes without liking them,\" said the terrible\nKlesmer. \"I have had opera books sent me full of jokes; it was just\nbecause I understood them that I did not like them. The comic people\nare ready to challenge a man because he looks grave. 'You don't see the\nwitticism, sir?' 'No, sir, but I see what you meant.' Then I am what we\ncall ticketed as a fellow without _esprit_. But, in fact,\" said\nKlesmer, suddenly dropping from his quick narrative to a reflective\ntone, with an impressive frown, \"I am very sensible to wit and humor.\"\n\n\"I am glad you tell me that,\" said Gwendolen, not without some\nwickedness of intention. But Klesmer's thoughts had flown off on the\nwings of his own statement, as their habit was, and she had the\nwickedness all to herself. \"Pray, who is that standing near the\ncard-room door?\" she went on, seeing there the same stranger with whom\nKlesmer had been in animated talk on the archery ground. \"He is a\nfriend of yours, I think.\"\n\n\"No, no; an amateur I have seen in town; Lush, a Mr. Lush--too fond of\nMeyerbeer and Scribe--too fond of the mechanical-dramatic.\"\n\n\"Thanks. I wanted to know whether you thought his face and form\nrequired that his words should be among the meanings of noble music?\"\nKlesmer was conquered, and flashed at her a delightful smile which made\nthem quite friendly until she begged to be deposited by the side of her\nmamma.\n\nThree minutes afterward her preparations for Grandcourt's indifference\nwere all canceled. Turning her head after some remark to her mother,\nshe found that he had made his way up to her.\n\n\"May I ask if you are tired of dancing, Miss Harleth?\" he began,\nlooking down with his former unperturbed expression.\n\n\"Not in the least.\"\n\n\"Will you do me the honor--the next--or another quadrille?\"\n\n\"I should have been very happy,\" said Gwendolen looking at her card,\n\"but I am engaged for the next to Mr. Clintock--and indeed I perceive\nthat I am doomed for every quadrille; I have not one to dispose of.\"\nShe was not sorry to punish Mr. Grandcourt's tardiness, yet at the same\ntime she would have liked to dance with him. She gave him a charming\nsmile as she looked up to deliver her answer, and he stood still\nlooking down at her with no smile at all.\n\n\"I am unfortunate in being too late,\" he said, after a moment's pause.\n\n\"It seemed to me that you did not care for dancing,\" said Gwendolen. \"I\nthought it might be one of the things you had left off.\"\n\n\"Yes, but I have not begun to dance with you,\" said Grandcourt. Always\nthere was the same pause before he took up his cue. \"You make dancing a\nnew thing, as you make archery.\"\n\n\"Is novelty always agreeable?\"\n\n\"No, no--not always.\"\n\n\"Then I don't know whether to feel flattered or not. When you had once\ndanced with me there would be no more novelty in it.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, there would probably be much more.\"\n\n\"That is deep. I don't understand.\"\n\n\"It is difficult to make Miss Harleth understand her power?\" Here\nGrandcourt had turned to Mrs. Davilow, who, smiling gently at her\ndaughter, said--\n\n\"I think she does not generally strike people as slow to understand.\"\n\n\"Mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in a deprecating tone, \"I am adorably stupid,\nand want everything explained to me--when the meaning is pleasant.\"\n\n\"If you are stupid, I admit that stupidity is adorable,\" returned\nGrandcourt, after the usual pause, and without change of tone. But\nclearly he knew what to say.\n\n\"I begin to think that my cavalier has forgotten me,\" Gwendolen\nobserved after a little while. \"I see the quadrille is being formed.\"\n\n\"He deserves to be renounced,\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"I think he is very pardonable,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"There must have been some misunderstanding,\" said Mrs. Davilow. \"Mr.\nClintock was too anxious about the engagement to have forgotten it.\"\n\nBut now Lady Brackenshaw came up and said, \"Miss Harleth, Mr. Clintock\nhas charged me to express to you his deep regret that he was obliged to\nleave without having the pleasure of dancing with you again. An express\ncame from his father, the archdeacon; something important; he was to\ngo. He was _au désespoir_.\"\n\n\"Oh, he was very good to remember the engagement under the\ncircumstances,\" said Gwendolen. \"I am sorry he was called away.\" It was\neasy to be politely sorrowful on so felicitous an occasion.\n\n\"Then I can profit by Mr. Clintock's misfortune?\" said Grandcourt. \"May\nI hope that you will let me take his place?\"\n\n\"I shall be very happy to dance the next quadrille with you.\"\n\nThe appropriateness of the event seemed an augury, and as Gwendolen\nstood up for the quadrille with Grandcourt, there was a revival in her\nof the exultation--the sense of carrying everything before her, which\nshe had felt earlier in the day. No man could have walked through the\nquadrille with more irreproachable ease than Grandcourt; and the\nabsence of all eagerness in his attention to her suited his partner's\ntaste. She was now convinced that he meant to distinguish her, to mark\nhis admiration of her in a noticeable way; and it began to appear\nprobable that she would have it in her power to reject him, whence\nthere was a pleasure in reckoning up the advantages which would make\nher rejection splendid, and in giving Mr. Grandcourt his utmost value.\nIt was also agreeable to divine that this exclusive selection of her to\ndance with, from among all the unmarried ladies present, would attract\nobservation; though she studiously avoided seeing this, and at the end\nof the quadrille walked away on Grandcourt's arm as if she had been one\nof the shortest sighted instead of the longest and widest sighted of\nmortals. They encountered Miss Arrowpoint, who was standing with Lady\nBrackenshaw and a group of gentlemen. The heiress looked at Gwendolen\ninvitingly and said, \"I hope you will vote with us, Miss Harleth, and\nMr. Grandcourt too, though he is not an archer.\" Gwendolen and\nGrandcourt paused to join the group, and found that the voting turned\non the project of a picnic archery meeting to be held in Cardell Chase,\nwhere the evening entertainment would be more poetic than a ball under,\nchandeliers--a feast of sunset lights along the glades and through the\nbranches and over the solemn tree-tops.\n\nGwendolen thought the scheme delightful--equal to playing Robin Hood\nand Maid Marian: and Mr. Grandcourt, when appealed to a second time,\nsaid it was a thing to be done; whereupon Mr. Lush, who stood behind\nLady Brackenshaw's elbow, drew Gwendolen's notice by saying with a\nfamiliar look and tone to Grandcourt, \"Diplow would be a good place for\nthe meeting, and more convenient: there's a fine bit between the oaks\ntoward the north gate.\"\n\nImpossible to look more unconscious of being addressed than Grandcourt;\nbut Gwendolen took a new survey of the speaker, deciding, first, that\nhe must be on terms of intimacy with the tenant of Diplow, and,\nsecondly, that she would never, if she could help it, let him come\nwithin a yard of her. She was subject to physical antipathies, and Mr.\nLush's prominent eyes, fat though not clumsy figure, and strong black\ngray-besprinkled hair of frizzy thickness, which, with the rest of his\nprosperous person, was enviable to many, created one of the strongest\nof her antipathies. To be safe from his looking at her, she murmured to\nGrandcourt, \"I should like to continue walking.\"\n\nHe obeyed immediately; but when they were thus away from any audience,\nhe spoke no word for several minutes, and she, out of a half-amused,\nhalf-serious inclination for experiment, would not speak first. They\nturned into the large conservatory, beautifully lit up with Chinese\nlamps. The other couples there were at a distance which would not have\ninterfered with any dialogue, but still they walked in silence until\nthey had reached the farther end where there was a flush of pink light,\nand the second wide opening into the ball-room. Grandcourt, when they\nhad half turned round, paused and said languidly--\n\n\"Do you like this kind of thing?\"\n\nIf the situation had been described to Gwendolen half an hour before,\nshe would have laughed heartily at it, and could only have imagined\nherself returning a playful, satirical answer. But for some mysterious\nreason--it was a mystery of which she had a faint wondering\nconsciousness--she dared not be satirical: she had begun to feel a wand\nover her that made her afraid of offending Grandcourt.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, quietly, without considering what \"kind of thing\" was\nmeant--whether the flowers, the scents, the ball in general, or this\nepisode of walking with Mr. Grandcourt in particular. And they returned\nalong the conservatory without farther interpretation. She then\nproposed to go and sit down in her old place, and they walked among\nscattered couples preparing for the waltz to the spot where Mrs.\nDavilow had been seated all the evening. As they approached it her seat\nwas vacant, but she was coming toward it again, and, to Gwendolen's\nshuddering annoyance, with Mr. Lush at her elbow. There was no avoiding\nthe confrontation: her mamma came close to her before they had reached\nthe seats, and, after a quiet greeting smile, said innocently,\n\"Gwendolen, dear, let me present Mr. Lush to you.\" Having just made the\nacquaintance of this personage, as an intimate and constant companion\nof Mr. Grandcourt's, Mrs. Davilow imagined it altogether desirable that\nher daughter also should make the acquaintance.\n\nIt was hardly a bow that Gwendolen gave--rather, it was the slightest\nforward sweep of the head away from the physiognomy that inclined\nitself toward her, and she immediately moved toward her seat, saying,\n\"I want to put on my burnous.\" No sooner had she reached it, than Mr.\nLush was there, and had the burnous in his hand: to annoy this\nsupercilious young lady, he would incur the offense of forestalling\nGrandcourt; and, holding up the garment close to Gwendolen, he said,\n\"Pray, permit me?\" But she, wheeling away from him as if he had been a\nmuddy hound, glided on to the ottoman, saying, \"No, thank you.\"\n\nA man who forgave this would have much Christian feeling, supposing he\nhad intended to be agreeable to the young lady; but before he seized\nthe burnous Mr. Lush had ceased to have that intention. Grandcourt\nquietly took the drapery from him, and Mr. Lush, with a slight bow,\nmoved away. \"You had perhaps better put it on,\" said Mr. Grandcourt,\nlooking down on her without change of expression.\n\n\"Thanks; perhaps it would be wise,\" said Gwendolen, rising, and\nsubmitting very gracefully to take the burnous on her shoulders.\n\nAfter that, Mr. Grandcourt exchanged a few polite speeches with Mrs.\nDavilow, and, in taking leave, asked permission to call at Offendene\nthe next day. He was evidently not offended by the insult directed\ntoward his friend. Certainly Gwendolen's refusal of the burnous from\nMr. Lush was open to the interpretation that she wished to receive it\nfrom Mr. Grandcourt. But she, poor child, had no design in this action,\nand was simply following her antipathy and inclination, confiding in\nthem as she did in the more reflective judgments into which they\nentered as sap into leafage. Gwendolen had no sense that these men were\ndark enigmas to her, or that she needed any help in drawing conclusions\nabout them--Mr. Grandcourt at least. The chief question was, how far\nhis character and ways might answer her wishes; and unless she were\nsatisfied about that, she had said to herself that she would not accept\nhis offer.\n\nCould there be a slenderer, more insignificant thread in human history\nthan this consciousness of a girl, busy with her small inferences of\nthe way in which she could make her life pleasant?--in a time, too,\nwhen ideas were with fresh vigor making armies of themselves, and the\nuniversal kinship was declaring itself fiercely; when women on the\nother side of the world would not mourn for the husbands and sons who\ndied bravely in a common cause, and men stinted of bread on our side of\nthe world heard of that willing loss and were patient: a time when the\nsoul of man was walking to pulses which had for centuries been beating\nin him unfelt, until their full sum made a new life of terror or of joy.\n\nWhat in the midst of that mighty drama are girls and their blind\nvisions? They are the Yea or Nay of that good for which men are\nenduring and fighting. In these delicate vessels is borne onward\nthrough the ages the treasure of human affections.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII.\n\n  \"O gentlemen, the time of life is short;\n  To spend that shortness basely were too long,\n  If life did ride upon a dial's point,\n  Still ending at the arrival of an hour.\"\n                --SHAKESPEARE: _Henry IV_.\n\n\nOn the second day after the Archery Meeting, Mr. Henleigh Mallinger\nGrandcourt was at his breakfast-table with Mr. Lush. Everything around\nthem was agreeable: the summer air through the open windows, at which\nthe dogs could walk in from the old green turf on the lawn; the soft,\npurplish coloring of the park beyond, stretching toward a mass of\nbordering wood; the still life in the room, which seemed the stiller\nfor its sober antiquated elegance, as if it kept a conscious, well-bred\nsilence, unlike the restlessness of vulgar furniture.\n\nWhether the gentlemen were agreeable to each other was less evident.\nMr. Grandcourt had drawn his chair aside so as to face the lawn, and\nwith his left leg over another chair, and his right elbow on the table,\nwas smoking a large cigar, while his companion was still eating. The\ndogs--half-a-dozen of various kinds were moving lazily in and out,\ntaking attitudes of brief attention--gave a vacillating preference\nfirst to one gentleman, then to the other; being dogs in such good\ncircumstances that they could play at hunger, and liked to be served\nwith delicacies which they declined to put in their mouths; all except\nFetch, the beautiful liver-colored water-spaniel, which sat with its\nforepaws firmly planted and its expressive brown face turned upward,\nwatching Grandcourt with unshaken constancy. He held in his lap a tiny\nMaltese dog with a tiny silver collar and bell, and when he had a hand\nunused by cigar or coffee-cup, it rested on this small parcel of animal\nwarmth. I fear that Fetch was jealous, and wounded that her master gave\nher no word or look; at last it seemed that she could bear this neglect\nno longer, and she gently put her large silky paw on her master's leg.\nGrandcourt looked at her with unchanged face for half a minute, and\nthen took the trouble to lay down his cigar while he lifted the\nunimpassioned Fluff close to his chin and gave it caressing pats, all\nthe while gravely watching Fetch, who, poor thing, whimpered\ninterruptedly, as if trying to repress that sign of discontent, and at\nlast rested her head beside the appealing paw, looking up with piteous\nbeseeching. So, at least, a lover of dogs must have interpreted Fetch,\nand Grandcourt kept so many dogs that he was reputed to love them; at\nany rate, his impulse to act just in that way started from such an\ninterpretation. But when the amusing anguish burst forth in a howling\nbark, Grandcourt pushed Fetch down without speaking, and, depositing\nFluff carelessly on the table (where his black nose predominated over a\nsalt-cellar), began to look to his cigar, and found, with some\nannoyance against Fetch as the cause, that the brute of a cigar\nrequired relighting. Fetch, having begun to wail, found, like others of\nher sex, that it was not easy to leave off; indeed, the second howl was\na louder one, and the third was like unto it.\n\n\"Turn out that brute, will you?\" said Grandcourt to Lush, without\nraising his voice or looking at him--as if he counted on attention to\nthe smallest sign.\n\nAnd Lush immediately rose, lifted Fetch, though she was rather heavy,\nand he was not fond of stooping, and carried her out, disposing of her\nin some way that took him a couple of minutes before he returned. He\nthen lit a cigar, placed himself at an angle where he could see\nGrandcourt's face without turning, and presently said--\n\n\"Shall you ride or drive to Quetcham to-day?\"\n\n\"I am not going to Quetcham.\"\n\n\"You did not go yesterday.\"\n\nGrandcourt smoked in silence for half a minute, and then said--\n\n\"I suppose you sent my card and inquiries.\"\n\n\"I went myself at four, and said you were sure to be there shortly.\nThey would suppose some accident prevented you from fulfilling the\nintention. Especially if you go to-day.\"\n\nSilence for a couple of minutes. Then Grandcourt said, \"What men are\ninvited here with their wives?\"\n\nLush drew out a note-book. \"The Captain and Mrs. Torrington come next\nweek. Then there are Mr. Hollis and Lady Flora, and the Cushats and the\nGogoffs.\"\n\n\"Rather a ragged lot,\" remarked Grandcourt, after a while. \"Why did you\nask the Gogoffs? When you write invitations in my name, be good enough\nto give me a list, instead of bringing down a giantess on me without my\nknowledge. She spoils the look of the room.\"\n\n\"You invited the Gogoffs yourself when you met them in Paris.\"\n\n\"What has my meeting them in Paris to do with it? I told you to give me\na list.\"\n\nGrandcourt, like many others, had two remarkably different voices.\nHitherto we have heard him speaking in a superficial interrupted drawl\nsuggestive chiefly of languor and _ennui_. But this last brief speech\nwas uttered in subdued inward, yet distinct, tones, which Lush had long\nbeen used to recognize as the expression of a peremptory will.\n\n\"Are there any other couples you would like to invite?\"\n\n\"Yes; think of some decent people, with a daughter or two. And one of\nyour damned musicians. But not a comic fellow.\"\n\n\"I wonder if Klesmer would consent to come to us when he leaves\nQuetcham. Nothing but first-class music will go down with Miss\nArrowpoint.\"\n\nLush spoke carelessly, but he was really seizing an opportunity and\nfixing an observant look on Grandcourt, who now for the first time,\nturned his eyes toward his companion, but slowly and without speaking\nuntil he had given two long luxuriant puffs, when he said, perhaps in a\nlower tone than ever, but with a perceptible edge of contempt--\n\n\"What in the name of nonsense have I to do with Miss Arrowpoint and her\nmusic?\"\n\n\"Well, something,\" said Lush, jocosely. \"You need not give yourself\nmuch trouble, perhaps. But some forms must be gone through before a man\ncan marry a million.\"\n\n\"Very likely. But I am not going to marry a million.\"\n\n\"That's a pity--to fling away an opportunity of this sort, and knock\ndown your own plans.\"\n\n\"_Your_ plans, I suppose you mean.\"\n\n\"You have some debts, you know, and things may turn out inconveniently\nafter all. The heirship is not _absolutely_ certain.\"\n\nGrandcourt did not answer, and Lush went on.\n\n\"It really is a fine opportunity. The father and mother ask for nothing\nbetter, I can see, and the daughter's looks and manners require no\nallowances, any more than if she hadn't a sixpence. She is not\nbeautiful; but equal to carrying any rank. And she is not likely to\nrefuse such prospects as you can offer her.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not.\"\n\n\"The father and mother would let you do anything you like with them.\"\n\n\"But I should not like to do anything with them.\"\n\nHere it was Lush who made a little pause before speaking again, and\nthen he said in a deep voice of remonstrance, \"Good God, Grandcourt!\nafter your experience, will you let a whim interfere with your\ncomfortable settlement in life?\"\n\n\"Spare your oratory. I know what I am going to do.\"\n\n\"What?\" Lush put down his cigar and thrust his hands into his side\npockets, as if he had to face something exasperating, but meant to keep\nhis temper.\n\n\"I am going to marry the other girl.\"\n\n\"Have you fallen in love?\" This question carried a strong sneer.\n\n\"I am going to marry her.\"\n\n\"You have made her an offer already, then?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"She is a young lady with a will of her own, I fancy. Extremely well\nfitted to make a rumpus. She would know what she liked.\"\n\n\"She doesn't like you,\" said Grandcourt, with the ghost of a smile.\n\n\"Perfectly true,\" said Lush, adding again in a markedly sneering tone.\n\"However, if you and she are devoted to each other, that will be\nenough.\"\n\nGrandcourt took no notice of this speech, but sipped his coffee, rose,\nand strolled out on the lawn, all the dogs following him.\n\nLush glanced after him a moment, then resumed his cigar and lit it, but\nsmoked slowly, consulting his beard with inspecting eyes and fingers,\ntill he finally stroked it with an air of having arrived at some\nconclusion, and said in a subdued voice--\n\n\"Check, old boy!\"\n\nLush, being a man of some ability, had not known Grandcourt for fifteen\nyears without learning what sort of measures were useless with him,\nthough what sort might be useful remained often dubious. In the\nbeginning of his career he held a fellowship, and was near taking\norders for the sake of a college living, but not being fond of that\nprospect accepted instead the office of traveling companion to a\nmarquess, and afterward to young Grandcourt, who had lost his father\nearly, and who found Lush so convenient that he had allowed him to\nbecome prime minister in all his more personal affairs. The habit of\nfifteen years had made Grandcourt more and more in need of Lush's\nhandiness, and Lush more and more in need of the lazy luxury to which\nhis transactions on behalf of Grandcourt made no interruption worth\nreckoning. I cannot say that the same lengthened habit had intensified\nGrandcourt's want of respect for his companion since that want had been\nabsolute from the beginning, but it had confirmed his sense that he\nmight kick Lush if he chose--only he never did choose to kick any\nanimal, because the act of kicking is a compromising attitude, and a\ngentleman's dogs should be kicked for him. He only said things which\nmight have exposed himself to be kicked if his confidant had been a man\nof independent spirit. But what son of a vicar who has stinted his wife\nand daughters of calico in order to send his male offspring to Oxford,\ncan keep an independent spirit when he is bent on dining with high\ndiscrimination, riding good horses, living generally in the most\nluxuriant honey-blossomed clover--and all without working? Mr. Lush had\npassed for a scholar once, and had still a sense of scholarship when he\nwas not trying to remember much of it; but the bachelor's and other\narts which soften manners are a time-honored preparation for sinecures;\nand Lush's present comfortable provision was as good a sinecure in not\nrequiring more than the odor of departed learning. He was not\nunconscious of being held kickable, but he preferred counting that\nestimate among the peculiarities of Grandcourt's character, which made\none of his incalculable moods or judgments as good as another. Since in\nhis own opinion he had never done a bad action, it did not seem\nnecessary to consider whether he should be likely to commit one if his\nlove of ease required it. Lush's love of ease was well-satisfied at\npresent, and if his puddings were rolled toward him in the dust, he\ntook the inside bits and found them relishing.\n\nThis morning, for example, though he had encountered more annoyance\nthan usual, he went to his private sitting-room and played a good hour\non the violoncello.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII.\n\n  \"Philistia, be thou glad of me!\"\n\n\nGrandcourt having made up his mind to marry Miss Harleth, showed a\npower of adapting means to ends. During the next fortnight there was\nhardly a day on which by some arrangement or other he did not see her,\nor prove by emphatic attentions that she occupied his thoughts. His\ncousin, Mrs. Torrington, was now doing the honors of his house, so that\nMrs. Davilow and Gwendolen could be invited to a large party at Diplow\nin which there were many witnesses how the host distinguished the\ndowerless beauty, and showed no solicitude about the heiress. The\nworld--I mean Mr. Gascoigne and all the families worth speaking of\nwithin visiting distance of Pennicote--felt an assurance on the subject\nwhich in the rector's mind converted itself into a resolution to do his\nduty by his niece and see that the settlements were adequate. Indeed\nthe wonder to him and Mrs. Davilow was that the offer for which so many\nsuitable occasions presented themselves had not been already made; and\nin this wonder Grandcourt himself was not without a share. When he had\ntold his resolution to Lush he had thought that the affair would be\nconcluded more quickly, and to his own surprise he had repeatedly\npromised himself in a morning that he would to-day give Gwendolen the\nopportunity of accepting him, and had found in the evening that the\nnecessary formality was still unaccomplished. This remarkable fact\nserved to heighten his determination on another day. He had never\nadmitted to himself that Gwendolen might refuse him, but--heaven help\nus all!--we are often unable to act on our certainties; our objection\nto a contrary issue (were it possible) is so strong that it rises like\na spectral illusion between us and our certainty; we are rationally\nsure that the blind worm can not bite us mortally, but it would be so\nintolerable to be bitten, and the creature has a biting look--we\ndecline to handle it.\n\nHe had asked leave to have a beautiful horse of his brought for\nGwendolen to ride. Mrs. Davilow was to accompany her in the carriage,\nand they were to go to Diplow to lunch, Grandcourt conducting them. It\nwas a fine mid-harvest time, not too warm for a noonday ride of five\nmiles to be delightful; the poppies glowed on the borders of the\nfields, there was enough breeze to move gently like a social spirit\namong the ears of uncut corn, and to wing the shadow of a cloud across\nthe soft gray downs; here the sheaves were standing, there the horses\nwere straining their muscles under the last load from a wide space of\nstubble, but everywhere the green pasture made a broader setting for\nthe corn-fields, and the cattle took their rest under wide branches.\nThe road lay through a bit of country where the dairy-farms looked much\nas they did in the days of our forefathers--where peace and permanence\nseemed to find a home away from the busy change that sent the railway\ntrain flying in the distance.\n\nBut the spirit of peace and permanence did not penetrate poor Mrs.\nDavilow's mind so as to overcome her habit of uneasy foreboding.\nGwendolen and Grandcourt cantering in front of her, and then slackening\ntheir pace to a conversational walk till the carriage came up with them\nagain, made a gratifying sight; but it served chiefly to keep up the\nconflict of hopes and fears about her daughter's lot. Here was an\nirresistible opportunity for a lover to speak and put an end to all\nuncertainties, and Mrs. Davilow could only hope with trembling that\nGwendolen's decision would be favorable. Certainly if Rex's love had\nbeen repugnant to her, Mr. Grandcourt had the advantage of being in\ncomplete contrast with Rex; and that he had produced some quite novel\nimpression on her seemed evident in her marked abstinence from\nsatirical observations, nay, her total silence about his\ncharacteristics, a silence which Mrs. Davilow did not dare to break.\n\"Is he a man she would be happy with?\"--was a question that inevitably\narose in the mother's mind. \"Well, perhaps as happy as she would be\nwith any one else--or as most other women are\"--was the answer with\nwhich she tried to quiet herself; for she could not imagine Gwendolen\nunder the influence of any feeling which would make her satisfied in\nwhat we traditionally call \"mean circumstances.\"\n\nGrandcourt's own thought was looking in the same direction: he wanted\nto have done with the uncertainty that belonged to his not having\nspoken. As to any further uncertainty--well, it was something without\nany reasonable basis, some quality in the air which acted as an\nirritant to his wishes.\n\nGwendolen enjoyed the riding, but her pleasure did not break forth in\ngirlish unpremeditated chat and laughter as it did on that morning with\nRex. She spoke a little, and even laughed, but with a lightness as of a\nfar-off echo: for her too there was some peculiar quality in the\nair--not, she was sure, any subjugation of her will by Mr. Grandcourt,\nand the splendid prospects he meant to offer her; for Gwendolen desired\nevery one, that dignified gentleman himself included, to understand\nthat she was going to do just as she liked, and that they had better\nnot calculate on her pleasing them. If she chose to take this husband,\nshe would have him know that she was not going to renounce her freedom,\nor according to her favorite formula, \"not going to do as other women\ndid.\"\n\nGrandcourt's speeches this morning were, as usual, all of that brief\nsort which never fails to make a conversational figure when the speaker\nis held important in his circle. Stopping so soon, they give signs of a\nsuppressed and formidable ability so say more, and have also the\nmeritorious quality of allowing lengthiness to others.\n\n\"How do you like Criterion's paces?\" he said, after they had entered\nthe park and were slacking from a canter to a walk.\n\n\"He is delightful to ride. I should like to have a leap with him, if it\nwould not frighten mamma. There was a good wide channel we passed five\nminutes ago. I should like to have a gallop back and take it.\"\n\n\"Pray do. We can take it together.\"\n\n\"No, thanks. Mamma is so timid--if she saw me it might make her ill.\"\n\n\"Let me go and explain. Criterion would take it without fail.\"\n\n\"No--indeed--you are very kind--but it would alarm her too much. I dare\ntake any leap when she is not by; but I do it and don't tell her about\nit.\"\n\n\"We can let the carriage pass and then set off.\"\n\n\"No, no, pray don't think of it any more: I spoke quite randomly,\" said\nGwendolen; she began to feel a new objection to carrying out her own\nproposition.\n\n\"But Mrs. Davilow knows I shall take care of you.\"\n\n\"Yes, but she would think of you as having to take care of my broken\nneck.\"\n\nThere was a considerable pause before Grandcourt said, looking toward\nher, \"I should like to have the right always to take care of you.\"\n\nGwendolen did not turn her eyes on him; it seemed to her a long while\nthat she was first blushing, and then turning pale, but to Grandcourt's\nrate of judgment she answered soon enough, with the lightest flute-tone\nand a careless movement of the head, \"Oh, I am not sure that I want to\nbe taken care of: if I chose to risk breaking my neck, I should like to\nbe at liberty to do it.\"\n\nShe checked her horse as she spoke, and turned in her saddle, looking\ntoward the advancing carriage. Her eyes swept across Grandcourt as she\nmade this movement, but there was no language in them to correct the\ncarelessness of her reply. At that very moment she was aware that she\nwas risking something--not her neck, but the possibility of finally\nchecking Grandcourt's advances, and she did not feel contented with the\npossibility.\n\n\"Damn her!\" thought Grandcourt, as he too checked his horse. He was not\na wordy thinker, and this explosive phrase stood for mixed impressions\nwhich eloquent interpreters might have expanded into some sentences\nfull of an irritated sense that he was being mystified, and a\ndetermination that this girl should not make a fool of him. Did she\nwant him to throw himself at her feet and declare that he was dying for\nher? It was not by that gate that she could enter on the privileges he\ncould give her. Or did she expect him to write his proposals? Equally a\ndelusion. He would not make his offer in any way that could place him\ndefinitely in the position of being rejected. But as to her accepting\nhim, she had done it already in accepting his marked attentions: and\nanything which happened to break them off would be understood to her\ndisadvantage. She was merely coquetting, then?\n\nHowever, the carriage came up, and no further _tete-à-tete_ could well\noccur before their arrival at the house, where there was abundant\ncompany, to whom Gwendolen, clad in riding-dress, with her hat laid\naside, clad also in the repute of being chosen by Mr. Grandcourt, was\nnaturally a centre of observation; and since the objectionable Mr. Lush\nwas not there to look at her, this stimulus of admiring attention\nheightened her spirits, and dispersed, for the time, the uneasy\nconsciousness of divided impulses which threatened her with repentance\nof her own acts. Whether Grandcourt had been offended or not there was\nno judging: his manners were unchanged, but Gwendolen's acuteness had\nnot gone deeper than to discern that his manners were no clue for her,\nand because these were unchanged she was not the less afraid of him.\n\nShe had not been at Diplow before except to dine; and since certain\npoints of view from the windows and the garden were worth showing, Lady\nFlora Hollis proposed after luncheon, when some of the guests had\ndispersed, and the sun was sloping toward four o'clock, that the\nremaining party should make a little exploration. Here came frequent\nopportunities when Grandcourt might have retained Gwendolen apart, and\nhave spoken to her unheard. But no! He indeed spoke to no one else, but\nwhat he said was nothing more eager or intimate than it had been in\ntheir first interview. He looked at her not less than usual; and some\nof her defiant spirit having come back, she looked full at him in\nreturn, not caring--rather preferring--that his eyes had no expression\nin them.\n\nBut at last it seemed as if he entertained some contrivance. After they\nhad nearly made the tour of the grounds, the whole party stopped by the\npool to be amused with Fetch's accomplishment of bringing a water lily\nto the bank like Cowper's spaniel Beau, and having been disappointed in\nhis first attempt insisted on his trying again.\n\nHere Grandcourt, who stood with Gwendolen outside the group, turned\ndeliberately, and fixing his eyes on a knoll planted with American\nshrubs, and having a winding path up it, said languidly--\n\n\"This is a bore. Shall we go up there?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly--since we are exploring,\" said Gwendolen. She was rather\npleased, and yet afraid.\n\nThe path was too narrow for him to offer his arm, and they walked up in\nsilence. When they were on the bit of platform at the summit,\nGrandcourt said--\n\n\"There is nothing to be seen here: the thing was not worth climbing.\"\n\nHow was it that Gwendolen did not laugh? She was perfectly silent,\nholding up the folds of her robe like a statue, and giving a harder\ngrasp to the handle of her whip, which she had snatched up\nautomatically with her hat when they had first set off.\n\n\"What sort of a place do you prefer?\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"Different places are agreeable in their way. On the whole, I think, I\nprefer places that are open and cheerful. I am not fond of anything\nsombre.\"\n\n\"Your place of Offendene is too sombre.\"\n\n\"It is, rather.\"\n\n\"You will not remain there long, I hope.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister.\"\n\nSilence for a short space.\n\n\"It is not to be supposed that _you_ will always live there, though\nMrs. Davilow may.\"\n\n\"I don't know. We women can't go in search of adventures--to find out\nthe North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in\nthe East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to\ntransplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as\nwe can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the\nplants; they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them\nhave got poisonous. What do you think?\" Gwendolen had run on rather\nnervously, lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her.\n\n\"I quite agree. Most things are bores,\" said Grandcourt, his mind\nhaving been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track.\nBut, after a moment's pause, he continued in his broken, refined drawl--\n\n\"But a woman can be married.\"\n\n\"Some women can.\"\n\n\"You, certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel.\"\n\n\"I am not sure that I am not both cruel and obstinate.\" Here Gwendolen\nsuddenly turned her head and looked full at Grandcourt, whose eyes she\nhad felt to be upon her throughout their conversation. She was\nwondering what the effect of looking at him would be on herself rather\nthan on him.\n\nHe stood perfectly still, half a yard or more away from her; and it\nflashed through her mind what a sort of lotus-eater's stupor had begun\nin him and was taking possession of her. Then he said--\n\n\"Are you as uncertain about yourself as you make others about you?\"\n\n\"I am quite uncertain about myself; I don't know how uncertain others\nmay be.\"\n\n\"And you wish them to understand that you don't care?\" said Grandcourt,\nwith a touch of new hardness in his tone.\n\n\"I did not say that,\" Gwendolen replied, hesitatingly, and turning her\neyes away whipped the rhododendron bush again. She wished she were on\nhorseback that she might set off on a canter. It was impossible to set\noff running down the knoll.\n\n\"You do care, then,\" said Grandcourt, not more quickly, but with a\nsoftened drawl.\n\n\"Ha! my whip!\" said Gwendolen, in a little scream of distress. She had\nlet it go--what could be more natural in a slight agitation?--and--but\nthis seemed less natural in a gold-handled whip which had been left\naltogether to itself--it had gone with some force over the immediate\nshrubs, and had lodged itself in the branches of an azalea half-way\ndown the knoll. She could run down now, laughing prettily, and\nGrandcourt was obliged to follow; but she was beforehand with him in\nrescuing the whip, and continued on her way to the level ground, when\nshe paused and looked at Grandcourt with an exasperating brightness in\nher glance and a heightened color, as if she had carried a triumph, and\nthese indications were still noticeable to Mrs. Davilow when Gwendolen\nand Grandcourt joined the rest of the party.\n\n\"It is all coquetting,\" thought Grandcourt; \"the next time I beckon she\nwill come down.\"\n\nIt seemed to him likely that this final beckoning might happen the very\nnext day, when there was to be a picnic archery meeting in Cardell\nChase, according to the plan projected on the evening of the ball.\n\nEven in Gwendolen's mind that result was one of two likelihoods that\npresented themselves alternately, one of two decisions toward which she\nwas being precipitated, as if they were two sides of a boundary-line,\nand she did not know on which she should fall. This subjection to a\npossible self, a self not to be absolutely predicted about, caused her\nsome astonishment and terror; her favorite key of life--doing as she\nliked--seemed to fail her, and she could not foresee what at a given\nmoment she might like to do. The prospect of marrying Grandcourt really\nseemed more attractive to her than she had believed beforehand that any\nmarriage could be: the dignities, the luxuries, the power of doing a\ngreat deal of what she liked to do, which had now come close to her,\nand within her choice to secure or to lose, took hold of her nature as\nif it had been the strong odor of what she had only imagined and longed\nfor before. And Grandcourt himself? He seemed as little of a flaw in\nhis fortunes as a lover and husband could possibly be. Gwendolen wished\nto mount the chariot and drive the plunging horses herself, with a\nspouse by her side who would fold his arms and give her his countenance\nwithout looking ridiculous. Certainly, with all her perspicacity, and\nall the reading which seemed to her mamma dangerously instructive, her\njudgment was consciously a little at fault before Grandcourt. He was\nadorably quiet and free from absurdities--he would be a husband to suit\nwith the best appearance a woman could make. But what else was he? He\nhad been everywhere, and seen everything. _That_ was desirable, and\nespecially gratifying as a preamble to his supreme preference for\nGwendolen Harleth. He did not appear to enjoy anything much. That was\nnot necessary: and the less he had of particular tastes, or desires,\nthe more freedom his wife was likely to have in following hers.\nGwendolen conceived that after marriage she would most probably be able\nto manage him thoroughly.\n\nHow was it that he caused her unusual constraint now?--that she was\nless daring and playful in her talk with him than with any other\nadmirer she had known? That absence of demonstrativeness which she was\nglad of, acted as a charm in more senses than one, and was slightly\nbenumbing. Grandcourt after all was formidable--a handsome lizard of a\nhitherto unknown species, not of the lively, darting kind. But\nGwendolen knew hardly anything about lizards, and ignorance gives one a\nlarge range of probabilities. This splendid specimen was probably\ngentle, suitable as a boudoir pet: what may not a lizard be, if you\nknow nothing to the contrary? Her acquaintance with Grandcourt was such\nthat no accomplishment suddenly revealed in him would have surprised\nher. And he was so little suggestive of drama, that it hardly occurred\nto her to think with any detail how his life of thirty-six years had\nbeen passed: in general, she imagined him always cold and dignified,\nnot likely ever to have committed himself. He had hunted the tiger--had\nhe ever been in love or made love? The one experience and the other\nseemed alike remote in Gwendolen's fancy from the Mr. Grandcourt who\nhad come to Diplow in order apparently to make a chief epoch in her\ndestiny--perhaps by introducing her to that state of marriage which she\nhad resolved to make a state of greater freedom than her girlhood. And\non the whole she wished to marry him; he suited her purpose; her\nprevailing, deliberate intention was, to accept him.\n\nBut was she going to fulfill her deliberate intention? She began to be\nafraid of herself, and to find out a certain difficulty in doing as she\nliked. Already her assertion of independence in evading his advances\nhad been carried farther than was necessary, and she was thinking with\nsome anxiety what she might do on the next occasion.\n\nSeated according to her habit with her back to the horses on their\ndrive homeward, she was completely under the observation of her mamma,\nwho took the excitement and changefulness in the expression of her\neyes, her unwonted absence of mind and total silence, as unmistakable\nsigns that something unprecedented had occurred between her and\nGrandcourt. Mrs. Davilow's uneasiness determined her to risk some\nspeech on the subject: the Gascoignes were to dine at Offendene, and in\nwhat had occurred this morning there might be some reason for\nconsulting the rector; not that she expected him anymore than herself\nto influence Gwendolen, but that her anxious mind wanted to be\ndisburdened.\n\n\"Something has happened, dear?\" she began, in a tender tone of question.\n\nGwendolen looked round, and seeming to be roused to the consciousness\nof her physical self, took off her gloves and then her hat, that the\nsoft breeze might blow on her head. They were in a retired bit of the\nroad, where the long afternoon shadows from the bordering trees fell\nacross it and no observers were within sight. Her eyes continued to\nmeet her mother's, but she did not speak.\n\n\"Mr. Grandcourt has been saying something?--Tell me, dear.\" The last\nwords were uttered beseechingly.\n\n\"What am I to tell you, mamma?\" was the perverse answer.\n\n\"I am sure something has agitated you. You ought to confide in me,\nGwen. You ought not to leave me in doubt and anxiety.\" Mrs. Davilow's\neyes filled with tears.\n\n\"Mamma, dear, please don't be miserable,\" said Gwendolen, with pettish\nremonstrance. \"It only makes me more so. I am in doubt myself.\"\n\n\"About Mr. Grandcourt's intentions?\" said Mrs. Davilow, gathering\ndetermination from her alarms.\n\n\"No; not at all,\" said Gwendolen, with some curtness, and a pretty\nlittle toss of the head as she put on her hat again.\n\n\"About whether you will accept him, then?\"\n\n\"Precisely.\"\n\n\"Have you given him a doubtful answer?\"\n\n\"I have given him no answer at all.\"\n\n\"He _has_ spoken so that you could not misunderstand him?\"\n\n\"As far as I would let him speak.\"\n\n\"You expect him to persevere?\" Mrs. Davilow put this question rather\nanxiously, and receiving no answer, asked another: \"You don't consider\nthat you have discouraged him?\"\n\n\"I dare say not.\"\n\n\"I thought you liked him, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, timidly.\n\n\"So I do, mamma, as liking goes. There is less to dislike about him\nthan about most men. He is quiet and _distingué_.\" Gwendolen so far\nspoke with a pouting sort of gravity; but suddenly she recovered some\nof her mischievousness, and her face broke into a smile as she\nadded--\"Indeed he has all the qualities that would make a husband\ntolerable--battlement, veranda, stable, etc., no grins and no glass in\nhis eye.\"\n\n\"Do be serious with me for a moment, dear. Am I to understand that you\nmean to accept him?\"\n\n\"Oh, pray, mamma, leave me to myself,\" said Gwendolen, with a pettish\ndistress in her voice.\n\nAnd Mrs. Davilow said no more.\n\nWhen they got home Gwendolen declared that she would not dine. She was\ntired, and would come down in the evening after she had taken some\nrest. The probability that her uncle would hear what had passed did not\ntrouble her. She was convinced that whatever he might say would be on\nthe side of her accepting Grandcourt, and she wished to accept him if\nshe could. At this moment she would willingly have had weights hung on\nher own caprice.\n\nMr. Gascoigne did hear--not Gwendolen's answers repeated verbatim, but\na softened generalized account of them. The mother conveyed as vaguely\nas the keen rector's questions would let her the impression that\nGwendolen was in some uncertainty about her own mind, but inclined on\nthe whole to acceptance. The result was that the uncle felt himself\ncalled on to interfere; he did not conceive that he should do his duty\nin witholding direction from his niece in a momentous crisis of this\nkind. Mrs. Davilow ventured a hesitating opinion that perhaps it would\nbe safer to say nothing--Gwendolen was so sensitive (she did not like\nto say willful). But the rector's was a firm mind, grasping its first\njudgments tenaciously and acting on them promptly, whence\ncounter-judgments were no more for him than shadows fleeting across the\nsolid ground to which he adjusted himself.\n\nThis match with Grandcourt presented itself to him as a sort of public\naffair; perhaps there were ways in which it might even strengthen the\nestablishment. To the rector, whose father (nobody would have suspected\nit, and nobody was told) had risen to be a provincial corn-dealer,\naristocratic heirship resembled regal heirship in excepting its\npossessor from the ordinary standard of moral judgments, Grandcourt,\nthe almost certain baronet, the probable peer, was to be ranged with\npublic personages, and was a match to be accepted on broad general\ngrounds national and ecclesiastical. Such public personages, it is\ntrue, are often in the nature of giants which an ancient community may\nhave felt pride and safety in possessing, though, regarded privately,\nthese born eminences must often have been inconvenient and even\nnoisome. But of the future husband personally Mr. Gascoigne was\ndisposed to think the best. Gossip is a sort of smoke that comes from\nthe dirty tobacco-pipes of those who diffuse it: it proves nothing\nbut the bad taste of the smoker. But if Grandcourt had really made any\ndeeper or more unfortunate experiments in folly than were common in\nyoung men of high prospects, he was of an age to have finished them.\nAll accounts can be suitably wound up when a man has not ruined\nhimself, and the expense may be taken as an insurance against future\nerror. This was the view of practical wisdom; with reference to higher\nviews, repentance had a supreme moral and religious value. There was\nevery reason to believe that a woman of well-regulated mind would be\nhappy with Grandcourt.\n\nIt was no surprise to Gwendolen on coming down to tea to be told that\nher uncle wished to see her in the dining-room. He threw aside the\npaper as she entered and greeted her with his usual kindness. As his\nwife had remarked, he always \"made much\" of Gwendolen, and her\nimportance had risen of late. \"My dear,\" he said, in a fatherly way,\nmoving a chair for her as he held her hand, \"I want to speak to you on\na subject which is more momentous than any other with regard to your\nwelfare. You will guess what I mean. But I shall speak to you with\nperfect directness: in such matters I consider myself bound to act as\nyour father. You have no objection, I hope?\"\n\n\"Oh dear, no, uncle. You have always been very kind to me,\" said\nGwendolen, frankly. This evening she was willing, if it were possible,\nto be a little fortified against her troublesome self, and her\nresistant temper was in abeyance. The rector's mode of speech always\nconveyed a thrill of authority, as of a word of command: it seemed to\ntake for granted that there could be no wavering in the audience, and\nthat every one was going to be rationally obedient.\n\n\"It is naturally a satisfaction to me that the prospect of a marriage\nfor you--advantageous in the highest degree--has presented itself so\nearly. I do not know exactly what has passed between you and Mr.\nGrandcourt, but I presume there can be little doubt, from the way in\nwhich he has distinguished you, that he desires to make you his wife.\"\n\nGwendolen did not speak immediately, and her uncle said with more\nemphasis--\n\n\"Have you any doubt of that yourself, my dear?\"\n\n\"I suppose that is what he has been thinking of. But he may have\nchanged his mind to-morrow,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Why to-morrow? Has he made advances which you have discouraged?\"\n\n\"I think he meant--he began to make advances--but I did not encourage\nthem. I turned the conversation.\"\n\n\"Will you confide in me so far as to tell me your reasons?\"\n\n\"I am not sure that I had any reasons, uncle.\" Gwendolen laughed rather\nartificially.\n\n\"You are quite capable of reflecting, Gwendolen. You are aware that\nthis is not a trivial occasion, and it concerns your establishment for\nlife under circumstances which may not occur again. You have a duty\nhere both to yourself and your family. I wish to understand whether you\nhave any ground for hesitating as to your acceptance of Mr. Grandcourt.\"\n\n\"I suppose I hesitate without grounds.\" Gwendolen spoke rather\npoutingly, and her uncle grew suspicious.\n\n\"Is he disagreeable to you personally?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Have you heard anything of him which has affected you disagreeably?\"\nThe rector thought it impossible that Gwendolen could have heard the\ngossip he had heard, but in any case he must endeavor to put all things\nin the right light for her.\n\n\"I have heard nothing about him except that he is a great match,\" said\nGwendolen, with some sauciness; \"and that affects me very agreeably.\"\n\n\"Then, my dear Gwendolen, I have nothing further to say than this: you\nhold your fortune in your own hands--a fortune such as rarely happens\nto a girl in your circumstances--a fortune in fact which almost takes\nthe question out of the range of mere personal feeling, and makes your\nacceptance of it a duty. If Providence offers you power and\nposition--especially when unclogged by any conditions that are\nrepugnant to you--your course is one of responsibility, into which\ncaprice must not enter. A man does not like to have his attachment\ntrifled with: he may not be at once repelled--these things are matters\nof individual disposition. But the trifling may be carried too far. And\nI must point out to you that in case Mr. Grandcourt were repelled\nwithout your having refused him--without your having intended\nultimately to refuse him, your situation would be a humiliating and\npainful one. I, for my part, should regard you with severe\ndisapprobation, as the victim of nothing else than your own coquetry\nand folly.\"\n\nGwendolen became pallid as she listened to this admonitory speech. The\nideas it raised had the force of sensations. Her resistant courage\nwould not help her here, because her uncle was not urging her against\nher own resolve; he was pressing upon her the motives of dread which\nshe already felt; he was making her more conscious of the risks that\nlay within herself. She was silent, and the rector observed that he had\nproduced some strong effect.\n\n\"I mean this in kindness, my dear.\" His tone had softened.\n\n\"I am aware of that, uncle,\" said Gwendolen, rising and shaking her\nhead back, as if to rouse herself out of painful passivity. \"I am not\nfoolish. I know that I must be married some time--before it is too\nlate. And I don't see how I could do better than marry Mr. Grandcourt.\nI mean to accept him, if possible.\" She felt as if she were reinforcing\nherself by speaking with this decisiveness to her uncle.\n\nBut the rector was a little startled by so bare a version of his own\nmeaning from those young lips. He wished that in her mind his advice\nshould be taken in an infusion of sentiments proper to a girl, and such\nas are presupposed in the advice of a clergyman, although he may not\nconsider them always appropriate to be put forward. He wished his niece\nparks, carriages, a title--everything that would make this world a\npleasant abode; but he wished her not to be cynical--to be, on the\ncontrary, religiously dutiful, and have warm domestic affections.\n\n\"My dear Gwendolen,\" he said, rising also, and speaking with benignant\ngravity, \"I trust that you will find in marriage a new fountain of duty\nand affection. Marriage is the only true and satisfactory sphere of a\nwoman, and if your marriage with Mr. Grandcourt should be happily\ndecided upon, you will have, probably, an increasing power, both of\nrank and wealth, which may be used for the benefit of others. These\nconsiderations are something higher than romance! You are fitted by\nnatural gifts for a position which, considering your birth and early\nprospects, could hardly be looked forward to as in the ordinary course\nof things; and I trust that you will grace it, not only by those\npersonal gifts, but by a good and consistent life.\"\n\n\"I hope mamma will be the happier,\" said Gwendolen, in a more cheerful\nway, lifting her hands backward to her neck and moving toward the door.\nShe wanted to waive those higher considerations.\n\nMr. Gascoigne felt that he had come to a satisfactory understanding\nwith his niece, and had furthered her happy settlement in life by\nfurthering her engagement to Grandcourt. Meanwhile there was another\nperson to whom the contemplation of that issue had been a motive for\nsome activity, and who believed that he, too, on this particular day\nhad done something toward bringing about a favorable decision in _his_\nsense--which happened to be the reverse of the rector's.\n\nMr. Lush's absence from Diplow during Gwendolen's visit had been due,\nnot to any fear on his part of meeting that supercilious young lady, or\nof being abashed by her frank dislike, but to an engagement from which\nhe expected important consequences. He was gone, in fact, to the\nWanchester station to meet a lady, accompanied by a maid and two\nchildren, whom he put into a fly, and afterward followed to the hotel\nof the Golden Keys, in that town. An impressive woman, whom many would\nturn to look at again in passing; her figure was slim and sufficiently\ntall, her face rather emaciated, so that its sculpturesque beauty was\nthe more pronounced, her crisp hair perfectly black, and her large,\nanxious eyes what we call black. Her dress was soberly correct, her\nage, perhaps, physically more advanced than the number of years would\nimply, but hardly less than seven-and-thirty. An uneasy-looking woman:\nher glance seemed to presuppose that the people and things were going\nto be unfavorable to her, while she was, nevertheless, ready to meet\nthem with resolution. The children were lovely--a dark-haired girl of\nsix or more, a fairer boy of five. When Lush incautiously expressed\nsome surprise at her having brought the children, she said, with a\nsharp-toned intonation--\n\n\"Did you suppose I should come wandering about here by myself? Why\nshould I not bring all four if I liked?\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly,\" said Lush, with his usual fluent _nonchalance_.\n\nHe stayed an hour or so in conference with her, and rode back to Diplow\nin a state of mind that was at once hopeful and busily anxious as to\nthe execution of the little plan on which his hopefulness was based.\nGrandcourt's marriage to Gwendolen Harleth would not, he believed, be\nmuch of a good to either of them, and it would plainly be fraught with\ndisagreeables to himself. But now he felt confident enough to say\ninwardly, \"I will take, nay, I will lay odds that the marriage will\nnever happen.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV.\n\n  I will not clothe myself in wreck--wear gems\n  Sawed from cramped finger-bones of women drowned;\n  Feel chilly vaporous hands of ireful ghosts\n  Clutching my necklace: trick my maiden breast\n  With orphans' heritage. Let your dead love\n  Marry it's dead.\n\n\nGwendolen looked lovely and vigorous as a tall, newly-opened lily the\nnext morning: there was a reaction of young energy in her, and\nyesterday's self-distrust seemed no more than the transient shiver on\nthe surface of a full stream. The roving archery match in Cardell Chase\nwas a delightful prospect for the sport's sake: she felt herself\nbeforehand moving about like a wood-nymph under the beeches (in\nappreciative company), and the imagined scene lent a charm to further\nadvances on the part of Grandcourt--not an impassioned lyrical Daphnis\nfor the wood-nymph, certainly: but so much the better. To-day Gwendolen\nforesaw him making slow conversational approaches to a declaration, and\nforesaw herself awaiting and encouraging it according to the rational\nconclusion which she had expressed to her uncle.\n\nWhen she came down to breakfast (after every one had left the table\nexcept Mrs. Davilow) there were letters on her plate. One of them she\nread with a gathering smile, and then handed it to her mamma, who, on\nreturning it, smiled also, finding new cheerfulness in the good spirits\nher daughter had shown ever since waking, and said--\n\n\"You don't feel inclined to go a thousand miles away?\"\n\n\"Not exactly so far.\"\n\n\"It was a sad omission not to have written again before this. Can't you\nwrite how--before we set out this morning?\"\n\n\"It is not so pressing. To-morrow will do. You see they leave town\nto-day. I must write to Dover. They will be there till Monday.\"\n\n\"Shall I write for you, dear--if it teases you?\"\n\nGwendolen did not speak immediately, but after sipping her coffee,\nanswered brusquely, \"Oh no, let it be; I will write to-morrow.\" Then,\nfeeling a touch of compunction, she looked up and said with playful\ntenderness, \"Dear, old, beautiful mamma!\"\n\n\"Old, child, truly.\"\n\n\"Please don't, mamma! I meant old for darling. You are hardly\ntwenty-five years older than I am. When you talk in that way my life\nshrivels up before me.\"\n\n\"One can have a great deal of happiness in twenty-five years, my dear.\"\n\n\"I must lose no time in beginning,\" said Gwendolen, merrily. \"The\nsooner I get my palaces and coaches the better.\"\n\n\"And a good husband who adores you, Gwen,\" said Mrs. Davilow,\nencouragingly.\n\nGwendolen put out her lips saucily and said nothing.\n\nIt was a slight drawback on her pleasure in starting that the rector\nwas detained by magistrate's business, and would probably not be able\nto get to Cardell Chase at all that day. She cared little that Mrs.\nGascoigne and Anna chose not to go without him, but her uncle's\npresence would have seemed to make it a matter of course that the\ndecision taken would be acted on. For decision in itself began to be\nformidable. Having come close to accepting Grandcourt, Gwendolen felt\nthis lot of unhoped-for fullness rounding itself too definitely. When\nwe take to wishing a great deal for ourselves, whatever we get soon\nturns into mere limitation and exclusion. Still there was the\nreassuring thought that marriage would be the gate into a larger\nfreedom.\n\nThe place of meeting was a grassy spot called Green Arbor, where a bit\nof hanging wood made a sheltering amphitheatre. It was here that the\ncoachful of servants with provisions had to prepare the picnic meal;\nand the warden of the Chase was to guide the roving archers so as to\nkeep them within the due distance from this centre, and hinder them\nfrom wandering beyond the limit which had been fixed on--a curve that\nmight be drawn through certain well-known points, such as the double\nOak, the Whispering Stones, and the High Cross. The plan was to take\nonly a preliminary stroll before luncheon, keeping the main roving\nexpedition for the more exquisite lights of the afternoon. The muster\nwas rapid enough to save every one from dull moments of waiting, and\nwhen the groups began to scatter themselves through the light and\nshadow made here by closely neighboring beeches and there by rarer\noaks, one may suppose that a painter would have been glad to look on.\nThis roving archery was far prettier than the stationary game, but\nsuccess in shooting at variable marks were less favored by practice,\nand the hits were distributed among the volunteer archers otherwise\nthan they would have been in target-shooting. From this cause, perhaps,\nas well as from the twofold distraction of being preoccupied and\nwishing not to betray her preoccupation, Gwendolen did not greatly\ndistinguish herself in these first experiments, unless it were by the\nlively grace with which she took her comparative failure. She was in\nwhite and green as on the day of the former meeting, when it made an\nepoch for her that she was introduced to Grandcourt; he was continually\nby her side now, yet it would have been hard to tell from mere looks\nand manners that their relation to each other had at all changed since\ntheir first conversation. Still there were other grounds that made most\npersons conclude them to be, if not engaged already, on the eve of\nbeing so. And she believed this herself. As they were all returning\ntoward Green Arbor in divergent groups, not thinking at all of taking\naim but merely chattering, words passed which seemed really the\nbeginning of that end--the beginning of her acceptance. Grandcourt\nsaid, \"Do you know how long it is since I first saw you in this dress?\"\n\n\"The archery meeting was on the 25th, and this is the 13th,\" said\nGwendolen, laughingly. \"I am not good at calculating, but I will\nventure to say that it must be nearly three weeks.\"\n\nA little pause, and then he said, \"That is a great loss of time.\"\n\n\"That your knowing me has caused you? Pray don't be uncomplimentary; I\ndon't like it.\"\n\nPause again. \"It is because of the gain that I feel the loss.\"\n\nHere Gwendolen herself let a pause. She was thinking, \"He is really\nvery ingenious. He never speaks stupidly.\" Her silence was so unusual\nthat it seemed the strongest of favorable answers, and he continued:\n\n\"The gain of knowing you makes me feel the time I lose in uncertainty.\nDo _you_ like uncertainty?\"\n\n\"I think I do, rather,\" said Gwendolen, suddenly beaming on him with a\nplayful smile. \"There is more in it.\"\n\nGrandcourt met her laughing eyes with a slow, steady look right into\nthem, which seemed like vision in the abstract, and then said, \"Do you\nmean more torment for me?\"\n\nThere was something so strange to Gwendolen in this moment that she was\nquite shaken out of her usual self-consciousness. Blushing and turning\naway her eyes, she said, \"No, that would make me sorry.\"\n\nGrandcourt would have followed up this answer, which the change in her\nmanner made apparently decisive of her favorable intention; but he was\nnot in any way overcome so as to be unaware that they were now, within\nsight of everybody, descending the space into Green Arbor, and\ndescending it at an ill-chosen point where it began to be\ninconveniently steep. This was a reason for offering his hand in the\nliteral sense to help her; she took it, and they came down in silence,\nmuch observed by those already on the level--among others by Mrs.\nArrowpoint, who happened to be standing with Mrs. Davilow. That lady\nhad now made up her mind that Grandcourt's merits were not such as\nwould have induced Catherine to accept him, Catherine having so high a\nstandard as to have refused Lord Slogan. Hence she looked at the tenant\nof Diplow with dispassionate eyes.\n\n\"Mr. Grandcourt is not equal as a man to his uncle, Sir Hugo\nMallinger--too languid. To be sure, Mr. Grandcourt is a much younger\nman, but I shouldn't wonder if Sir Hugo were to outlive him,\nnotwithstanding the difference of years. It is ill calculating on\nsuccessions,\" concluded Mrs. Arrowpoint, rather too loudly.\n\n\"It is indeed,\" said Mrs. Davilow, able to assent with quiet\ncheerfulness, for she was so well satisfied with the actual situation\nof affairs that her habitual melancholy in their general\nunsatisfactoriness was altogether in abeyance.\n\nI am not concerned to tell of the food that was eaten in that green\nrefectory, or even to dwell on the stories of the forest scenery that\nspread themselves out beyond the level front of the hollow; being just\nnow bound to tell a story of life at a stage when the blissful beauty\nof earth and sky entered only by narrow and oblique inlets into the\nconsciousness, which was busy with a small social drama almost as\nlittle penetrated by a feeling of wider relations as if it had been a\npuppet-show. It will be understood that the food and champagne were of\nthe best--the talk and laughter too, in the sense of belonging to the\nbest society, where no one makes an invidious display of anything in\nparticular, and the advantages of the world are taken with that\nhigh-bred depreciation which follows from being accustomed to them.\nSome of the gentlemen strolled a little and indulged in a cigar, there\nbeing a sufficient interval before, four o'clock--the time for\nbeginning to rove again. Among these, strange to say, was Grandcourt;\nbut not Mr. Lush, who seemed to be taking his pleasure quite generously\nto-day by making himself particularly serviceable, ordering everything\nfor everybody, and by this activity becoming more than ever a blot on\nthe scene to Gwendolen, though he kept himself amiably aloof from her,\nand never even looked at her obviously. When there was a general move\nto prepare for starting, it appeared that the bows had all been put\nunder the charge of Lord Brackenshaw's valet, and Mr. Lush was\nconcerned to save ladies the trouble of fetching theirs from the\ncarriage where they were propped. He did not intend to bring\nGwendolen's, but she, fearful lest he should do so, hurried to fetch it\nherself. The valet, seeing her approach, met her with it, and in giving\nit into her hand gave also a letter addressed to her. She asked no\nquestion about it, perceived at a glance that the address was in a\nlady's handwriting (of the delicate kind which used to be esteemed\nfeminine before the present uncial period), and moving away with her\nbow in her hand, saw Mr. Lush coming to fetch other bows. To avoid\nmeeting him she turned aside and walked with her back toward the stand\nof carriages, opening the letter. It contained these words--\n\n    If Miss Harleth is in doubt whether she should accept Mr. Grandcourt,\n    let her break from her party after they have passed the Whispering\n    Stones and return to that spot. She will then hear something to decide\n    her; but she can only hear it by keeping this letter a strict secret\n    from every one. If she does not act according to this letter, she will\n    repent, as the woman who writes it has repented. The secrecy Miss\n    Harleth will feel herself bound in honor to guard.\n\nGwendolen felt an inward shock, but her immediate thought was, \"It is\ncome in time.\" It lay in her youthfulness that she was absorbed by the\nidea of the revelation to be made, and had not even a momentary\nsuspicion of contrivance that could justify her in showing the letter.\nHer mind gathered itself up at once into the resolution, that she would\nmanage to go unobserved to the Whispering Stones; and thrusting the\nletter into her pocket she turned back to rejoin the company, with that\nsense of having something to conceal which to her nature had a bracing\nquality and helped her to be mistress of herself.\n\nIt was a surprise to every one that Grandcourt was not, like the other\nsmokers, on the spot in time to set out roving with the rest. \"We shall\nalight on him by-and-by,\" said Lord Brackenshaw; \"he can't be gone\nfar.\" At any rate, no man could be waited for. This apparent\nforgetfulness might be taken for the distraction of a lover so absorbed\nin thinking of the beloved object as to forget an appointment which\nwould bring him into her actual presence. And the good-natured Earl\ngave Gwendolen a distant jocose hint to that effect, which she took\nwith suitable quietude. But the thought in her mind was \"Can he too be\nstarting away from a decision?\" It was not exactly a pleasant thought\nto her; but it was near the truth. \"Starting away,\" however, was not\nthe right expression for the languor of intention that came over\nGrandcourt, like a fit of diseased numbness, when an end seemed within\neasy reach: to desist then, when all expectation was to the contrary,\nbecame another gratification of mere will, sublimely independent of\ndefinite motive. At that moment he had begun a second large cigar in a\nvague, hazy obstinacy which, if Lush or any other mortal who might be\ninsulted with impunity had interrupted by overtaking him with a request\nfor his return, would have expressed itself by a slow removal of his\ncigar, to say in an undertone, \"You'll be kind enough to go to the\ndevil, will you?\"\n\nBut he was not interrupted, and the rovers set off without any visible\ndepression of spirits, leaving behind only a few of the less vigorous\nladies, including Mrs. Davilow, who preferred a quiet stroll free from\nobligation to keep up with others. The enjoyment of the day was soon at\nits highest pitch, the archery getting more spirited and the changing\nscenes of the forest from roofed grove to open glade growing lovelier\nwith the lengthening shadows, and the deeply-felt but undefinable\ngradations of the mellowing afternoon. It was agreed that they were\nplaying an extemporized \"As you like it;\" and when a pretty compliment\nhad been turned to Gwendolen about her having the part of Rosalind, she\nfelt the more compelled to be surpassing in loveliness. This was not\nvery difficult to her, for the effect of what had happened to-day was\nan excitement which needed a vent--a sense of adventure rather than\nalarm, and a straining toward the management of her retreat, so as not\nto be impeded.\n\nThe roving had been lasting nearly an hour before the arrival at the\nWhispering Stones, two tall conical blocks that leaned toward each\nother like gigantic gray-mantled figures. They were soon surveyed and\npassed by with the remark that they would be good ghosts on a starlit\nnight. But a soft sunlight was on them now, and Gwendolen felt daring.\nThe stones were near a fine grove of beeches, where the archers found\nplenty of marks.\n\n\"How far are we from Green Arbor now?\" said Gwendolen, having got in\nfront by the side of the warden.\n\n\"Oh, not more than half a mile, taking along the avenue we're going to\ncross up there: but I shall take round a Couple of miles, by the High\nCross.\"\n\nShe was falling back among the rest, when suddenly they seemed all to\nbe hurrying obliquely forward under the guidance of Mr. Lush, and\nlingering a little where she was, she perceived her opportunity of\nslipping away. Soon she was out of sight, and without running she\nseemed to herself to fly along the ground and count the moments nothing\ntill she found herself back again at the Whispering Stones. They turned\ntheir blank gray sides to her: what was there on the other side? If\nthere were nothing after all? That was her only dread now--to have to\nturn back again in mystification; and walking round the right-hand\nstone without pause, she found herself in front of some one whose large\ndark eyes met hers at a foot's distance. In spite of expectation, she\nwas startled and shrank bank, but in doing so she could take in the\nwhole figure of this stranger and perceive that she was unmistakably a\nlady, and one who must have been exceedingly handsome. She perceived,\nalso, that a few yards from her were two children seated on the grass.\n\n\"Miss Harleth?\" said the lady.\n\n\"Yes.\" All Gwendolen's consciousness was wonder.\n\n\"Have you accepted Mr. Grandcourt?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"I have promised to tell you something. And you will promise to keep my\nsecret. However you may decide you will not tell Mr. Grandcourt, or any\none else, that you have seen me?\"\n\n\"I promise.\"\n\n\"My name is Lydia Glasher. Mr. Grandcourt ought not to marry any one\nbut me. I left my husband and child for him nine years ago. Those two\nchildren are his, and we have two others--girls--who are older. My\nhusband is dead now, and Mr. Grandcourt ought to marry me. He ought to\nmake that boy his heir.\"\n\nShe looked at the boy as she spoke, and Gwendolen's eyes followed hers.\nThe handsome little fellow was puffing out his cheeks in trying to blow\na tiny trumpet which remained dumb. His hat hung backward by a string,\nand his brown curls caught the sun-rays. He was a cherub.\n\nThe two women's eyes met again, and Gwendolen said proudly, \"I will not\ninterfere with your wishes.\" She looked as if she were shivering, and\nher lips were pale.\n\n\"You are very attractive, Miss Harleth. But when he first knew me, I\ntoo was young. Since then my life has been broken up and embittered. It\nis not fair that he should be happy and I miserable, and my boy thrust\nout of sight for another.\"\n\nThese words were uttered with a biting accent, but with a determined\nabstinence from anything violent in tone or manner. Gwendolen, watching\nMrs. Glasher's face while she spoke, felt a sort of terror: it was as\nif some ghastly vision had come to her in a dream and said, \"I am a\nwoman's life.\"\n\n\"Have you anything more to say to me?\" she asked in a low tone, but\nstill proud and coldly. The revulsion within her was not tending to\nsoften her. Everyone seemed hateful.\n\n\"Nothing. You know what I wished you to know. You can inquire about me\nif you like. My husband was Colonel Glasher.\"\n\n\"Then I will go,\" said Gwendolen, moving away with a ceremonious\ninclination, which was returned with equal grace.\n\nIn a few minutes Gwendolen was in the beech grove again but her party\nhad gone out of sight and apparently had not sent in search of her, for\nall was solitude till she had reached the avenue pointed out by the\nwarden. She determined to take this way back to Green Arbor, which she\nreached quickly; rapid movements seeming to her just now a means of\nsuspending the thoughts which might prevent her from behaving with due\ncalm. She had already made up her mind what step she would take.\n\nMrs. Davilow was of course astonished to see Gwendolen returning alone,\nand was not without some uneasiness which the presence of other ladies\nhindered her from showing. In answer to her words of surprise Gwendolen\nsaid--\n\n\"Oh, I have been rather silly. I lingered behind to look at the\nWhispering Stones, and the rest hurried on after something, so I lost\nsight of them. I thought it best to come home by the short way--the\navenue that the warden had told me of. I'm not sorry after all. I had\nhad enough walking.\"\n\n\"Your party did not meet Mr. Grandcourt, I presume,\" said Mrs.\nArrowpoint, not without intention.\n\n\"No,\" said Gwendolen, with a little flash of defiance, and a light\nlaugh. \"And we didn't see any carvings on the trees, either. Where can\nhe be? I should think he has fallen into the pool or had an apoplectic\nfit.\"\n\nWith all Gwendolen's resolve not to betray any agitation, she could not\nhelp it that her tone was unusually high and hard, and her mother felt\nsure that something unpropitious had happened.\n\nMrs. Arrowpoint thought that the self-confident young lady was much\npiqued, and that Mr. Grandcourt was probably seeing reason to change\nhis mind.\n\n\"If you have no objection, mamma, I will order the carriage,\" said\nGwendolen. \"I am tired. And every one will be going soon.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow assented; but by the time the carriage was announced as,\nready--the horses having to be fetched from the stables on the warden's\npremises--the roving party reappeared, and with them Mr. Grandcourt.\n\n\"Ah, there you are!\" said Lord Brackenshaw, going up to Gwendolen, who\nwas arranging her mamma's shawl for the drive. \"We thought at first you\nhad alighted on Grandcourt and he had taken you home. Lush said so. But\nafter that we met Grandcourt. However, we didn't suppose you could be\nin any danger. The warden said he had told you a near way back.\"\n\n\"You are going?\" said Grandcourt, coming up with his usual air, as if\nhe did not conceive that there had been any omission on his part. Lord\nBrackenshaw gave place to him and moved away.\n\n\"Yes, we are going,\" said Gwendolen, looking busily at her scarf, which\nshe was arranging across her shoulders Scotch fashion.\n\n\"May I call at Offendene to-morrow?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, if you like,\" said Gwendolen, sweeping him from a distance\nwith her eyelashes. Her voice was light and sharp as the first touch of\nfrost.\n\nMrs. Davilow accepted his arm to lead her to the carriage; but while\nthat was happening, Gwendolen with incredible swiftness had got in\nadvance of them, and had sprung into the carriage.\n\n\"I got in, mamma, because I wished to be on this side,\" she said,\napologetically. But she had avoided Grandcourt's touch: he only lifted\nhis hat and walked away--with the not unsatisfactory impression that\nshe meant to show herself offended by his neglect.\n\nThe mother and daughter drove for five minutes in silence. Then\nGwendolen said, \"I intend to join the Langens at Dover, mamma. I shall\npack up immediately on getting home, and set off by the early train. I\nshall be at Dover almost as soon as they are; we can let them know by\ntelegraph.\"\n\n\"Good heavens, child! what can be your reason for saying so?\"\n\n\"My reason for saying it, mamma, is that I mean to do it.\"\n\n\"But why do you mean to do it?\"\n\n\"I wish to go away.\"\n\n\"Is it because you are offended with Mr. Grandcourt's odd behavior in\nwalking off to-day?\"\n\n\"It is useless to enter into such questions. I am not going in any case\nto marry Mr. Grandcourt. Don't interest yourself further about it.\"\n\n\"What can I say to your uncle, Gwendolen? Consider the position you\nplace me in. You led him to believe only last night that you had made\nup your mind in favor of Mr. Grandcourt.\"\n\n\"I am very sorry to cause you annoyance, mamma, dear, but I can't help\nit,\" said Gwendolen, with still harder resistance in her tone.\n\"Whatever you or my uncle may think or do, I shall not alter my\nresolve, and I shall not tell my reason. I don't care what comes of it.\nI don't care if I never marry any one. There is nothing worth caring\nfor. I believe all men are bad, and I hate them.\"\n\n\"But need you set off in this way, Gwendolen,\" said Mrs. Davilow,\nmiserable and helpless.\n\n\"Now mamma, don't interfere with me. If you have ever had any trouble\nin your own life, remember it and don't interfere with me. If I am to\nbe miserable, let it be by my own choice.\"\n\nThe mother was reduced to trembling silence. She began to see that the\ndifficulty would be lessened if Gwendolen went away.\n\nAnd she did go. The packing was all carefully done that evening, and\nnot long after dawn the next day Mrs. Davilow accompanied her daughter\nto the railway station. The sweet dews of morning, the cows and horses\nlooking over the hedges without any particular reason, the early\ntravelers on foot with their bundles, seemed all very melancholy and\npurposeless to them both. The dingy torpor of the railway station,\nbefore the ticket could be taken, was still worse. Gwendolen had\ncertainly hardened in the last twenty-four hours: her mother's trouble\nevidently counted for little in her present state of mind, which did\nnot essentially differ from the mood that makes men take to worse\nconduct when their belief in persons or things is upset. Gwendolen's\nuncontrolled reading, though consisting chiefly in what are called\npictures of life, had somehow not prepared her for this encounter with\nreality. Is that surprising? It is to be believed that attendance at\nthe _opéra bouffe_ in the present day would not leave men's minds\nentirely without shock, if the manners observed there with some\napplause were suddenly to start up in their own families. Perspective,\nas its inventor remarked, is a beautiful thing. What horrors of damp\nhuts, where human beings languish, may not become picturesque through\naerial distance! What hymning of cancerous vices may we not languish\nover as sublimest art in the safe remoteness of a strange language and\nartificial phrase! Yet we keep a repugnance to rheumatism and other\npainful effects when presented incur personal experience.\n\nMrs. Davilow felt Gwendolen's new phase of indifference keenly, and as\nshe drove back alone, the brightening morning was sadder to her than\nbefore.\n\nMr. Grandcourt called that day at Offendene, but nobody was at home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV.\n\n    \"_Festina lente_--celerity should be contempered with\n    cunctation.\"--SIR THOMAS BROWNE.\n\n\nGwendolen, we have seen, passed her time abroad in the new excitement\nof gambling, and in imagining herself an empress of luck, having\nbrought from her late experience a vague impression that in this\nconfused world it signified nothing what any one did, so that they\namused themselves. We have seen, too, that certain persons,\nmysteriously symbolized as Grapnell & Co., having also thought of\nreigning in the realm of luck, and being also bent on amusing\nthemselves, no matter how, had brought about a painful change in her\nfamily circumstances; whence she had returned home--carrying with her,\nagainst her inclination, a necklace which she had pawned and some one\nelse had redeemed.\n\nWhile she was going back to England, Grandcourt was coming to find her;\ncoming, that is, after his own manner--not in haste by express straight\nfrom Diplow to Leubronn, where she was understood to be; but so\nentirely without hurry that he was induced by the presence of some\nRussian acquaintances to linger at Baden-Baden and make various\nappointments with them, which, however, his desire to be at Leubronn\nultimately caused him to break. Grandcourt's passions were of the\nintermittent, flickering kind: never flaming out strongly. But a great\ndeal of life goes on without strong passion: myriads of cravats are\ncarefully tied, dinners attended, even speeches made proposing the\nhealth of august personages without the zest arising from a strong\ndesire. And a man may make a good appearance in high social\npositions--may be supposed to know the classics, to have his reserves\non science, a strong though repressed opinion on politics, and all the\nsentiments of the English gentleman, at a small expense of vital\nenergy. Also, he may be obstinate or persistent at the same low rate,\nand may even show sudden impulses which have a false air of daemonic\nstrength because they seem inexplicable, though perhaps their secret\nlies merely in the want of regulated channels for the soul to move\nin--good and sufficient ducts of habit without which our nature easily\nturns to mere ooze and mud, and at any pressure yields nothing but a\nspurt or a puddle.\n\nGrandcourt had not been altogether displeased by Gwendolen's running\naway from the splendid chance he was holding out to her. The act had\nsome piquancy for him. He liked to think that it was due to resentment\nof his careless behavior in Cardell Chase, which, when he came to\nconsider it, did appear rather cool. To have brought her so near a\ntender admission, and then to have walked headlong away from further\nopportunities of winning the consent which he had made her understand\nhim to be asking for, was enough to provoke a girl of spirit; and to be\nworth his mastering it was proper that she should have some spirit.\nDoubtless she meant him to follow her, and it was what he meant too.\nBut for a whole week he took no measures toward starting, and did not\neven inquire where Miss Harleth was gone. Mr. Lush felt a triumph that\nwas mingled with much distrust; for Grandcourt had said no word to him\nabout her, and looked as neutral as an alligator; there was no telling\nwhat might turn up in the slowly-churning chances of his mind. Still,\nto have put off a decision was to have made room for the waste of\nGrandcourt's energy.\n\nThe guests at Diplow felt more curiosity than their host. How was it\nthat nothing more was heard of Miss Harleth? Was it credible that she\nhad refused Mr. Grandcourt? Lady Flora Hollis, a lively middle-aged\nwoman, well endowed with curiosity, felt a sudden interest in making a\nround of calls with Mrs. Torrington, including the rectory, Offendene,\nand Quetcham, and thus not only got twice over, but also discussed with\nthe Arrowpoints, the information that Miss Harleth was gone to\nLeubronn, with some old friends, the Baron and Baroness von Langen; for\nthe immediate agitation and disappointment of Mrs. Davilow and the\nGascoignes had resolved itself into a wish that Gwendolen's\ndisappearance should not be interpreted as anything eccentric or\nneedful to be kept secret. The rector's mind, indeed, entertained the\npossibility that the marriage was only a little deferred, for Mrs.\nDavilow had not dared to tell him of the bitter determination with\nwhich Gwendolen had spoken. And in spite of his practical ability, some\nof his experience had petrified into maxims and quotations. Amaryllis\nfleeing desired that her hiding-place should be known; and that love\nwill find out the way \"over the mountain and over the wave\" may be said\nwithout hyperbole in this age of steam. Gwendolen, he conceived, was an\nAmaryllis of excellent sense but coquettish daring; the question was\nwhether she had dared too much.\n\nLady Flora, coming back charged with news about Miss Harleth, saw no\ngood reason why she should not try whether she could electrify Mr.\nGrandcourt by mentioning it to him at the table; and in doing so shot a\nfew hints of a notion having got abroad that he was a disappointed\nadorer. Grandcourt heard with quietude, but with attention; and the\nnext day he ordered Lush to bring about a decent reason for breaking up\nthe party at Diplow by the end of another week, as he meant to go\nyachting to the Baltic or somewhere--it being impossible to stay at\nDiplow as if he were a prisoner on parole, with a set of people whom he\nhad never wanted. Lush needed no clearer announcement that Grandcourt\nwas going to Leubronn; but he might go after the manner of a creeping\nbilliard-ball and stick on the way. What Mr. Lush intended was to make\nhimself indispensable so that he might go too, and he succeeded;\nGwendolen's repulsion for him being a fact that only amused his patron,\nand made him none the less willing to have Lush always at hand.\n\nThis was how it happened that Grandcourt arrived at the _Czarina_ on\nthe fifth day after Gwendolen had left Leubronn, and found there his\nuncle, Sir Hugo Mallinger, with his family, including Deronda. It is\nnot necessarily a pleasure either to the reigning power or the heir\npresumptive when their separate affairs--a--touch of gout, say, in the\none, and a touch of willfulness in the other--happen to bring them to\nthe same spot. Sir Hugo was an easy-tempered man, tolerant both of\ndifferences and defects; but a point of view different from his own\nconcerning the settlement of the family estates fretted him rather more\nthan if it had concerned Church discipline or the ballot, and faults\nwere the less venial for belonging to a person whose existence was\ninconvenient to him. In no case could Grandcourt have been a nephew\nafter his own heart; but as the presumptive heir to the Mallinger\nestates he was the sign and embodiment of a chief grievance in the\nbaronet's life--the want of a son to inherit the lands, in no portion\nof which had he himself more than a life-interest. For in the\nill-advised settlement which his father, Sir Francis, had chosen to\nmake by will, even Diplow with its modicum of land had been left under\nthe same conditions as the ancient and wide inheritance of the two\nToppings--Diplow, where Sir Hugo had lived and hunted through many a\nseason in his younger years, and where his wife and daughters ought to\nhave been able to retire after his death.\n\nThis grievance had naturally gathered emphasis as the years advanced,\nand Lady Mallinger, after having had three daughters in quick\nsuccession, had remained for eight years till now that she was over\nforty without producing so much as another girl; while Sir Hugo, almost\ntwenty years older, was at a time of life when, notwithstanding the\nfashionable retardation of most things from dinners to marriages, a\nman's hopefulness is apt to show signs of wear, until restored by\nsecond childhood.\n\nIn fact, he had begun to despair of a son, and this confirmation of\nGrandcourt's interest in the estates certainly tended to make his image\nand presence the more unwelcome; but, on the other hand, it carried\ncircumstances which disposed Sir Hugo to take care that the relation\nbetween them should be kept as friendly as possible. It led him to\ndwell on a plan which had grown up side by side with his disappointment\nof an heir; namely, to try and secure Diplow as a future residence for\nLady Mallinger and her daughters, and keep this pretty bit of the\nfamily inheritance for his own offspring in spite of that\ndisappointment. Such knowledge as he had of his nephew's disposition\nand affairs encouraged the belief that Grandcourt might consent to a\ntransaction by which he would get a good sum of ready money, as an\nequivalent for his prospective interest in the domain of Diplow and the\nmoderate amount of land attached to it. If, after all, the unhoped-for\nson should be born, the money would have been thrown away, and\nGrandcourt would have been paid for giving up interests that had turned\nout good for nothing; but Sir Hugo set down this risk as _nil_, and of\nlate years he had husbanded his fortune so well by the working of mines\nand the sale of leases that he was prepared for an outlay.\n\nHere was an object that made him careful to avoid any quarrel with\nGrandcourt. Some years before, when he was making improvements at the\nAbbey, and needed Grandcourt's concurrence in his felling an\nobstructive mass of timber on the demesne, he had congratulated himself\non finding that there was no active spite against him in his nephew's\npeculiar mind; and nothing had since occurred to make them hate each\nother more than was compatible with perfect politeness, or with any\naccommodation that could be strictly mutual.\n\nGrandcourt, on his side, thought his uncle a superfluity and a bore,\nand felt that the list of things in general would be improved whenever\nSir Hugo came to be expunged. But he had been made aware through Lush,\nalways a useful medium, of the baronet's inclinations concerning\nDiplow, and he was gratified to have the alternative of the money in\nhis mind: even if he had not thought it in the least likely that he\nwould choose to accept it, his sense of power would have been flattered\nby his being able to refuse what Sir Hugo desired. The hinted\ntransaction had told for something among the motives which had made him\nask for a year's tenancy of Diplow, which it had rather annoyed Sir\nHugo to grant, because the excellent hunting in the neighborhood might\ndecide Grandcourt not to part with his chance of future possession;--a\nman who has two places, in one of which the hunting is less good,\nnaturally desiring a third where it is better. Also, Lush had thrown\nout to Sir Hugo the probability that Grandcourt would woo and win Miss\nArrowpoint, and in that case ready money might be less of a temptation\nto him. Hence, on this unexpected meeting at Leubronn, the baronet felt\nmuch curiosity to know how things had been going on at Diplow, was bent\non being as civil as possible to his nephew, and looked forward to some\nprivate chat with Lush.\n\nBetween Deronda and Grandcourt there was a more faintly-marked but\npeculiar relation, depending on circumstances which have yet to be made\nknown. But on no side was there any sign of suppressed chagrin on the\nfirst meeting at the _table d'hôte_, an hour after Grandcourt's\narrival; and when the quartette of gentlemen afterward met on the\nterrace, without Lady Mallinger, they moved off together to saunter\nthrough the rooms, Sir Hugo saying as they entered the large _saal_--\n\n\"Did you play much at Baden, Grandcourt?\"\n\n\"No; I looked on and betted a little with some Russians there.\"\n\n\"Had you luck?\"\n\n\"What did I win, Lush?\"\n\n\"You brought away about two hundred,\" said Lush.\n\n\"You are not here for the sake of the play, then?\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"No; I don't care about play now. It's a confounded strain,\" said\nGrandcourt, whose diamond ring and demeanor, as he moved along playing\nslightly with his whisker, were being a good deal stared at by rouged\nforeigners interested in a new milord.\n\n\"The fact is, somebody should invent a mill to do amusements for you,\nmy dear fellow,\" said Sir Hugo, \"as the Tartars get their praying done.\nBut I agree with you; I never cared for play. It's monotonous--knits\nthe brain up into meshes. And it knocks me up to watch it now. I\nsuppose one gets poisoned with the bad air. I never stay here more than\nten minutes. But where's your gambling beauty, Deronda? Have you seen\nher lately?\"\n\n\"She's gone,\" said Deronda, curtly.\n\n\"An uncommonly fine girl, a perfect Diana,\" said Sir Hugo, turning to\nGrandcourt again. \"Really worth a little straining to look at her. I\nsaw her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all\nbeforehand. The same day Deronda happened to see her losing like\nwildfire, and she bore it with immense pluck. I suppose she was cleaned\nout, or was wise enough to stop in time. How do you know she's gone?\"\n\n\"Oh, by the Visitor-list,\" said Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible\nshrug. \"Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the\nBaron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was\nno longer there.\"\n\nThis held no further information for Lush than that Gwendolen had been\ngambling. He had already looked at the list, and ascertained that\nGwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge\non Grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it\nenough to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or\nother.\n\nBut now Grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word\nabout Miss Harleth had been missed by him. After a moment's pause he\nsaid to Deronda--\n\n\"Do you know those people--the Langens?\"\n\n\"I have talked with them a little since Miss Harleth went away. I knew\nnothing of them before.\"\n\n\"Where is she gone--do you know?\"\n\n\"She is gone home,\" said Deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no\nmore. But then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at\nGrandcourt, and added, \"But it is possible you know her. Her home is\nnot far from Diplow: Offendene, near Winchester.\"\n\nDeronda, turning to look straight at Grandcourt, who was on his left\nhand, might have been a subject for those old painters who liked\ncontrasts of temperament. There was a calm intensity of life and\nrichness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather\nstartling, and often made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and\nofficials asked him automatically, \"What did you say, sir?\" when he had\nbeen quite silent. Grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did\nnot show except by a slight movement of the eyelids, at Deronda's\nturning round on him when he was not asked to do more than speak. But\nhe answered, with his usual drawl, \"Yes, I know her,\" and paused with\nhis shoulder toward Deronda, to look at the gambling.\n\n\"What of her, eh?\" asked Sir Hugo of Lush, as the three moved on a\nlittle way. \"She must be a new-comer at Offendene. Old Blenny lived\nthere after the dowager died.\"\n\n\"A little too much of her,\" said Lush, in a low, significant tone; not\nsorry to let Sir Hugo know the state of affairs.\n\n\"Why? how?\" said the baronet. They all moved out of the _salon_ into an\nairy promenade.\n\n\"He has been on the brink of marrying her,\" Lush went on. \"But I hope\nit's off now. She's a niece of the clergyman--Gascoigne--at Pennicote.\nHer mother is a widow with a brood of daughters. This girl will have\nnothing, and is as dangerous as gunpowder. It would be a foolish\nmarriage. But she has taken a freak against him, for she ran off here\nwithout notice, when he had agreed to call the next day. The fact is,\nhe's here after her; but he was in no great hurry, and between his\ncaprice and hers they are likely enough not to get together again. But\nof course he has lost his chance with the heiress.\"\n\nGrandcourt joining them said, \"What a beastly den this is!--a worse\nhole than Baden. I shall go back to the hotel.\"\n\nWhen Sir Hugo and Deronda were alone, the baronet began--\n\n\"Rather a pretty story. That girl has something in her. She must be\nworth running after--has _de l'imprévu_. I think her appearance on the\nscene has bettered my chance of getting Diplow, whether the marriage\ncomes off or not.\"\n\n\"I should hope a marriage like that would not come off,\" said Deronda,\nin a tone of disgust.\n\n\"What! are you a little touched with the sublime lash?\" said Sir Hugo,\nputting up his glasses to help his short sight in looking at his\ncompanion. \"Are you inclined to run after her?\"\n\n\"On the contrary,\" said Deronda, \"I should rather be inclined to run\naway from her.\"\n\n\"Why, you would easily cut out Grandcourt. A girl with her spirit would\nthink you the finer match of the two,\" said Sir Hugo, who often tried\nDeronda's patience by finding a joke in impossible advice. (A\ndifference of taste in jokes is a great strain on the affections.)\n\n\"I suppose pedigree and land belong to a fine match,\" said Deronda,\ncoldly.\n\n\"The best horse will win in spite of pedigree, my boy. You remember\nNapoleon's _mot--Je suis un ancêtre_\" said Sir Hugo, who habitually\nundervalued birth, as men after dining well often agree that the good\nof life is distributed with wonderful equality.\n\n\"I am not sure that I want to be an ancestor,\" said Deronda. \"It\ndoesn't seem to me the rarest sort of origination.\"\n\n\"You won't run after the pretty gambler, then?\" said Sir Hugo, putting\ndown his glasses.\n\n\"Decidedly not.\"\n\nThis answer was perfectly truthful; nevertheless it had passed through\nDeronda's mind that under other circumstances he should have given way\nto the interest this girl had raised in him, and tried to know more of\nher. But his history had given him a stronger bias in another\ndirection. He felt himself in no sense free.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI.\n\n    Men, like planets, have both a visible and an invisible history. The\n    astronomer threads the darkness with strict deduction, accounting so\n    for every visible arc in the wanderer's orbit; and the narrator of\n    human actions, if he did his work with the same completeness, would\n    have to thread the hidden pathways of feeling and thought which lead\n    up to every moment of action, and to those moments of intense\n    suffering which take the quality of action--like the cry of\n    Prometheus, whose chained anguish seems a greater energy than the sea\n    and sky he invokes and the deity he defies.\n\n\nDeronda's circumstances, indeed, had been exceptional. One moment had\nbeen burned into his life as its chief epoch--a moment full of July\nsunshine and large pink roses shedding their last petals on a grassy\ncourt enclosed on three sides by a gothic cloister. Imagine him in such\na scene: a boy of thirteen, stretched prone on the grass where it was\nin shadow, his curly head propped on his arms over a book, while his\ntutor, also reading, sat on a camp-stool under shelter. Deronda's book\nwas Sismondi's \"History of the Italian Republics\";--the lad had a\npassion for history, eager to know how time had been filled up since\nthe flood, and how things were carried on in the dull periods. Suddenly\nhe let down his left arm and looked at his tutor, saying in purest\nboyish tones--\n\n\"Mr. Fraser, how was it that the popes and cardinals always had so many\nnephews?\"\n\nThe tutor, an able young Scotchman, who acted as Sir Hugo Mallinger's\nsecretary, roused rather unwillingly from his political economy,\nanswered with the clear-cut emphatic chant which makes a truth doubly\ntelling in Scotch utterance--\n\n\"Their own children were called nephews.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"It was just for the propriety of the thing; because, as you know very\nwell, priests don't marry, and the children were illegitimate.\"\n\nMr. Fraser, thrusting out his lower lip and making his chant of the\nlast word the more emphatic for a little impatience at being\ninterrupted, had already turned his eyes on his book again, while\nDeronda, as if something had stung him, started up in a sitting\nattitude with his back to the tutor.\n\nHe had always called Sir Hugo Mallinger his uncle, and when it once\noccurred to him to ask about his father and mother, the baronet had\nanswered, \"You lost your father and mother when you were quite a little\none; that is why I take care of you.\" Daniel then straining to discern\nsomething in that early twilight, had a dim sense of having been kissed\nvery much, and surrounded by thin, cloudy, scented drapery, till his\nfingers caught in something hard, which hurt him, and he began to cry.\nEvery other memory he had was of the little world in which he still\nlived. And at that time he did not mind about learning more, for he was\ntoo fond of Sir Hugo to be sorry for the loss of unknown parents. Life\nwas very delightful to the lad, with an uncle who was always indulgent\nand cheerful--a fine man in the bright noon of life, whom Daniel\nthought absolutely perfect, and whose place was one of the finest in\nEngland, at once historical; romantic, and home-like: a picturesque\narchitectural outgrowth from an abbey, which had still remnants of the\nold monastic trunk. Diplow lay in another county, and was a\ncomparatively landless place which had come into the family from a rich\nlawyer on the female side who wore the perruque of the restoration;\nwhereas the Mallingers had the grant of Monk's Topping under Henry the\nEighth, and ages before had held the neighboring lands of King's\nTopping, tracing indeed their origin to a certain Hugues le Malingre,\nwho came in with the Conqueror--and also apparently with a sickly\ncomplexion which had been happily corrected in his descendants. Two\nrows of these descendants, direct and collateral, females of the male\nline, and males of the female, looked down in the gallery over the\ncloisters on the nephew Daniel as he walked there: men in armor with\npointed beards and arched eyebrows, pinched ladies in hoops and ruffs\nwith no face to speak of; grave-looking men in black velvet and stuffed\nhips, and fair, frightened women holding little boys by the hand;\nsmiling politicians in magnificent perruques, and ladies of the\nprize-animal kind, with rosebud mouths and full eyelids, according to\nLely; then a generation whose faces were revised and embellished in the\ntaste of Kneller; and so on through refined editions of the family\ntypes in the time of Reynolds and Romney, till the line ended with Sir\nHugo and his younger brother Henleigh. This last had married Miss\nGrandcourt, and taken her name along with her estates, thus making a\njunction between two equally old families, impaling the three Saracens'\nheads proper and three bezants of the one with the tower and falcons\n_argent_ of the other, and, as it happened, uniting their highest\nadvantages in the prospects of that Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt who\nis at present more of an acquaintance to us than either Sir Hugo or his\nnephew Daniel Deronda.\n\nIn Sir Hugo's youthful portrait with rolled collar and high cravat, Sir\nThomas Lawrence had done justice to the agreeable alacrity of\nexpression and sanguine temperament still to be seen in the original,\nbut had done something more than justice in slightly lengthening the\nnose, which was in reality shorter than might have been expected in a\nMallinger. Happily the appropriate nose of the family reappeared in his\nyounger brother, and was to be seen in all its refined regularity in\nhis nephew Mallinger Grandcourt. But in the nephew Daniel Deronda the\nfamily faces of various types, seen on the walls of the gallery; found\nno reflex. Still he was handsomer than any of them, and when he was\nthirteen might have served as model for any painter who wanted to image\nthe most memorable of boys: you could hardly have seen his face\nthoroughly meeting yours without believing that human creatures had\ndone nobly in times past, and might do more nobly in time to come. The\nfinest childlike faces have this consecrating power, and make us\nshudder anew at all the grossness and basely-wrought griefs of the\nworld, lest they should enter here and defile.\n\nBut at this moment on the grass among the rose-petals, Daniel Deronda\nwas making a first acquaintance with those griefs. A new idea had\nentered his mind, and was beginning to change the aspect of his\nhabitual feelings as happy careless voyagers are changed with the sky\nsuddenly threatened and the thought of danger arises. He sat perfectly\nstill with his back to the tutor, while his face expressed rapid inward\ntransition. The deep blush, which had come when he first started up,\ngradually subsided; but his features kept that indescribable look of\nsubdued activity which often accompanies a new mental survey of\nfamiliar facts. He had not lived with other boys, and his mind showed\nthe same blending of child's ignorance with surprising knowledge which\nis oftener seen in bright girls. Having read Shakespeare as well as a\ngreat deal of history, he could have talked with the wisdom of a\nbookish child about men who were born out of wedlock and were held\nunfortunate in consequence, being under disadvantages which required\nthem to be a sort of heroes if they were to work themselves up to an\nequal standing with their legally born brothers. But he had never\nbrought such knowledge into any association with his own lot, which had\nbeen too easy for him ever to think about it--until this moment when\nthere had darted into his mind with the magic of quick comparison, the\npossibility that here was the secret of his own birth, and that the man\nwhom he called uncle was really his father. Some children, even younger\nthan Daniel, have known the first arrival of care, like an ominous\nirremovable guest in their tender lives, on the discovery that their\nparents, whom they had imagined able to buy everything, were poor and\nin hard money troubles. Daniel felt the presence of a new guest who\nseemed to come with an enigmatic veiled face, and to carry\ndimly-conjectured, dreaded revelations. The ardor which he had given to\nthe imaginary world in his books suddenly rushed toward his own history\nand spent its pictorial energy there, explaining what he knew,\nrepresenting the unknown. The uncle whom he loved very dearly took the\naspect of a father who held secrets about him--who had done him a\nwrong--yes, a wrong: and what had become of his mother, for whom he\nmust have been taken away?--Secrets about which he, Daniel, could never\ninquire; for to speak or to be spoken to about these new thoughts\nseemed like falling flakes of fire to his imagination. Those who have\nknown an impassioned childhood will understand this dread of utterance\nabout any shame connected with their parents. The impetuous advent of\nnew images took possession of him with the force of fact for the first\ntime told, and left him no immediate power for the reflection that he\nmight be trembling at a fiction of his own. The terrible sense of\ncollision between a strong rush of feeling and the dread of its\nbetrayal, found relief at length in big slow tears, which fell without\nrestraint until the voice of Mr. Fraser was heard saying:\n\n\"Daniel, do you see that you are sitting on the bent pages of your\nbook?\"\n\nDaniel immediately moved the book without turning round, and after\nholding it before him for an instant, rose with it and walked away into\nthe open grounds, where he could dry his tears unobserved. The first\nshock of suggestion past, he could remember that he had no certainty\nhow things really had been, and that he had been making conjectures\nabout his own history, as he had often made stories about Pericles or\nColumbus, just to fill up the blanks before they became famous. Only\nthere came back certain facts which had an obstinate reality,--almost\nlike the fragments of a bridge, telling you unmistakably how the arches\nlay. And again there came a mood in which his conjectures seemed like a\ndoubt of religion, to be banished as an offense, and a mean prying\nafter what he was not meant to know; for there was hardly a delicacy of\nfeeling this lad was not capable of. But the summing-up of all his\nfluctuating experience at this epoch was, that a secret impression had\ncome to him which had given him something like a new sense in relation\nto all the elements of his life. And the idea that others probably knew\nthings concerning which they did not choose to mention, set up in him a\npremature reserve which helped to intensify his inward experience. His\nears open now to words which before that July day would have passed by\nhim unnoted; and round every trivial incident which imagination could\nconnect with his suspicions, a newly-roused set of feelings were ready\nto cluster themselves.\n\nOne such incident a month later wrought itself deeply into his life.\nDaniel had not only one of those thrilling boy voices which seem to\nbring an idyllic heaven and earth before our eyes, but a fine musical\ninstinct, and had early made out accompaniments for himself on the\npiano, while he sang from memory. Since then he had had some teaching,\nand Sir Hugo, who delighted in the boy, used to ask for his music in\nthe presence of guests. One morning after he had been singing \"Sweet\nEcho\" before a small party of gentlemen whom the rain had kept in the\nhouse, the baronet, passing from a smiling remark to his next neighbor\nsaid:\n\n\"Come here, Dan!\"\n\nThe boy came forward with unusual reluctance. He wore an embroidered\nholland blouse which set off the rich coloring of his head and throat,\nand the resistant gravity about his mouth and eyes as he was being\nsmiled upon, made their beauty the more impressive. Every one was\nadmiring him.\n\n\"What do you say to being a great singer? Should you like to be adored\nby the world and take the house by storm; like Mario and Tamberlik?\"\n\nDaniel reddened instantaneously, but there was a just perceptible\ninterval before he answered with angry decision--\n\n\"No; I should hate it!\"\n\n\"Well, well, well!\" said Sir Hugo, with surprised kindliness intended\nto be soothing. But Daniel turned away quickly, left the room, and\ngoing to his own chamber threw himself on the broad window-sill, which\nwas a favorite retreat of his when he had nothing particular to do.\nHere he could see the rain gradually subsiding with gleams through the\nparting clouds which lit up a great reach of the park, where the old\noaks stood apart from each other, and the bordering wood was pierced\nwith a green glade which met the eastern sky. This was a scene which\nhad always been part of his home--part of the dignified ease which had\nbeen a matter of course in his life. And his ardent clinging nature had\nappropriated it all with affection. He knew a great deal of what it was\nto be a gentleman by inheritance, and without thinking much about\nhimself--for he was a boy of active perceptions and easily forgot his\nown existence in that of Robert Bruce--he had never supposed that he\ncould be shut out from such a lot, or have a very different part in the\nworld from that of the uncle who petted him. It is possible (though not\ngreatly believed in at present) to be fond of poverty and take it for a\nbride, to prefer scoured deal, red quarries and whitewash for one's\nprivate surroundings, to delight in no splendor but what has open doors\nfor the whole nation, and to glory in having no privileges except such\nas nature insists on; and noblemen have been known to run away from\nelaborate ease and the option of idleness, that they might bind\nthemselves for small pay to hard-handed labor. But Daniel's tastes were\naltogether in keeping with his nurture: his disposition was one in\nwhich everyday scenes and habits beget not _ennui_ or rebellion, but\ndelight, affection, aptitudes; and now the lad had been stung to the\nquick by the idea that his uncle--perhaps his father--thought of a\ncareer for him which was totally unlike his own, and which he knew very\nwell was not thought of among possible destinations for the sons of\nEnglish gentlemen. He had often stayed in London with Sir Hugo, who to\nindulge the boy's ear had carried him to the opera to hear the great\ntenors, so that the image of a singer taking the house by storm was\nvery vivid to him; but now, spite of his musical gift, he set himself\nbitterly against the notion of being dressed up to sing before all\nthose fine people, who would not care about him except as a wonderful\ntoy. That Sir Hugo should have thought of him in that position for a\nmoment, seemed to Daniel an unmistakable proof that there was something\nabout his birth which threw him out from the class of gentlemen to\nwhich the baronet belonged. Would it ever be mentioned to him? Would\nthe time come when his uncle would tell him everything? He shrank from\nthe prospect: in his imagination he preferred ignorance. If his father\nhad been wicked--Daniel inwardly used strong words, for he was feeling\nthe injury done him as a maimed boy feels the crushed limb which for\nothers is merely reckoned in an average of accidents--if his father had\ndone any wrong, he wished it might never be spoken of to him: it was\nalready a cutting thought that such knowledge might be in other minds.\nWas it in Mr. Fraser's? probably not, else he would not have spoken in\nthat way about the pope's nephews. Daniel fancied, as older people do,\nthat every one else's consciousness was as active as his own on a\nmatter which was vital to him. Did Turvey the valet know?--and old Mrs.\nFrench the housekeeper?--and Banks the bailiff, with whom he had ridden\nabout the farms on his pony?--And now there came back the recollection\nof a day some years before when he was drinking Mrs. Banks's whey, and\nBanks said to his wife with a wink and a cunning laugh, \"He features\nthe mother, eh?\" At that time little Daniel had merely thought that\nBanks made a silly face, as the common farming men often did, laughing\nat what was not laughable; and he rather resented being winked at and\ntalked of as if he did not understand everything. But now that small\nincident became information: it was to be reasoned on. How could he be\nlike his mother and not like his father? His mother must have been a\nMallinger, if Sir Hugo were his uncle. But no! His father might have\nbeen Sir Hugo's brother and have changed his name, as Mr. Henleigh\nMallinger did when he married Miss Grandcourt. But then, why had he\nnever heard Sir Hugo speak of his brother Deronda, as he spoke of his\nbrother Grandcourt? Daniel had never before cared about the family\ntree--only about that ancestor who had killed three Saracens in one\nencounter. But now his mind turned to a cabinet of estate-maps in the\nlibrary, where he had once seen an illuminated parchment hanging out,\nthat Sir Hugo said was the family tree. The phrase was new and odd to\nhim--he was a little fellow then--hardly more than half his present\nage--and he gave it no precise meaning. He knew more now and wished\nthat he could examine that parchment. He imagined that the cabinet was\nalways locked, and longed to try it. But here he checked himself. He\nmight be seen: and he would never bring himself near even a silent\nadmission of the sore that had opened in him.\n\nIt is in such experiences of a boy or girlhood, while elders are\ndebating whether most education lies in science or literature, that the\nmain lines of character are often laid down. If Daniel had been of a\nless ardently affectionate nature, the reserve about himself and the\nsupposition that others had something to his disadvantage in their\nminds, might have turned into a hard, proud antagonism. But inborn\nlovingness was strong enough to keep itself level with resentment.\nThere was hardly any creature in his habitual world that he was not\nfond of; teasing them occasionally, of course--all except his uncle, or\n\"Nunc,\" as Sir Hugo had taught him to say; for the baronet was the\nreverse of a strait-laced man, and left his dignity to take care of\nitself. Him Daniel loved in that deep-rooted filial way which makes\nchildren always the happier for being in the same room with father or\nmother, though their occupations may be quite apart. Sir Hugo's\nwatch-chain and seals, his handwriting, his mode of smoking and of\ntalking to his dogs and horses, had all a rightness and charm about\nthem to the boy which went along with the happiness of morning and\nbreakfast time. That Sir Hugo had always been a Whig, made Tories and\nRadicals equally opponents of the truest and best; and the books he had\nwritten were all seen under the same consecration of loving belief\nwhich differenced what was his from what was not his, in spite of\ngeneral resemblance. Those writings were various, from volumes of\ntravel in the brilliant style, to articles on things in general, and\npamphlets on political crises; but to Daniel they were alike in having\nan unquestionable rightness by which other people's information could\nbe tested.\n\nWho cannot imagine the bitterness of a first suspicion that something\nin this object of complete love was _not_ quite right? Children demand\nthat their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so:\nperhaps a first discovery to the contrary is hardly a less\nrevolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall\nof habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in\nmaturer life.\n\nBut some time after this renewal of Daniel's agitation it appeared that\nSir Hugo must have been making a merely playful experiment in his\nquestion about the singing. He sent for Daniel into the library, and\nlooking up from his writing as the boy entered threw himself sideways\nin his armchair. \"Ah, Dan!\" he said kindly, drawing one of the old\nembroidered stools close to him. \"Come and sit down here.\"\n\nDaniel obeyed, and Sir Hugo put a gentle hand on his shoulder, looking\nat him affectionately.\n\n\"What is it, my boy? Have you heard anything that has put you out of\nspirits lately?\"\n\nDaniel was determined not to let the tears come, but he could not speak.\n\n\"All changes are painful when people have been happy, you know,\" said\nSir Hugo, lifting his hand from the boy's shoulder to his dark curls\nand rubbing them gently. \"You can't be educated exactly as I wish you\nto be without our parting. And I think you will find a great deal to\nlike at school.\"\n\nThis was not what Daniel expected, and was so far a relief, which gave\nhim spirit to answer--\n\n\"Am I to go to school?\"\n\n\"Yes, I mean you to go to Eton. I wish you to have the education of an\nEnglish gentleman; and for that it is necessary that you should go to a\npublic school in preparation for the university: Cambridge I mean you\nto go to; it was my own university.\"\n\nDaniel's color came and went.\n\n\"What do you say, sirrah?\" said Sir Hugo, smiling.\n\n\"I should like to be a gentleman,\" said Daniel, with firm distinctness,\n\"and go to school, if that is what a gentleman's son must do.\"\n\nSir Hugo watched him silently for a few moments, thinking he understood\nnow why the lad had seemed angry at the notion of becoming a singer.\nThen he said tenderly--\n\n\"And so you won't mind about leaving your old Nunc?\"\n\n\"Yes, I shall,\" said Daniel, clasping Sir Hugo's caressing arm with\nboth his hands. \"But shan't I come home and be with you in the\nholidays?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, generally,\" said Sir Hugo. \"But now I mean you to go at once\nto a new tutor, to break the change for you before you go to Eton.\"\n\nAfter this interview Daniel's spirit rose again. He was meant to be a\ngentleman, and in some unaccountable way it might be that his\nconjectures were all wrong. The very keenness of the lad taught him to\nfind comfort in his ignorance. While he was busying his mind in the\nconstruction of possibilities, it became plain to him that there must\nbe possibilities of which he knew nothing. He left off brooding, young\njoy and the spirit of adventure not being easily quenched within him,\nand in the interval before his going away he sang about the house,\ndanced among the old servants, making them parting gifts, and insisted\nmany times to the groom on the care that was to be taken of the black\npony.\n\n\"Do you think I shall know much less than the other boys, Mr. Fraser?\"\nsaid Daniel. It was his bent to think that every stranger would be\nsurprised at his ignorance.\n\n\"There are dunces to be found everywhere,\" said the judicious Fraser.\n\"You'll not be the biggest; but you've not the makings of a Porson in\nyou, or a Leibnitz either.\"\n\n\"I don't want to be a Porson or a Leibnitz,\" said Daniel. \"I would\nrather be a greater leader, like Pericles or Washington.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay; you've a notion they did with little parsing, and less\nalgebra,\" said Fraser. But in reality he thought his pupil a remarkable\nlad, to whom one thing was as easy as another, if he had only a mind to\nit.\n\nThings went on very well with Daniel in his new world, except that a\nboy with whom he was at once inclined to strike up a close friendship\ntalked to him a great deal about his home and parents, and seemed to\nexpect a like expansiveness in return. Daniel immediately shrank into\nreserve, and this experience remained a check on his naturally strong\nbent toward the formation of intimate friendship. Every one, his tutor\nincluded, set him down as a reserved boy, though he was so good-humored\nand unassuming, as well as quick, both at study and sport, that nobody\ncalled his reserve disagreeable. Certainly his face had a great deal to\ndo with that favorable interpretation; but in this instance the beauty\nof the closed lips told no falsehood.\n\nA surprise that came to him before his first vacation strengthened the\nsilent consciousness of a grief within, which might be compared in some\nways with Byron's susceptibility about his deformed foot. Sir Hugo\nwrote word that he was married to Miss Raymond, a sweet lady, whom\nDaniel must remember having seen. The event would make no difference\nabout his spending the vacation at the Abbey; he would find Lady\nMallinger a new friend whom he would be sure to love--and much more to\nthe usual effect when a man, having done something agreeable to\nhimself, is disposed to congratulate others on his own good fortune,\nand the deducible satisfactoriness of events in general.\n\nLet Sir Hugo be partly excused until the grounds of his action can be\nmore fully known. The mistakes in his behavior to Deronda were due to\nthat dullness toward what may be going on in other minds, especially\nthe minds of children, which is among the commonest deficiencies, even\nin good-natured men like him, when life has been generally easy to\nthemselves, and their energies have been quietly spent in feeling\ngratified. No one was better aware than he that Daniel was generally\nsuspected to be his own son. But he was pleased with that suspicion;\nand his imagination had never once been troubled with the way in which\nthe boy himself might be affected, either then or in the future, by the\nenigmatic aspect of his circumstances. He was as fond of him as could\nbe, and meant the best by him. And, considering the lightness with\nwhich the preparation of young lives seem to lie on respectable\nconsciences, Sir Hugo Mallinger can hardly be held open to exceptional\nreproach. He had been a bachelor till he was five-and-forty, had always\nbeen regarded as a fascinating man of elegant tastes; what could be\nmore natural, even according to the index of language, than that he\nshould have a beautiful boy like the little Deronda to take care of?\nThe mother might even, perhaps, be in the great world--met with in Sir\nHugo's residence abroad. The only person to feel any objection was the\nboy himself, who could not have been consulted. And the boy's\nobjections had never been dreamed of by anybody but himself.\n\nBy the time Deronda was ready to go to Cambridge, Lady Mallinger had\nalready three daughters--charming babies, all three, but whose sex was\nannounced as a melancholy alternative, the offspring desired being a\nson; if Sir Hugo had no son the succession must go to his nephew,\nMallinger Grandcourt. Daniel no longer held a wavering opinion about\nhis own birth. His fuller knowledge had tended to convince him that Sir\nHugo was his father, and he conceived that the baronet, since he never\napproached a communication on the subject, wished him to have a tacit\nunderstanding of the fact, and to accept in silence what would be\ngenerally considered more than the due love and nurture. Sir Hugo's\nmarriage might certainly have been felt as a new ground of resentment\nby some youths in Deronda's position, and the timid Lady Mallinger with\nher fast-coming little ones might have been images to scowl at, as\nlikely to divert much that was disposable in the feelings and\npossessions of the baronet from one who felt his own claim to be prior.\nBut hatred of innocent human obstacles was a form of moral stupidity\nnot in Deronda's grain; even the indignation which had long mingled\nitself with his affection for Sir Hugo took the quality of pain rather\nthan of temper; and as his mind ripened to the idea of tolerance toward\nerror, he habitually liked the idea with his own silent grievances.\n\nThe sense of an entailed disadvantage--the deformed foot doubtfully\nhidden by the shoe, makes a restlessly active spiritual yeast, and\neasily turns a self-centered, unloving nature into an Ishmaelite. But\nin the rarer sort, who presently see their own frustrated claim as one\namong a myriad, the inexorable sorrow takes the form of fellowship and\nmakes the imagination tender. Deronda's early-weakened susceptibility,\ncharged at first with ready indignation and resistant pride, had raised\nin him a premature reflection on certain questions of life; it had\ngiven a bias to his conscience, a sympathy with certain ills, and a\ntension of resolve in certain directions, who marked him off from other\nyouths much more than any talents he possessed.\n\nOne day near the end of the long vacation, when he had been making a\ntour in the Rhineland with his Eton tutor, and was come for a farewell\nstay at the Abbey before going to Cambridge, he said to Sir Hugo--\n\n\"What do you intend me to be, sir?\" They were in the library, and it\nwas the fresh morning. Sir Hugo had called him in to read a letter from\na Cambridge Don who was to be interested in him; and since the baronet\nwore an air at once business-like and leisurely, the moment seemed\npropitious for entering on a grave subject which had never yet been\nthoroughly discussed.\n\n\"Whatever your inclination leads you to, my boy. I thought it right to\ngive you the option of the army, but you shut the door on that, and I\nwas glad. I don't expect you to choose just yet--by-and-by, when you\nhave looked about you a little more and tried your mettle among older\nmen. The university has a good wide opening into the forum. There are\nprizes to be won, and a bit of good fortune often gives the turn to a\nman's taste. From what I see and hear, I should think you can take up\nanything you like. You are in the deeper water with your classics than\nI ever got into, and if you are rather sick of that swimming, Cambridge\nis the place where you can go into mathematics with a will, and disport\nyourself on the dry sand as much as you like. I floundered along like a\ncarp.\"\n\n\"I suppose money will make some difference, sir,\" said Daniel blushing.\n\"I shall have to keep myself by-and-by.\"\n\n\"Not exactly. I recommend you not to be extravagant--yes, yes, I\nknow--you are not inclined to that;--but you need not take up anything\nagainst the grain. You will have a bachelor's income--enough for you to\nlook about with. Perhaps I had better tell you that you may consider\nyourself secure of seven hundred a year. You might make yourself a\nbarrister--be a writer--take up politics. I confess that is what would\nplease me best. I should like to have you at my elbow and pulling with\nme.\"\n\nDeronda looked embarrassed. He felt that he ought to make some sign of\ngratitude, but other feelings clogged his tongue. A moment was passing\nby in which a question about his birth was throbbing within him, and\nyet it seemed more impossible than ever that the question should find\nvent--more impossible than ever that he could hear certain things from\nSir Hugo's lips. The liberal way in which he was dealt with was the\nmore striking because the baronet had of late cared particularly for\nmoney, and for making the utmost of his life-interest in the estate by\nway of providing for his daughters; and as all this flashed through\nDaniel's mind it was momentarily within his imagination that the\nprovision for him might come in some way from his mother. But such\nvaporous conjecture passed away as quickly as it came.\n\nSir Hugo appeared not to notice anything peculiar in Daniel's manner,\nand presently went on with his usual chatty liveliness.\n\n\"I am glad you have done some good reading outside your classics, and\nhave got a grip of French and German. The truth is, unless a man can\nget the prestige and income of a Don and write donnish books, it's\nhardly worth while for him to make a Greek and Latin machine of himself\nand be able to spin you out pages of the Greek dramatists at any verse\nyou'll give him as a cue. That's all very fine, but in practical life\nnobody does give you the cue for pages of Greek. In fact, it's a nicety\nof conversation which I would have you attend to--much quotation of any\nsort, even in English is bad. It tends to choke ordinary remark. One\ncouldn't carry on life comfortably without a little blindness to the\nfact that everything had been said better than we can put it ourselves.\nBut talking of Dons, I have seen Dons make a capital figure in society;\nand occasionally he can shoot you down a cart-load of learning in the\nright place, which will tell in politics. Such men are wanted; and if\nyou have any turn for being a Don, I say nothing against it.\"\n\n\"I think there's not much chance of that. Quicksett and Puller are both\nstronger than I am. I hope you will not be much disappointed if I don't\ncome out with high honors.\"\n\n\"No, no. I should like you to do yourself credit, but for God's sake\ndon't come out as a superior expensive kind of idiot, like young\nBrecon, who got a Double First, and has been learning to knit braces\never since. What I wish you to get is a passport in life. I don't go\nagainst our university system: we want a little disinterested culture\nto make head against cotton and capital, especially in the House. My\nGreek has all evaporated; if I had to construe a verse on a sudden, I\nshould get an apoplectic fit. But it formed my taste. I dare say my\nEnglish is the better for it.\"\n\nOn this point Daniel kept a respectful silence. The enthusiastic belief\nin Sir Hugo's writings as a standard, and in the Whigs as the chosen\nrace among politicians, had gradually vanished along with the seraphic\nboy's face. He had not been the hardest of workers at Eton. Though some\nkinds of study and reading came as easily as boating to him, he was not\nof the material that usually makes the first-rate Eton scholar. There\nhad sprung up in him a meditative yearning after wide knowledge which\nis likely always to abate ardor in the fight for prize acquirement in\nnarrow tracks. Happily he was modest, and took any second-rateness in\nhimself simply as a fact, not as a marvel necessarily to be accounted\nfor by a superiority. Still Mr. Fraser's high opinion of the lad had\nnot been altogether belied by the youth: Daniel had the stamp of rarity\nin a subdued fervor of sympathy, an activity of imagination on behalf\nof others which did not show itself effusively, but was continually\nseen in acts of considerateness that struck his companions as moral\neccentricity. \"Deronda would have been first-rate if he had had more\nambition,\" was a frequent remark about him. But how could a fellow push\nhis way properly when he objected to swop for his own advantage,\nknocked under by choice when he was within an inch of victory, and,\nunlike the great Clive, would rather be the calf than the butcher? It\nwas a mistake, however, to suppose that Deronda had not his share of\nambition. We know he had suffered keenly from the belief that there was\na tinge of dishonor in his lot; but there are some cases, and his was\none of them, in which the sense of injury breeds--not the will to\ninflict injuries and climb over them as a ladder, but a hatred of all\ninjury. He had his flashes of fierceness and could hit out upon\noccasion, but the occasions were not always what might have been\nexpected. For in what related to himself his resentful impulses had\nbeen early checked by a mastering affectionateness. Love has a habit of\nsaying \"Never mind\" to angry self, who, sitting down for the nonce in\nthe lower place, by-and-by gets used to it. So it was that as Deronda\napproached manhood his feeling for Sir Hugo, while it was getting more\nand more mixed with criticism, was gaining in that sort of allowance\nwhich reconciles criticism with tenderness. The dear old beautiful home\nand everything within it, Lady Mallinger and her little ones included,\nwere consecrated for the youth as they had been for the boy--only with\na certain difference of light on the objects. The altarpiece was no\nlonger miraculously perfect, painted under infallible guidance, but the\nhuman hand discerned in the work was appealing to a reverent tenderness\nsafer from the gusts of discovery. Certainly Deronda's ambition, even\nin his spring-time, lay exceptionally aloof from conspicuous, vulgar\ntriumph, and from other ugly forms of boyish energy; perhaps because he\nwas early impassioned by ideas, and burned his fire on those heights.\nOne may spend a good deal of energy in disliking and resisting what\nothers pursue, and a boy who is fond of somebody else's pencil-case may\nnot be more energetic than another who is fond of giving his own\npencil-case away. Still it was not Deronda's disposition to escape from\nugly scenes; he was more inclined to sit through them and take care of\nthe fellow least able to take care of himself. It had helped to make\nhim popular that he was sometimes a little compromised by this apparent\ncomradeship. For a meditative interest in learning how human miseries\nare wrought--as precocious in him as another sort of genius in the poet\nwho writes a Queen Mab at nineteen--was so infused with kindliness that\nit easily passed for comradeship. Enough. In many of our neighbors'\nlives there is much not only of error and lapse, but of a certain\nexquisite goodness which can never be written or even spoken--only\ndivined by each of us, according to the inward instruction of our own\nprivacy.\n\nThe impression he made at Cambridge corresponded to his position at\nEton. Every one interested in him agreed that he might have taken a\nhigh place if his motives had been of a more pushing sort, and if he\nhad not, instead of regarding studies as instruments of success,\nhampered himself with the notion that they were to feed motive and\nopinion--a notion which set him criticising methods and arguing against\nhis freight and harness when he should have been using all his might to\npull. In the beginning his work at the university had a new zest for\nhim: indifferent to the continuation of Eton classical drill, he\napplied himself vigorously to mathematics, for which he had shown an\nearly aptitude under Mr. Fraser, and he had the delight of feeling his\nstrength in a comparatively fresh exercise of thought. That delight,\nand the favorable opinion of his tutor, determined him to try for a\nmathematical scholarship in the Easter of his second year: he wished to\ngratify Sir Hugo by some achievement, and the study of the higher\nmathematics, having the growing fascination inherent in all thinking\nwhich demands intensity, was making him a more exclusive worker than he\nhad been before.\n\nBut here came the old check which had been growing with his growth. He\nfound the inward bent toward comprehension and thoroughness diverging\nmore and more from the track marked out by the standards of\nexamination: he felt a heightening discontent with the wearing futility\nand enfeebling strain of a demand for excessive retention and dexterity\nwithout any insight into the principles which form the vital\nconnections of knowledge. (Deronda's undergraduateship occurred fifteen\nyears ago, when the perfection of our university methods was not yet\nindisputable.) In hours when his dissatisfaction was strong upon him he\nreproached himself for having been attracted by the conventional\nadvantage of belonging to an English university, and was tempted toward\nthe project of asking Sir Hugo to let him quit Cambridge and pursue a\nmore independent line of study abroad. The germs of this inclination\nhad been already stirring in his boyish love of universal history,\nwhich made him want to be at home in foreign countries, and follow in\nimagination the traveling students of the middle ages. He longed now to\nhave the sort of apprenticeship to life which would not shape him too\ndefinitely, and rob him of the choice that might come from a free\ngrowth. One sees that Deronda's demerits were likely to be on the side\nof reflective hesitation, and this tendency was encouraged by his\nposition; there was no need for him to get an immediate income, or to\nfit himself in haste for a profession; and his sensibility to the\nhalf-known facts of his parentage made him an excuse for lingering\nlonger than others in a state of social neutrality. Other men, he\ninwardly said, had a more definite place and duties. But the project\nwhich flattered his inclination might not have gone beyond the stage of\nineffective brooding, if certain circumstances had not quickened it\ninto action.\n\nThe circumstances arose out of an enthusiastic friendship which\nextended into his after-life. Of the same year with himself, and\noccupying small rooms close to his, was a youth who had come as an\nexhibitioner from Christ's Hospital, and had eccentricities enough for\na Charles Lamb. Only to look at his pinched features and blonde hair\nhanging over his collar reminded one of pale quaint heads by early\nGerman painters; and when this faint coloring was lit up by a joke,\nthere came sudden creases about the mouth and eyes which might have\nbeen moulded by the soul of an aged humorist. His father, an engraver\nof some distinction, had been dead eleven years, and his mother had\nthree girls to educate and maintain on a meagre annuity. Hans\nMeyrick--he had been daringly christened after Holbein--felt himself\nthe pillar, or rather the knotted and twisted trunk, round which these\nfeeble climbing plants must cling. There was no want of ability or of\nhonest well-meaning affection to make the prop trustworthy: the ease\nand quickness with which he studied might serve him to win prizes at\nCambridge, as he had done among the Blue Coats, in spite of\nirregularities. The only danger was, that the incalculable tendencies\nin him might be fatally timed, and that his good intentions might be\nfrustrated by some act which was not due to habit but to capricious,\nscattered impulses. He could not be said to have any one bad habit; yet\nat longer or shorter intervals he had fits of impish recklessness, and\ndid things that would have made the worst habits.\n\nHans in his right mind, however, was a lovable creature, and in Deronda\nhe had happened to find a friend who was likely to stand by him with\nthe more constancy, from compassion for these brief aberrations that\nmight bring a long repentance. Hans, indeed, shared Deronda's rooms\nnearly as much as he used his own: to Deronda he poured himself out on\nhis studies, his affairs, his hopes; the poverty of his home, and his\nlove for the creatures there; the itching of his fingers to draw, and\nhis determination to fight it away for the sake of getting some sort of\na plum that he might divide with his mother and the girls. He wanted no\nconfidence in return, but seemed to take Deronda as an Olympian who\nneeded nothing--an egotism in friendship which is common enough with\nmercurial, expansive natures. Deronda was content, and gave Meyrick all\nthe interest he claimed, getting at last a brotherly anxiety about him,\nlooking after him in his erratic moments, and contriving by adroitly\ndelicate devices not only to make up for his friend's lack of pence,\nbut to save him from threatening chances. Such friendship easily\nbecomes tender: the one spreads strong sheltering wings that delight in\nspreading, the other gets the warm protection which is also a delight.\nMeyrick was going in for a classical scholarship, and his success, in\nvarious ways momentous, was the more probable from the steadying\ninfluence of Deronda's friendship.\n\nBut an imprudence of Meyrick's, committed at the beginning of the\nautumn term, threatened to disappoint his hopes. With his usual\nalternation between unnecessary expense and self-privation, he had\ngiven too much money for an old engraving which fascinated him, and to\nmake up for it, had come from London in a third-class carriage with his\neyes exposed to a bitter wind and any irritating particles the wind\nmight drive before it. The consequence was a severe inflammation of the\neyes, which for some time hung over him the threat of a lasting injury.\nThis crushing trouble called out all Deronda's readiness to devote\nhimself, and he made every other occupation secondary to that of being\ncompanion and eyes to Hans, working with him and for him at his\nclassics, that if possible his chance of the classical scholarship\nmight be saved. Hans, to keep the knowledge of his suffering from his\nmother and sisters, alleged his work as a reason for passing the\nChristmas at Cambridge, and his friend stayed up with him.\n\nMeanwhile Deronda relaxed his hold on his mathematics, and Hans,\nreflecting on this, at length said: \"Old fellow, while you are hoisting\nme you are risking yourself. With your mathematical cram one may be\nlike Moses or Mahomet or somebody of that sort who had to cram, and\nforgot in one day what it had taken him forty to learn.\"\n\nDeronda would not admit that he cared about the risk, and he had really\nbeen beguiled into a little indifference by double sympathy: he was\nvery anxious that Hans should not miss the much-needed scholarship, and\nhe felt a revival of interest in the old studies. Still, when Hans,\nrather late in the day, got able to use his own eyes, Deronda had\ntenacity enough to try hard and recover his lost ground. He failed,\nhowever; but he had the satisfaction of seeing Meyrick win.\n\nSuccess, as a sort of beginning that urged completion, might have\nreconciled Deronda to his university course; but the emptiness of all\nthings, from politics to pastimes, is never so striking to us as when\nwe fail in them. The loss of the personal triumph had no severity for\nhim, but the sense of having spent his time ineffectively in a mode of\nworking which had been against the grain, gave him a distaste for any\nrenewal of the process, which turned his imagined project of quitting\nCambridge into a serious intention. In speaking of his intention to\nMeyrick he made it appear that he was glad of the turn events had\ntaken--glad to have the balance dip decidedly, and feel freed from his\nhesitations; but he observed that he must of course submit to any\nstrong objection on the part of Sir Hugo.\n\nMeyrick's joy and gratitude were disturbed by much uneasiness. He\nbelieved in Deronda's alleged preference, but he felt keenly that in\nserving him Daniel had placed himself at a disadvantage in Sir Hugo's\nopinion, and he said mournfully, \"If you had got the scholarship, Sir\nHugo would have thought that you asked to leave us with a better grace.\nYou have spoiled your luck for my sake, and I can do nothing to amend\nit.\"\n\n\"Yes, you can; you are to be a first-rate fellow. I call that a\nfirst-rate investment of my luck.\"\n\n\"Oh, confound it! You save an ugly mongrel from drowning, and expect\nhim to cut a fine figure. The poets have made tragedies enough about\nsigning one's self over to wickedness for the sake of getting something\nplummy; I shall write a tragedy of a fellow who signed himself over to\nbe good, and was uncomfortable ever after.\"\n\nBut Hans lost no time in secretly writing the history of the affair to\nSir Hugo, making it plain that but for Deronda's generous devotion he\ncould hardly have failed to win the prize he had been working for.\n\nThe two friends went up to town together: Meyrick to rejoice with his\nmother and the girls in their little home at Chelsea; Deronda to carry\nout the less easy task of opening his mind to Sir Hugo. He relied a\nlittle on the baronet's general tolerance of eccentricities, but he\nexpected more opposition than he met with. He was received with even\nwarmer kindness than usual, the failure was passed over lightly, and\nwhen he detailed his reasons for wishing to quit the university and go\nto study abroad. Sir Hugo sat for some time in a silence which was\nrather meditative than surprised. At last he said, looking at Daniel\nwith examination, \"So you don't want to be an Englishman to the\nbackbone after all?\"\n\n\"I want to be an Englishman, but I want to understand other points of\nview. And I want to get rid of a merely English attitude in studies.\"\n\n\"I see; you don't want to be turned out in the same mould as every\nother youngster. And I have nothing to say against your doffing some of\nour national prejudices. I feel the better myself for having spent a\ngood deal of my time abroad. But, for God's sake, keep an English cut,\nand don't become indifferent to bad tobacco! And, my dear boy, it is\ngood to be unselfish and generous; but don't carry that too far. It\nwill not do to give yourself to be melted down for the benefit of the\ntallow-trade; you must know where to find yourself. However, I shall\nput no vote on your going. Wait until I can get off Committee, and I'll\nrun over with you.\"\n\nSo Deronda went according to his will. But not before he had spent some\nhours with Hans Meyrick, and been introduced to the mother and sisters\nin the Chelsea home. The shy girls watched and registered every look of\ntheir brother's friend, declared by Hans to have been the salvation of\nhim, a fellow like nobody else, and, in fine, a brick. They so\nthoroughly accepted Deronda as an ideal, that when he was gone the\nyoungest set to work, under the criticism of the two elder girls, to\npaint him as Prince Camaralzaman.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII.\n\n        \"This is truth the poet sings,\n  That a sorrow's crown of sorrow is remembering happier things.\"\n                                --TENNYSON: _Locksley Hall_.\n\n\nOn a fine evening near the end of July, Deronda was rowing himself on\nthe Thames. It was already a year or more since he had come back to\nEngland, with the understanding that his education was finished, and\nthat he was somehow to take his place in English society; but though,\nin deference to Sir Hugo's wish, and to fence off idleness, he had\nbegan to read law, this apparent decision had been without other result\nthan to deepen the roots of indecision. His old love of boating had\nrevived with the more force now that he was in town with the\nMallingers, because he could nowhere else get the same still seclusion\nwhich the river gave him. He had a boat of his own at Putney, and\nwhenever Sir Hugo did not want him, it was his chief holiday to row\ntill past sunset and come in again with the stars. Not that he was in a\nsentimental stage; but he was in another sort of contemplative mood\nperhaps more common in the young men of our day--that of questioning\nwhether it were worth while to take part in the battle of the world: I\nmean, of course, the young men in whom the unproductive labor of\nquestioning is sustained by three or five per cent, on capital which\nsomebody else has battled for. It puzzled Sir Hugo that one who made a\nsplendid contrast with all that was sickly and puling should be\nhampered with ideas which, since they left an accomplished Whig like\nhimself unobstructed, could be no better than spectral illusions;\nespecially as Deronda set himself against authorship--a vocation which\nis understood to turn foolish thinking into funds.\n\nRowing in his dark-blue shirt and skull-cap, his curls closely clipped,\nhis mouth beset with abundant soft waves of beard, he bore only\ndisguised traces of the seraphic boy \"trailing clouds of glory.\" Still,\neven one who had never seen him since his boyhood might have looked at\nhim with slow recognition, due perhaps to the peculiarity of the gaze\nwhich Gwendolen chose to call \"dreadful,\" though it had really a very\nmild sort of scrutiny. The voice, sometimes audible in subdued snatches\nof song, had turned out merely a high baritone; indeed, only to look at\nhis lithe, powerful frame and the firm gravity of his face would have\nbeen enough for an experienced guess that he had no rare and ravishing\ntenor such as nature reluctantly makes at some sacrifice. Look at his\nhands: they are not small and dimpled, with tapering fingers that seem\nto have only a deprecating touch: they are long, flexible,\nfirmly-grasping hands, such as Titian has painted in a picture where he\nwanted to show the combination of refinement with force. And there is\nsomething of a likeness, too, between the faces belonging to the\nhands--in both the uniform pale-brown skin, the perpendicular brow, the\ncalmly penetrating eyes. Not seraphic any longer: thoroughly\nterrestrial and manly; but still of a kind to raise belief in a human\ndignity which can afford to recognize poor relations.\n\nSuch types meet us here and there among average conditions; in a\nworkman, for example, whistling over a bit of measurement and lifting\nhis eyes to answer our question about the road. And often the grand\nmeanings of faces as well as of written words may lie chiefly in the\nimpressions that happen just now to be of importance in relation to\nDeronda, rowing on the Thames in a very ordinary equipment for a young\nEnglishman at leisure, and passing under Kew Bridge with no thought of\nan adventure in which his appearance was likely to play any part. In\nfact, he objected very strongly to the notion, which others had not\nallowed him to escape, that his appearance was of a kind to draw\nattention; and hints of this, intended to be complimentary, found an\nangry resonance in him, coming from mingled experiences, to which a\nclue has already been given. His own face in the glass had during many\nyears associated for him with thoughts of some one whom he must be\nlike--one about whose character and lot he continually wondered, and\nnever dared to ask.\n\nIn the neighborhood of Kew Bridge, between six and seven o'clock, the\nriver was no solitude. Several persons were sauntering on the\ntowing-path, and here and there a boat was plying. Deronda had been\nrowing fast to get over this spot, when, becoming aware of a great\nbarge advancing toward him, he guided his boat aside, and rested on his\noar within a couple of yards of the river-brink. He was all the while\nunconsciously continuing the low-toned chant which had haunted his\nthroat all the way up the river--the gondolier's song in the \"Otello,\"\nwhere Rossini has worthily set to music the immortal words of Dante--\n\n          \"Nessun maggior dolore\n  Che ricordarsi del tempo felice\n  Nella miseria\":\n[Footnote: Dante's words are best rendered by our own poet in the lines\nat the head of the chapter.]\n\nand, as he rested on his oar, the pianissimo fall of the melodic wail\n\"nella miseria\" was distinctly audible on the brink of the water. Three\nor four persons had paused at various spots to watch the barge passing\nthe bridge, and doubtless included in their notice the young gentleman\nin the boat; but probably it was only to one ear that the low vocal\nsounds came with more significance than if they had been an\ninsect-murmur amidst the sum of current noises. Deronda, awaiting the\nbarge, now turning his head to the river-side, and saw at a few yards'\ndistant from him a figure which might have been an impersonation of the\nmisery he was unconsciously giving voice to: a girl hardly more than\neighteen, of low slim figure, with most delicate little face, her dark\ncurls pushed behind her ears under a large black hat, a long woolen\ncloak over her shoulders. Her hands were hanging down clasped before\nher, and her eyes were fixed on the river with a look of immovable,\nstatue-like despair. This strong arrest of his attention made him cease\nsinging: apparently his voice had entered her inner world without her\ntaking any note of whence it came, for when it suddenly ceased she\nchanged her attitude slightly, and, looking round with a frightened\nglance, met Deronda's face. It was but a couple of moments, but that\nseemed a long while for two people to look straight at each other. Her\nlook was something like that of a fawn or other gentle animal before it\nturns to run away: no blush, no special alarm, but only some timidity\nwhich yet could not hinder her from a long look before she turned. In\nfact, it seemed to Deronda that she was only half conscious of her\nsurroundings: was she hungry, or was there some other cause of\nbewilderment? He felt an outleap of interest and compassion toward her;\nbut the next instant she had turned and walked away to a neighboring\nbench under a tree. He had no right to linger and watch her:\npoorly-dressed, melancholy women are common sights; it was only the\ndelicate beauty, picturesque lines and color of the image that was\nexceptional, and these conditions made it more markedly impossible that\nhe should obtrude his interest upon her. He began to row away and was\nsoon far up the river; but no other thoughts were busy enough quite to\nexpel that pale image of unhappy girlhood. He fell again and again to\nspeculating on the probable romance that lay behind that loneliness and\nlook of desolation; then to smile at his own share in the prejudice\nthat interesting faces must have interesting adventures; then to\njustify himself for feeling that sorrow was the more tragic when it\nbefell delicate, childlike beauty.\n\n\"I should not have forgotten the look of misery if she had been ugly\nand vulgar,\" he said to himself. But there was no denying that the\nattractiveness of the image made it likelier to last. It was clear to\nhim as an onyx cameo; the brown-black drapery, the white face with\nsmall, small features and dark, long-lashed eyes. His mind glanced over\nthe girl-tragedies that are going on in the world, hidden, unheeded, as\nif they were but tragedies of the copse or hedgerow, where the helpless\ndrag wounded wings forsakenly, and streak the shadowed moss with the\nred moment-hand of their own death. Deronda of late, in his solitary\nexcursions, had been occupied chiefly with uncertainties about his own\ncourse; but those uncertainties, being much at their leisure, were wont\nto have such wide-sweeping connections with all life and history that\nthe new image of helpless sorrow easily blent itself with what seemed\nto him the strong array of reasons why he should shrink from getting\ninto that routine of the world which makes men apologize for all its\nwrong-doing, and take opinions as mere professional equipment--why he\nshould not draw strongly at any thread in the hopelessly-entangled\nscheme of things.\n\nHe used his oars little, satisfied to go with the tide and be taken\nback by it. It was his habit to indulge himself in that solemn\npassivity which easily comes with the lengthening shadows and mellow\nlight, when thinking and desiring melt together imperceptibly, and what\nin other hours may have seemed argument takes the quality of passionate\nvision. By the time he had come back again with the tide past Richmond\nBridge the sun was near setting: and the approach of his favorite\nhour--with its deepening stillness and darkening masses of tree and\nbuilding between the double glow of the sky and the river--disposed him\nto linger as if they had been an unfinished strain of music. He looked\nout for a perfectly solitary spot where he could lodge his boat against\nthe bank, and, throwing himself on his back with his head propped on\nthe cushions, could watch out the light of sunset and the opening of\nthat bead-roll which some oriental poet describes as God's call to the\nlittle stars, who each answer, \"Here am I.\" He chose a spot in the bend\nof the river just opposite Kew Gardens, where he had a great breadth of\nwater before him reflecting the glory of the sky, while he himself was\nin shadow. He lay with his hands behind his head, propped on a level\nwith the boat's edge, so that he could see all round him, but could not\nbe seen by any one at a few yards' distance; and for a long while he\nnever turned his eyes from the view right in front of him. He was\nforgetting everything else in a half-speculative, half-involuntary\nidentification of himself with the objects he was looking at, thinking\nhow far it might be possible habitually to shift his centre till his\nown personality would be no less outside him than the landscape--when\nthe sense of something moving on the bank opposite him where it was\nbordered by a line of willow bushes, made him turn his glance\nthitherward. In the first moment he had a darting presentiment about\nthe moving figure; and now he could see the small face with the strange\ndying sunlight upon it. He feared to frighten her by a sudden movement,\nand watched her with motionless attention. She looked round, but seemed\nonly to gather security from the apparent solitude, hid her hat among\nthe willows, and immediately took off her woolen cloak. Presently she\nseated herself and deliberately dipped the cloak in the water, holding\nit there a little while, then taking it out with effort, rising from\nher seat as she did so. By this time Deronda felt sure that she meant\nto wrap the wet cloak round her as a drowning shroud; there was no\nlonger time to hesitate about frightening her. He rose and seized his\noar to ply across; happily her position lay a little below him. The\npoor thing, overcome with terror at this sign of discovery from the\nopposite bank, sank down on the brink again, holding her cloak half out\nof the water. She crouched and covered her face as if she kept a faint\nhope that she had not been seen, and that the boatman was accidentally\ncoming toward her. But soon he was within brief space of her, steadying\nhis boat against the bank, and speaking, but very gently--\n\n\"Don't be afraid. You are unhappy. Pray, trust me. Tell me what I can\ndo to help you.\"\n\nShe raised her head and looked up at him. His face now was toward the\nlight, and she knew it again. But she did not speak for a few moments\nwhich were a renewal of their former gaze at each other. At last she\nsaid in a low sweet voice, with an accent so distinct that it suggested\nforeignness and yet was not foreign, \"I saw you before,\" and then added\ndreamily, after a like pause, \"nella miseria.\"\n\nDeronda, not understanding the connection of her thoughts, supposed\nthat her mind was weakened by distress and hunger.\n\n\"It was you, singing?\" she went on, hesitatingly--\"Nessun maggior\ndolore.\" The mere words themselves uttered in her sweet undertones\nseemed to give the melody to Deronda's ear.\n\n\"Ah, yes,\" he said, understanding now, \"I am often singing them. But I\nfear you will injure yourself staying here. Pray let me take you in my\nboat to some place of safety. And that wet cloak--let me take it.\"\n\nHe would not attempt to take it without her leave, dreading lest he\nshould scare her. Even at his words, he fancied that she shrank and\nclutched the cloak more tenaciously. But her eyes were fixed on him\nwith a question in them as she said, \"You look good. Perhaps it is\nGod's command.\"\n\n\"Do trust me. Let me help you. I will die before I will let any harm\ncome to you.\"\n\nShe rose from her sitting posture, first dragging the saturated cloak\nand then letting it fall on the ground--it was too heavy for her tired\narms. Her little woman's figure as she laid her delicate chilled hands\ntogether one over the other against her waist, and went a step backward\nwhile she leaned her head forward as if not to lose sight of his face,\nwas unspeakably touching.\n\n\"Great God!\" the words escaped Deronda in a tone so low and solemn that\nthey seemed like a prayer become unconsciously vocal. The agitating\nimpression this forsaken girl was making on him stirred a fibre that\nlay close to his deepest interest in the fates of women--\"perhaps my\nmother was like this one.\" The old thought had come now with a new\nimpetus of mingled feeling, and urged that exclamation in which both\nEast and West have for ages concentrated their awe in the presence of\ninexorable calamity.\n\nThe low-toned words seemed to have some reassurance in them for the\nhearer: she stepped forward close to the boat's side, and Deronda put\nout his hand, hoping now that she would let him help her in. She had\nalready put her tiny hand into his which closed around it, when some\nnew thought struck her, and drawing back she said--\n\n\"I have nowhere to go--nobody belonging to me in all this land.\"\n\n\"I will take you to a lady who has daughters,\" said Deronda,\nimmediately. He felt a sort of relief in gathering that the wretched\nhome and cruel friends he imagined her to be fleeing from were not in\nthe near background. Still she hesitated, and said more timidly than\never--\n\n\"Do you belong to the theatre?\"\n\n\"No; I have nothing to do with the theatre,\" said Deronda, in a decided\ntone. Then beseechingly, \"I will put you in perfect safety at once;\nwith a lady, a good woman; I am sure she will be kind. Let us lose no\ntime: you will make yourself ill. Life may still become sweet to you.\nThere are good people--there are good women who will take care of you.\"\n\nShe drew backward no more, but stepped in easily, as if she were used\nto such action, and sat down on the cushions.\n\n\"You had a covering for your head,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"My hat?\" (She lifted up her hands to her head.) \"It is quite hidden in\nthe bush.\"\n\n\"I will find it,\" said Deronda, putting out his hand deprecatingly as\nshe attempted to rise. \"The boat is fixed.\"\n\nHe jumped out, found the hat, and lifted up the saturated cloak,\nwringing it and throwing it into the bottom of the boat.\n\n\"We must carry the cloak away, to prevent any one who may have noticed\nyou from thinking you have been drowned,\" he said, cheerfully, as he\ngot in again and presented the old hat to her. \"I wish I had any other\ngarment than my coat to offer you. But shall you mind throwing it over\nyour shoulders while we are on the water? It is quite an ordinary thing\nto do, when people return late and are not enough provided with wraps.\"\nHe held out the coat toward her with a smile, and there came a faint\nmelancholy smile in answer, as she took it and put it on very cleverly.\n\n\"I have some biscuits--should you like them?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"No; I cannot eat. I had still some money left to buy bread.\"\n\nHe began to ply his oar without further remark, and they went along\nswiftly for many minutes without speaking. She did not look at him, but\nwas watching the oar, leaning forward in an attitude of repose, as if\nshe were beginning to feel the comfort of returning warmth and the\nprospect of life instead of death. The twilight was deepening; the red\nflush was all gone and the little stars were giving their answer one\nafter another. The moon was rising, but was still entangled among the\ntrees and buildings. The light was not such that he could distinctly\ndiscern the expression of her features or her glance, but they were\ndistinctly before him nevertheless--features and a glance which seemed\nto have given a fuller meaning for him to the human face. Among his\nanxieties one was dominant: his first impression about her, that her\nmind might be disordered, had not been quite dissipated: the project of\nsuicide was unmistakable, and given a deeper color to every other\nsuspicious sign. He longed to begin a conversation, but abstained,\nwishing to encourage the confidence that might induce her to speak\nfirst. At last she did speak.\n\n\"I like to listen to the oar.\"\n\n\"So do I.\"\n\n\"If you had not come, I should have been dead now.\"\n\n\"I cannot bear you to speak of that. I hope you will never be sorry\nthat I came.\"\n\n\"I cannot see how I shall be glad to live. The _maggior dolore_ and the\n_miseria_ have lasted longer than the _tempo felice_.\" She paused and\nthen went on dreamily,--\"_Dolore--miseria_--I think those words are\nalive.\"\n\nDeronda was mute: to question her seemed an unwarrantable freedom; he\nshrank from appearing to claim the authority of a benefactor, or to\ntreat her with the less reverence because she was in distress. She went\non musingly--\n\n\"I thought it was not wicked. Death and life are one before the\nEternal. I know our fathers slew their children and then slew\nthemselves, to keep their souls pure. I meant it so. But now I am\ncommanded to live. I cannot see how I shall live.\"\n\n\"You will find friends. I will find them for you.\"\n\nShe shook her head and said mournfully, \"Not my mother and brother. I\ncannot find them.\"\n\n\"You are English? You must be--speaking English so perfectly.\"\n\nShe did not answer immediately, but looked at Deronda again, straining\nto see him in the double light. Until now she had been watching the\noar. It seemed as if she were half roused, and wondered which part of\nher impression was dreaming and which waking. Sorrowful isolation had\nbenumbed her sense of reality, and the power of distinguishing outward\nand inward was continually slipping away from her. Her look was full of\nwondering timidity such as the forsaken one in the desert might have\nlifted to the angelic vision before she knew whether his message was in\nanger or in pity.\n\n\"You want to know if I am English?\" she said at last, while Deronda was\nreddening nervously under a gaze which he felt more fully than he saw.\n\n\"I want to know nothing except what you like to tell me,\" he said,\nstill uneasy in the fear that her mind was wandering. \"Perhaps it is\nnot good for you to talk.\"\n\n\"Yes, I will tell you. I am English-born. But I am a Jewess.\"\n\nDeronda was silent, inwardly wondering that he had not said this to\nhimself before, though any one who had seen delicate-faced Spanish\ngirls might simply have guessed her to be Spanish.\n\n\"Do you despise me for it?\" she said presently in low tones, which had\na sadness that pierced like a cry from a small dumb creature in fear.\n\n\"Why should I?\" said Deronda. \"I am not so foolish.\"\n\n\"I know many Jews are bad.\"\n\n\"So are many Christians. But I should not think it fair for you to\ndespise me because of that.\"\n\n\"My mother and brother were good. But I shall never find them. I am\ncome a long way--from abroad. I ran away; but I cannot tell you--I\ncannot speak of it. I thought I might find my mother again--God would\nguide me. But then I despaired. This morning when the light came, I\nfelt as if one word kept sounding within me--Never! never! But now--I\nbegin--to think--\" her words were broken by rising sobs--\"I am\ncommanded to live--perhaps we are going to her.\"\n\nWith an outburst of weeping she buried her head on her knees. He hoped\nthat this passionate weeping might relieve her excitement. Meanwhile he\nwas inwardly picturing in much embarrassment how he should present\nhimself with her in Park Lane--the course which he had at first\nunreflectingly determined on. No one kinder and more gentle than Lady\nMallinger; but it was hardly probable that she would be at home; and he\nhad a shuddering sense of a lackey staring at this delicate, sorrowful\nimage of womanhood--of glaring lights and fine staircases, and perhaps\nchilling suspicious manners from lady's maid and housekeeper, that\nmight scare the mind already in a state of dangerous susceptibility.\nBut to take her to any other shelter than a home already known to him\nwas not to be contemplated: he was full of fears about the issue of the\nadventure which had brought on him a responsibility all the heavier for\nthe strong and agitating impression this childlike creature had made on\nhim. But another resource came to mind: he could venture to take her to\nMrs. Meyrick's--to the small house at Chelsea--where he had been often\nenough since his return from abroad to feel sure that he could appeal\nthere to generous hearts, which had a romantic readiness to believe in\ninnocent need and to help it. Hans Meyrick was safe away in Italy, and\nDeronda felt the comfort of presenting himself with his charge at a\nhouse where he would be met by a motherly figure of quakerish neatness,\nand three girls who hardly knew of any evil closer to them than what\nlay in history-books, and dramas, and would at once associate a lovely\nJewess with Rebecca in \"Ivanhoe,\" besides thinking that everything they\ndid at Deronda's request would be done for their idol, Hans. The vision\nof the Chelsea home once raised, Deronda no longer hesitated.\n\nThe rumbling thither in the cab after the stillness of the water seemed\nlong. Happily his charge had been quiet since her fit of weeping, and\nsubmitted like a tired child. When they were in the cab, she laid down\nher hat and tried to rest her head, but the jolting movement would not\nlet it rest. Still she dozed, and her sweet head hung helpless, first\non one side, then on the other.\n\n\"They are too good to have any fear about taking her in,\" thought\nDeronda. Her person, her voice, her exquisite utterance, were one\nstrong appeal to belief and tenderness. Yet what had been the history\nwhich had brought her to this desolation? He was going on a strange\nerrand--to ask shelter for this waif. Then there occurred to him the\nbeautiful story Plutarch somewhere tells of the Delphic women: how when\nthe Maenads, outworn with their torch-lit wanderings, lay down to sleep\nin the market-place, the matrons came and stood silently round them to\nkeep guard over their slumbers; then, when they waked, ministered to\nthem tenderly and saw them safely to their own borders. He could trust\nthe women he was going to for having hearts as good.\n\nDeronda felt himself growing older this evening and entering on a new\nphase in finding a life to which his own had come--perhaps as a rescue;\nbut how to make sure that snatching from death was rescue? The moment\nof finding a fellow-creature is often as full of mingled doubt and\nexultation as the moment of finding an idea.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII.\n\n  Life is a various mother: now she dons\n  Her plumes and brilliants, climbs the marble stairs\n  With head aloft, nor ever turns her eyes\n  On lackeys who attend her; now she dwells\n  Grim-clad, up darksome allyes, breathes hot gin,\n  And screams in pauper riot.\n\n                             But to these\n  She came a frugal matron, neat and deft,\n  With cheerful morning thoughts and quick device\n  To find the much in little.\n\n\nMrs. Meyrick's house was not noisy: the front parlor looked on the\nriver, and the back on gardens, so that though she was reading aloud to\nher daughters, the window could be left open to freshen the air of the\nsmall double room where a lamp and two candles were burning. The\ncandles were on a table apart for Kate, who was drawing illustrations\nfor a publisher; the lamp was not only for the reader but for Amy and\nMab, who were embroidering satin cushions for \"the great world.\"\n\nOutside, the house looked very narrow and shabby, the bright light\nthrough the holland blind showing the heavy old-fashioned window-frame;\nbut it is pleasant to know that many such grim-walled slices of space\nin our foggy London have been and still are the homes of a culture the\nmore spotlessly free from vulgarity, because poverty has rendered\neverything like display an impersonal question, and all the grand shows\nof the world simply a spectacle which rouses petty rivalry or vain\neffort after possession.\n\nThe Meyricks' was a home of that kind: and they all clung to this\nparticular house in a row because its interior was filled with objects\nalways in the same places, which, for the mother held memories of her\nmarriage time, and for the young ones seemed as necessary and\nuncriticised a part of their world as the stars of the Great Bear seen\nfrom the back windows. Mrs. Meyrick had borne much stint of other\nmatters that she might be able to keep some engravings specially\ncherished by her husband; and the narrow spaces of wall held a world\nhistory in scenes and heads which the children had early learned by\nheart. The chairs and tables were also old friends preferred to new.\nBut in these two little parlors with no furniture that a broker would\nhave cared to cheapen except the prints and piano, there was space and\napparatus for a wide-glancing, nicely-select life, opened to the\nhighest things in music, painting and poetry. I am not sure that in the\ntimes of greatest scarcity, before Kate could get paid-work, these\nladies had always had a servant to light their fires and sweep their\nrooms; yet they were fastidious in some points, and could not believe\nthat the manners of ladies in the fashionable world were so full of\ncoarse selfishness, petty quarreling, and slang as they are represented\nto be in what are called literary photographs. The Meyricks had their\nlittle oddities, streaks of eccentricity from the mother's blood as\nwell as the father's, their minds being like mediæval houses with\nunexpected recesses and openings from this into that, flights of steps\nand sudden outlooks.\n\nBut mother and daughters were all united by a triple bond--family love;\nadmiration for the finest work, the best action; and habitual industry.\nHans' desire to spend some of his money in making their lives more\nluxurious had been resisted by all of them, and both they and he had\nbeen thus saved from regrets at the threatened triumphs of his yearning\nfor art over the attractions of secured income--a triumph that would\nby-and-by oblige him to give up his fellowship. They could all afford\nto laugh at his Gavarni-caricatures and to hold him blameless in\nfollowing a natural bent which their unselfishness and independence had\nleft without obstacle. It was enough for them to go on in their old\nway, only having a grand treat of opera-going (to the gallery) when\nHans came home on a visit.\n\nSeeing the group they made this evening, one could hardly wish them to\nchange their way of life. They were all alike small, and so in due\nproportion to their miniature rooms. Mrs. Meyrick was reading aloud\nfrom a French book; she was a lively little woman, half French, half\nScotch, with a pretty articulateness of speech that seemed to make\ndaylight in her hearer's understanding. Though she was not yet fifty,\nher rippling hair, covered by a quakerish net cap, was chiefly gray,\nbut her eyebrows were brown as the bright eyes below them; her black\ndress, almost like a priest's cassock with its rows of buttons, suited\na neat figure hardly five feet high. The daughters were to match the\nmother, except that Mab had Hans' light hair and complexion, with a\nbossy, irregular brow, and other quaintnesses that reminded one of him.\nEverything about them was compact, from the firm coils of their hair,\nfastened back _à la Chinoise_, to their gray skirts in Puritan\nnonconformity with the fashion, which at that time would have demanded\nthat four feminine circumferences should fill all the free space in the\nfront parlor. All four, if they had been wax-work, might have been\npacked easily in a fashionable lady's traveling trunk. Their faces\nseemed full of speech, as if their minds had been shelled, after the\nmanner of horse-chestnuts, and become brightly visible. The only large\nthing of its kind in the room was Hafiz, the Persian cat, comfortably\npoised on the brown leather back of a chair, and opening his large eyes\nnow and then to see that the lower animals were not in any mischief.\n\nThe book Mrs. Meyrick had before her was Erckmann-Chatrian's _Historie\nd'un Conscrit_. She had just finished reading it aloud, and Mab, who\nhad let her work fall on the ground while she stretched her head\nforward and fixed her eyes on the reader, exclaimed--\n\n\"I think that is the finest story in the world.\"\n\n\"Of course, Mab!\" said Amy, \"it is the last you have heard. Everything\nthat pleases you is the best in its turn.\"\n\n\"It is hardly to be called a story,\" said Kate. \"It is a bit of history\nbrought near us with a strong telescope. We can see the soldiers'\nfaces: no, it is more than that--we can hear everything--we can almost\nhear their hearts beat.\"\n\n\"I don't care what you call it,\" said Mab, flirting away her thimble.\n\"Call it a chapter in Revelations. It makes me want to do something\ngood, something grand. It makes me so sorry for everybody. It makes me\nlike Schiller--I want to take the world in my arms and kiss it. I must\nkiss you instead, little mother?\" She threw her arms round her mother's\nneck.\n\n\"Whenever you are in that mood, Mab, down goes your work,\" said Amy.\n\"It would be doing something good to finish your cushion without\nsoiling it.\"\n\n\"Oh--oh--oh!\" groaned Mab, as she stooped to pick up her work and\nthimble. \"I wish I had three wounded conscripts to take care of.\"\n\n\"You would spill their beef-tea while you were talking,\" said Amy.\n\n\"Poor Mab! don't be hard on her,\" said the mother. \"Give me the\nembroidery now, child. You go on with your enthusiasm, and I will go on\nwith the pink and white poppy.\"\n\n\"Well, ma, I think you are more caustic than Amy,\" said Kate, while she\ndrew her head back to look at her drawing.\n\n\"Oh--oh--oh!\" cried Mab again, rising and stretching her arms. \"I wish\nsomething wonderful would happen. I feel like the deluge. The waters of\nthe great deep are broken up, and the windows of heaven are opened. I\nmust sit down and play the scales.\"\n\nMab was opening the piano while the others were laughing at this\nclimax, when a cab stopped before the house, and there forthwith came a\nquick rap of the knocker.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mrs. Meyrick, starting up, \"it is after ten, and Phoebe\nis gone to bed.\" She hastened out, leaving the parlor door open.\n\n\"Mr. Deronda!\" The girls could hear this exclamation from their mamma.\nMab clasped her hands, saying in a loud whisper, \"There now! something\n_is_ going to happen.\" Kate and Amy gave up their work in amazement.\nBut Deronda's tone in reply was so low that they could not hear his\nwords, and Mrs. Meyrick immediately closed the parlor door.\n\n\"I know I am trusting to your goodness in a most extraordinary way,\"\nDeronda went on, after giving his brief narrative; \"but you can imagine\nhow helpless I feel with a young creature like this on my hands. I\ncould not go with her among strangers, and in her nervous state I\nshould dread taking her into a house full of servants. I have trusted\nto your mercy. I hope you will not think my act unwarrantable.\"\n\n\"On the contrary. You have honored me by trusting me. I see your\ndifficulty. Pray bring her in. I will go and prepare the girls.\"\n\nWhile Deronda went back to the cab, Mrs. Meyrick turned into the parlor\nagain and said: \"Here is somebody to take care of instead of your\nwounded conscripts, Mab: a poor girl who was going to drown herself in\ndespair. Mr. Deronda found her only just in time to save her. He\nbrought her along in his boat, and did not know what else it would be\nsafe to do with her, so he has trusted us and brought her here. It\nseems she is a Jewess, but quite refined, he says--knowing Italian and\nmusic.\"\n\nThe three girls, wondering and expectant, came forward and stood near\neach other in mute confidence that they were all feeling alike under\nthis appeal to their compassion. Mab looked rather awe-stricken, as if\nthis answer to her wish were something preternatural.\n\nMeanwhile Deronda going to the door of the cab where the pale face was\nnow gazing out with roused observation, said, \"I have brought you to\nsome of the kindest people in the world: there are daughters like you.\nIt is a happy home. Will you let me take you to them?\"\n\nShe stepped out obediently, putting her hand in his and forgetting her\nhat; and when Deronda led her into the full light of the parlor where\nthe four little women stood awaiting her, she made a picture that would\nhave stirred much duller sensibilities than theirs. At first she was a\nlittle dazed by the sudden light, and before she had concentrated her\nglance he had put her hand into the mother's. He was inwardly rejoicing\nthat the Meyricks were so small: the dark-curled head was the highest\namong them. The poor wanderer could not be afraid of these gentle faces\nso near hers: and now she was looking at each of them in turn while the\nmother said, \"You must be weary, poor child.\"\n\n\"We will take care of you--we will comfort you--we will love you,\"\ncried Mab, no longer able to restrain herself, and taking the small\nright hand caressingly between both her own. This gentle welcoming\nwarmth was penetrating the bewildered one: she hung back just enough to\nsee better the four faces in front of her, whose good will was being\nreflected in hers, not in any smile, but in that undefinable change\nwhich tells us that anxiety is passing in contentment. For an instant\nshe looked up at Deronda, as if she were referring all this mercy to\nhim, and then again turning to Mrs. Meyrick, said with more\ncollectedness in her sweet tones than he had heard before--\n\n\"I am a stranger. I am a Jewess. You might have thought I was wicked.\"\n\n\"No, we are sure you are good,\" burst out Mab.\n\n\"We think no evil of you, poor child. You shall be safe with us,\" said\nMrs. Meyrick. \"Come now and sit down. You must have some food, and then\nyou must go to rest.\"\n\nThe stranger looked up again at Deronda, who said--\n\n\"You will have no more fears with these friends? You will rest\nto-night?\"\n\n\"Oh, I should not fear. I should rest. I think these are the\nministering angels.\"\n\nMrs. Meyrick wanted to lead her to seat, but again hanging back gently,\nthe poor weary thing spoke as if with a scruple at being received\nwithout a further account of herself.\n\n\"My name is Mirah Lapidoth. I am come a long way, all the way from\nPrague by myself. I made my escape. I ran away from dreadful things. I\ncame to find my mother and brother in London. I had been taken from my\nmother when I was little, but I thought I could find her again. I had\ntrouble--the houses were all gone--I could not find her. It has been a\nlong while, and I had not much money. That is why I am in distress.\"\n\n\"Our mother will be good to you,\" cried Mab. \"See what a nice little\nmother she is!\"\n\n\"Do sit down now,\" said Kate, moving a chair forward, while Amy ran to\nget some tea.\n\nMirah resisted no longer, but seated herself with perfect grace,\ncrossing her little feet, laying her hands one over the other on her\nlap, and looking at her friends with placid reverence; whereupon Hafiz,\nwho had been watching the scene restlessly came forward with tail erect\nand rubbed himself against her ankles. Deronda felt it time to go.\n\n\"Will you allow me to come again and inquire--perhaps at five\nto-morrow?\" he said to Mrs. Meyrick.\n\n\"Yes, pray; we shall have had time to make acquaintance then.\"\n\n\"Good-bye,\" said Deronda, looking down at Mirah, and putting out his\nhand. She rose as she took it, and the moment brought back to them both\nstrongly the other moment when she had first taken that outstretched\nhand. She lifted her eyes to his and said with reverential fervor, \"The\nGod of our fathers bless you and deliver you from all evil as you have\ndelivered me. I did not believe there was any man so good. None before\nhave thought me worthy of the best. You found me poor and miserable,\nyet you have given me the best.\"\n\nDeronda could not speak, but with silent adieux to the Meyricks,\nhurried away.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK III--MAIDENS CHOOSING.\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX.\n\n    \"I pity the man who can travel from Dan to Beersheba, and say, 'Tis\n    all barren': and so it is: and so is all the world to him who will not\n    cultivate the fruits it offers.\"--STERNE: _Sentimental Journey_.\n\n\nTo say that Deronda was romantic would be to misrepresent him; but\nunder his calm and somewhat self-repressed exterior there was a fervor\nwhich made him easily find poetry and romance among the events of\nevery-day life. And perhaps poetry and romance are as plentiful as ever\nin the world except for those phlegmatic natures who I suspect would in\nany age have regarded them as a dull form of erroneous thinking. They\nexist very easily in the same room with the microscope and even in\nrailway carriages: what banishes them in the vacuum in gentlemen and\nlady passengers. How should all the apparatus of heaven and earth, from\nthe farthest firmament to the tender bosom of the mother who nourished\nus, make poetry for a mind that had no movements of awe and tenderness,\nno sense of fellowship which thrills from the near to the distant, and\nback again from the distant to the near?\n\nTo Deronda this event of finding Mirah was as heart-stirring as\nanything that befell Orestes or Rinaldo. He sat up half the night,\nliving again through the moments since he had first discerned Mirah on\nthe river-brink, with the fresh and fresh vividness which belongs to\nemotive memory. When he took up a book to try and dull this urgency of\ninward vision, the printed words were no more than a network through\nwhich he saw and heard everything as clearly as before--saw not only\nthe actual events of two hours, but possibilities of what had been and\nwhat might be which those events were enough to feed with the warm\nblood of passionate hope and fear. Something in his own experience\ncaused Mirah's search after her mother to lay hold with peculiar force\non his imagination. The first prompting of sympathy was to aid her in\nher search: if given persons were extant in London there were ways of\nfinding them, as subtle as scientific experiment, the right machinery\nbeing set at work. But here the mixed feelings which belonged to\nDeronda's kindred experience naturally transfused themselves into his\nanxiety on behalf of Mirah.\n\nThe desire to know his own mother, or to know about her, was constantly\nhaunted with dread; and in imagining what might befall Mirah it quickly\noccurred to him that finding the mother and brother from whom she had\nbeen parted when she was a little one might turn out to be a calamity.\nWhen she was in the boat she said that her mother and brother were\ngood; but the goodness might have been chiefly in her own ignorant\ninnocence and yearning memory, and the ten or twelve years since the\nparting had been time enough for much worsening. Spite of his strong\ntendency to side with the objects of prejudice, and in general with\nthose who got the worst of it, his interest had never been practically\ndrawn toward existing Jews, and the facts he knew about them, whether\nthey walked conspicuous in fine apparel or lurked in by-streets, were\nchiefly of a sort most repugnant to him. Of learned and accomplished\nJews he took it for granted that they had dropped their religion, and\nwished to be merged in the people of their native lands. Scorn flung at\na Jew as such would have roused all his sympathy in griefs of\ninheritance; but the indiscriminate scorn of a race will often strike a\nspecimen who has well earned it on his own account, and might fairly be\ngibbeted as a rascally son of Adam. It appears that the Caribs, who\nknow little of theology, regard thieving as a practice peculiarly\nconnected with Christian tenets, and probably they could allege\nexperimental grounds for this opinion. Deronda could not escape (who\ncan?) knowing ugly stories of Jewish characteristics and occupations;\nand though one of his favorite protests was against the severance of\npast and present history, he was like others who shared his protest, in\nnever having cared to reach any more special conclusions about actual\nJews than that they retained the virtues and vices of a long-oppressed\nrace. But now that Mirah's longing roused his mind to a closer survey\nof details, very disagreeable images urged themselves of what it might\nbe to find out this middle-aged Jewess and her son. To be sure, there\nwas the exquisite refinement and charm of the creature herself to make\na presumption in favor of her immediate kindred, but--he must wait to\nknow more: perhaps through Mrs. Meyrick he might gather some guiding\nhints from Mirah's own lips. Her voice, her accent, her looks--all the\nsweet purity that clothed her as with a consecrating garment made him\nshrink the more from giving her, either ideally or practically, an\nassociation with what was hateful or contaminating. But these fine\nwords with which we fumigate and becloud unpleasant facts are not the\nlanguage in which we think. Deronda's thinking went on in rapid images\nof what might be: he saw himself guided by some official scout into a\ndingy street; he entered through a dim doorway, and saw a hawk-eyed\nwoman, rough-headed, and unwashed, cheapening a hungry girl's last bit\nof finery; or in some quarter only the more hideous for being smarter,\nhe found himself under the breath of a young Jew talkative and\nfamiliar, willing to show his acquaintance with gentlemen's tastes, and\nnot fastidious in any transactions with which they would favor him--and\nso on through the brief chapter of his experience in this kind. Excuse\nhim: his mind was not apt to run spontaneously into insulting ideas, or\nto practice a form of wit which identifies Moses with the advertisement\nsheet; but he was just now governed by dread, and if Mirah's parents\nhad been Christian, the chief difference would have been that his\nforebodings would have been fed with wider knowledge. It was the habit\nof his mind to connect dread with unknown parentage, and in this case\nas well as his own there was enough to make the connection reasonable.\n\nBut what was to be done with Mirah? She needed shelter and protection\nin the fullest sense, and all his chivalrous sentiment roused itself to\ninsist that the sooner and the more fully he could engage for her the\ninterest of others besides himself, the better he should fulfill her\nclaims on him. He had no right to provide for her entirely, though he\nmight be able to do so; the very depth of the impression she had\nproduced made him desire that she should understand herself to be\nentirely independent of him; and vague visions of the future which he\ntried to dispel as fantastic left their influence in an anxiety\nstronger than any motive he could give for it, that those who saw his\nactions closely should be acquainted from the first with the history of\nhis relation to Mirah. He had learned to hate secrecy about the grand\nties and obligations of his life--to hate it the more because a strong\nspell of interwoven sensibilities hindered him from breaking such\nsecrecy. Deronda had made a vow to himself that--since the truths which\ndisgrace mortals are not all of their own making--the truth should\nnever be made a disgrace to another by his act. He was not without\nterror lest he should break this vow, and fall into the apologetic\nphilosophy which explains the world into containing nothing better than\none's own conduct.\n\nAt one moment he resolved to tell the whole of his adventure to Sir\nHugo and Lady Mallinger the next morning at breakfast, but the\npossibility that something quite new might reveal itself on his next\nvisit to Mrs. Meyrick's checked this impulse, and he finally went to\nsleep on the conclusion that he would wait until that visit had been\nmade.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX.\n\n    \"It will hardly be denied that even in this frail and corrupted world,\n    we sometimes meet persons who, in their very mien and aspect, as well\n    as in the whole habit of life, manifest such a signature and stamp of\n    virtue, as to make our judgment of them a matter of intuition rather\n    than the result of continued  examination.\"--ALEXANDER KNOX: quoted in\n    Southey's Life of Wesley.\n\n\nMirah said that she had slept well that night; and when she came down\nin Mab's black dress, her dark hair curling in fresh fibrils as it\ngradually dried from its plenteous bath, she looked like one who was\nbeginning to take comfort after the long sorrow and watching which had\npaled her cheek and made blue semicircles under her eyes. It was Mab\nwho carried her breakfast and ushered her down--with some pride in the\neffect produced by a pair of tiny felt slippers which she had rushed\nout to buy because there were no shoes in the house small enough for\nMirah, whose borrowed dress ceased about her ankles and displayed the\ncheap clothing that, moulding itself on her feet, seemed an adornment\nas choice as the sheaths of buds. The farthing buckles were bijoux.\n\n\"Oh, if you please, mamma?\" cried Mab, clasping her hands and stooping\ntoward Mirah's feet, as she entered the parlor; \"look at the slippers,\nhow beautiful they fit! I declare she is like the Queen Budoor--' two\ndelicate feet, the work of the protecting and all-recompensing Creator,\nsupport her; and I wonder how they can sustain what is above them.'\"\n\nMirah looked down at her own feet in a childlike way and then smiled at\nMrs. Meyrick, who was saying inwardly, \"One could hardly imagine this\ncreature having an evil thought. But wise people would tell me to be\ncautious.\" She returned Mirah's smile and said, \"I fear the feet have\nhad to sustain their burden a little too often lately. But to-day she\nwill rest and be my companion.\"\n\n\"And she will tell you so many things and I shall not hear them,\"\ngrumbled Mab, who felt herself in the first volume of a delightful\nromance and obliged to miss some chapters because she had to go to\npupils.\n\nKate was already gone to make sketches along the river, and Amy was\naway on business errands. It was what the mother wished, to be alone\nwith this stranger, whose story must be a sorrowful one, yet was\nneedful to be told.\n\nThe small front parlor was as good as a temple that morning. The\nsunlight was on the river and soft air came in through the open window;\nthe walls showed a glorious silent cloud of witnesses--the Virgin\nsoaring amid her cherubic escort; grand Melancholia with her solemn\nuniverse; the Prophets and Sibyls; the School of Athens; the Last\nSupper; mystic groups where far-off ages made one moment; grave Holbein\nand Rembrandt heads; the Tragic Muse; last-century children at their\nmusings or their play; Italian poets--all were there through the medium\nof a little black and white. The neat mother who had weathered her\ntroubles, and come out of them with a face still cheerful, was sorting\ncolored wools for her embroidery. Hafiz purred on the window-ledge, the\nclock on the mantle-piece ticked without hurry, and the occasional\nsound of wheels seemed to lie outside the more massive central quiet.\nMrs. Meyrick thought that this quiet might be the best invitation to\nspeech on the part of her companion, and chose not to disturb it by\nremark. Mirah sat opposite in her former attitude, her hands clasped on\nher lap, her ankles crossed, her eyes at first traveling slowly over\nthe objects around her, but finally resting with a sort of placid\nreverence on Mrs. Meyrick. At length she began to speak softly.\n\n\"I remember my mother's face better than anything; yet I was not seven\nwhen I was taken away, and I am nineteen now.\"\n\n\"I can understand that,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"There are some earliest\nthings that last the longest.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, it was the earliest. I think my life began with waking up and\nloving my mother's face: it was so near to me, and her arms were round\nme, and she sang to me. One hymn she sang so often, so often: and then\nshe taught me to sing it with her: it was the first I ever sang. They\nwere always Hebrew hymns she sang; and because I never knew the meaning\nof the words they seemed full of nothing but our love and happiness.\nWhen I lay in my little bed and it was all white above me, she used to\nbend over me, between me and the white, and sing in a sweet, low voice.\nI can dream myself back into that time when I am awake, and it often\ncomes back to me in my sleep--my hand is very little, I put it up to\nher face and she kisses it. Sometimes in my dreams I begin to tremble\nand think that we are both dead; but then I wake up and my hand lies\nlike this, and for a moment I hardly know myself. But if I could see my\nmother again I should know her.\"\n\n\"You must expect some change after twelve years,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\ngently. \"See my grey hair: ten years ago it was bright brown. The days\nand months pace over us like restless little birds, and leave the marks\nof their feet backward and forward; especially when they are like birds\nwith heavy hearts-then they tread heavily.\"\n\n\"Ah, I am sure her heart has been heavy for want of me. But to feel her\njoy if we could meet again, and I could make her know I love her and\ngive her deep comfort after all her mourning! If that could be, I\nshould mind nothing; I should be glad that I have lived through my\ntrouble. I did despair. The world seemed miserable and wicked; none\nhelped me so that I could bear their looks and words; I felt that my\nmother was dead, and death was the only way to her. But then in the\nlast moment--yesterday, when I longed for the water to close over\nme--and I thought that death was the best image of mercy--then goodness\ncame to me living, and I felt trust in the living. And--it is\nstrange--but I began to hope that she was living too. And now I with\nyou--here--this morning, peace and hope have come into me like a flood.\nI want nothing; I can wait; because I hope and believe and am\ngrateful--oh, so grateful! You have not thought evil of me--you have\nnot despised me.\"\n\nMirah spoke with low-toned fervor, and sat as still as a picture all\nthe while.\n\n\"Many others would have felt as we do, my dear,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nfeeling a mist come over her eyes as she looked at her work.\n\n\"But I did not meet them--they did not come to me.\"\n\n\"How was it that you were taken from your mother?\"\n\n\"Ah, I am a long while coming to that. It is dreadful to speak of, yet\nI must tell you--I must tell you everything. My father--it was he that\ntook me away. I thought we were only going on a little journey; and I\nwas pleased. There was a box with all my little things in. But we went\non board a ship, and got farther and farther away from the land. Then I\nwas ill; and I thought it would never end--it was the first misery, and\nit seemed endless. But at last we landed. I knew nothing then, and\nbelieved what my father said. He comforted me, and told me I should go\nback to my mother. But it was America we had reached, and it was long\nyears before we came back to Europe. At first I often asked my father\nwhen we were going back; and I tried to learn writing fast, because I\nwanted to write to my mother; but one day when he found me trying to\nwrite a letter, he took me on his knee and told me that my mother and\nbrother were dead; that was why we did not go back. I remember my\nbrother a little; he carried me once; but he was not always at home. I\nbelieved my father when he said that they were dead. I saw them under\nthe earth when he said they were there, with their eyes forever closed.\nI never thought of its not being true; and I used to cry every night in\nmy bed for a long while. Then when she came so often to me, in my\nsleep, I thought she must be living about me though I could not always\nsee her, and that comforted me. I was never afraid in the dark, because\nof that; and very often in the day I used to shut my eyes and bury my\nface and try to see her and to hear her singing. I came to do that at\nlast without shutting my eyes.\"\n\nMirah paused with a sweet content in her face, as if she were having\nher happy vision, while she looked out toward the river.\n\n\"Still your father was not unkind to you, I hope,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nafter a minute, anxious to recall her.\n\n\"No; he petted me, and took pains to teach me. He was an actor; and I\nfound out, after, that the 'Coburg' I used to hear of his going to at\nhome was a theatre. But he had more to do with the theatre than acting.\nHe had not always been an actor; he had been a teacher, and knew many\nlanguages. His acting was not very good; I think, but he managed the\nstage, and wrote and translated plays. An Italian lady, a singer, lived\nwith us a long time. They both taught me, and I had a master besides,\nwho made me learn by heart and recite. I worked quite hard, though I\nwas so little; and I was not nine when I first went on the stage. I\ncould easily learn things, and I was not afraid. But then and ever\nsince I hated our way of life. My father had money, and we had finery\nabout us in a disorderly way; always there were men and women coming\nand going; there was loud laughing and disputing, strutting, snapping\nof fingers, jeering, faces I did not like to look at--though many\npetted and caressed me. But then I remembered my mother. Even at first\nwhen I understood nothing, I shrank away from all those things outside\nme into companionship with thoughts that were not like them; and I\ngathered thoughts very fast, because I read many things--plays and\npoetry, Shakespeare and Schiller, and learned evil and good. My father\nbegan to believe that I might be a great singer: my voice was\nconsidered wonderful for a child; and he had the best teaching for me.\nBut it was painful that he boasted of me, and set me to sing for show\nat any minute, as if I had been a musical box. Once when I was nine\nyears old, I played the part of a little girl who had been forsaken and\ndid not know it, and sat singing to herself while she played with\nflowers. I did it without any trouble; but the clapping and all the\nsounds of the theatre were hateful to me; and I never liked the praise\nI had, because it all seemed very hard and unloving: I missed the love\nand trust I had been born into. I made a life in my own thoughts quite\ndifferent from everything about me: I chose what seemed to me beautiful\nout of the plays and everything, and made my world out of it; and it\nwas like a sharp knife always grazing me that we had two sorts of life\nwhich jarred so with each other--women looking good and gentle on the\nstage, and saying good things as if they felt them, and directly after\nI saw them with coarse, ugly manners. My father sometimes noticed my\nshrinking ways; and Signora said one day, when I had been rehearsing,\n'She will never be an artist: she has no notion of being anybody but\nherself. That does very well now, but by-and-by you will see--she will\nhave no more face and action than a singing-bird.' My father was angry,\nand they quarreled. I sat alone and cried, because what she had said\nwas like a long unhappy future unrolled before me. I did not want to be\nan artist; but this was what my father expected of me. After a while\nSignora left us, and a governess used to come and give me lessons in\ndifferent things, because my father began to be afraid of my singing\ntoo much; but I still acted from time to time. Rebellious feelings grew\nstronger in me, and I wished to get away from this life; but I could\nnot tell where to go, and I dreaded the world. Besides, I felt it would\nbe wrong to leave my father: I dreaded doing wrong, for I thought I\nmight get wicked and hateful to myself, in the same way that many\nothers seemed hateful to me. For so long, so long I had never felt my\noutside world happy; and if I got wicked I should lose my world of\nhappy thoughts where my mother lived with me. That was my childish\nnotion all through those years. Oh how long they were!\"\n\nMirah fell to musing again.\n\n\"Had you no teaching about what was your duty?\" said Mrs. Meyrick. She\ndid not like to say \"religion\"--finding herself on inspection rather\ndim as to what the Hebrew religion might have turned into at this date.\n\n\"No--only that I ought to do what my father wished. He did not follow\nour religion at New York, and I think he wanted me not to know much\nabout it. But because my mother used to take me to the synagogue, and I\nremembered sitting on her knee and looking through the railing and\nhearing the chanting and singing, I longed to go. One day when I was\nquite small I slipped out and tried to find the synagogue, but I lost\nmyself a long while till a peddler questioned me and took me home. My\nfather, missing me, had been much in fear, and was very angry. I too\nhad been so frightened at losing myself that it was long before I\nthought of venturing out again. But after Signora left us we went to\nrooms where our landlady was a Jewess and observed her religion. I\nasked her to take me with her to the synagogue; and I read in her\nprayer-books and Bible, and when I had money enough I asked her to buy\nme books of my own, for these books seemed a closer companionship with\nmy mother: I knew that she must have looked at the very words and said\nthem. In that way I have come to know a little of our religion, and the\nhistory of our people, besides piecing together what I read in plays\nand other books about Jews and Jewesses; because I was sure my mother\nobeyed her religion. I had left off asking my father about her. It is\nvery dreadful to say it, but I began to disbelieve him. I had found\nthat he did not always tell the truth, and made promises without\nmeaning to keep them; and that raised my suspicion that my mother and\nbrother were still alive though he had told me they were dead. For in\ngoing over the past again as I got older and knew more, I felt sure\nthat my mother had been deceived, and had expected to see us back again\nafter a very little while; and my father taking me on his knee and\ntelling me that my mother and brother were both dead seemed to me now\nbut a bit of acting, to set my mind at rest. The cruelty of that\nfalsehood sank into me, and I hated all untruth because of it. I wrote\nto my mother secretly: I knew the street, Colman Street, where we\nlived, and that it was not Blackfriars Bridge and the Coburg, and that\nour name was Cohen then, though my father called us Lapidoth, because,\nhe said, it was a name of his forefathers in Poland. I sent my letter\nsecretly; but no answer came, and I thought there was no hope for me.\nOur life in America did not last much longer. My father suddenly told\nme we were to pack up and go to Hamburg, and I was rather glad. I hoped\nwe might get among a different sort of people, and I knew German quite\nwell--some German plays almost all by heart. My father spoke it better\nthan he spoke English. I was thirteen then, and I seemed to myself\nquite old--I knew so much, and yet so little. I think other children\ncannot feel as I did. I had often wished that I had been drowned when I\nwas going away from my mother. But I set myself to obey and suffer:\nwhat else could I do? One day when we were on our voyage, a new thought\ncame into my mind. I was not very ill that time, and I kept on deck a\ngood deal. My father acted and sang and joked to amuse people on board,\nand I used often to hear remarks about him. One day, when I was looking\nat the sea and nobody took notice of me, I overheard a gentleman say,\n'Oh, he is one of those clever Jews--a rascal, I shouldn't wonder.\nThere's no race like them for cunning in the men and beauty in the\nwomen. I wonder what market he means that daughter for.' When I heard\nthis it darted into my mind that the unhappiness in my life came from\nmy being a Jewess, and that always to the end the world would think\nslightly of me and that I must bear it, for I should be judged by that\nname; and it comforted me to believe that my suffering was part of the\naffliction of my people, my part in the long song of mourning that has\nbeen going on through ages and ages. For if many of our race were\nwicked and made merry in their wickedness--what was that but part of\nthe affliction borne by the just among them, who were despised for the\nsins of their brethren?--But you have not rejected me.\"\n\nMirah had changed her tone in this last sentence, having suddenly\nreflected that at this moment she had reason not for complaint but for\ngratitude.\n\n\"And we will try to save you from being judged unjustly by others, my\npoor child,\" said Mrs. Meyrick, who had now given up all attempt at\ngoing on with her work, and sat listening with folded hands and a face\nhardly less eager than Mab's would have been. \"Go on, go on: tell me\nall.\"\n\n\"After that we lived in different towns--Hamburg and Vienna, the\nlongest. I began to study singing again: and my father always got money\nabout the theatres. I think he brought a good deal of money from\nAmerica, I never knew why we left. For some time he was in great\nspirits about my singing, and he made me rehearse parts and act\ncontinually. He looked forward to my coming out in the opera. But\nby-and-by it seemed that my voice would never be strong enough--it did\nnot fulfill its promise. My master at Vienna said, 'Don't strain it\nfurther: it will never do for the public:--it is gold, but a thread of\ngold dust.' My father was bitterly disappointed: we were not so well\noff at that time. I think I have not quite told you what I felt about\nmy father. I knew he was fond of me and meant to indulge me, and that\nmade me afraid of hurting him; but he always mistook what would please\nme and give me happiness. It was his nature to take everything lightly;\nand I soon left off asking him any questions about things that I cared\nfor much, because he always turned them off with a joke. He would even\nridicule our own people; and once when he had been imitating their\nmovements and their tones in praying, only to make others laugh, I\ncould not restrain myself--for I always had an anger in my heart about\nmy mother--and when we were alone, I said, 'Father, you ought not to\nmimic our own people before Christians who mock them: would it not be\nbad if I mimicked you, that they might mock you?' But he only shrugged\nhis shoulders and laughed and pinched my chin, and said, 'You couldn't\ndo it, my dear.\" It was this way of turning off everything, that made a\ngreat wall between me and my father, and whatever I felt most I took\nthe most care to hide from him. For there were some things--when they\nwere laughed at I could not bear it: the world seemed like a hell to\nme. Is this world and all the life upon it only like a farce or a\nvaudeville, where you find no great meanings? Why then are there\ntragedies and grand operas, where men do difficult things and choose to\nsuffer? I think it is silly to speak of all things as a joke. And I saw\nthat his wishing me to sing the greatest music, and parts in grand\noperas, was only wishing for what would fetch the greatest price. That\nhemmed in my gratitude for his affectionateness, and the tenderest\nfeeling I had toward him was pity. Yes, I did sometimes pity him. He\nhad aged and changed. Now he was no longer so lively. I thought he\nseemed worse--less good to others than to me. Every now and then in the\nlatter years his gaiety went away suddenly, and he would sit at home\nsilent and gloomy; or he would come in and fling himself down and sob,\njust as I have done myself when I have been in trouble. If I put my\nhand on his knee and say, 'What is the matter, father?' he would make\nno answer, but would draw my arm round his neck and put his arm round\nme and go on crying. There never came any confidence between us; but\noh, I was sorry for him. At those moments I knew he must feel his life\nbitter, and I pressed my cheek against his head and prayed. Those\nmoments were what most bound me to him; and I used to think how much my\nmother once loved him, else she would not have married him.\n\n\"But soon there came the dreadful time. We had been at Pesth and we\ncame back to Vienna. In spite of what my master Leo had said, my father\ngot me an engagement, not at the opera, but to take singing parts at a\nsuburb theatre in Vienna. He had nothing to do with the theatre then; I\ndid not understand what he did, but I think he was continually at a\ngambling house, though he was careful always about taking me to the\ntheatre. I was very miserable. The plays I acted in were detestable to\nme. Men came about us and wanted to talk to me: women and men seemed to\nlook at me with a sneering smile; it was no better than a fiery\nfurnace. Perhaps I make it worse than it was--you don't know that life:\nbut the glare and the faces, and my having to go on and act and sing\nwhat I hated, and then see people who came to stare at me behind the\nscenes--it was all so much worse than when I was a little girl. I went\nthrough with it; I did it; I had set my mind to obey my father and\nwork, for I saw nothing better that I could do. But I felt that my\nvoice was getting weaker, and I knew that my acting was not good except\nwhen it was not really acting, but the part was one that I could be\nmyself in, and some feeling within me carried me along. That was seldom.\n\n\"Then, in the midst of all this, the news came to me one morning that\nmy father had been taken to prison, and he had sent for me. He did not\ntell me the reason why he was there, but he ordered me to go to an\naddress he gave me, to see a Count who would be able to get him\nreleased. The address was to some public rooms where I was to ask for\nthe Count, and beg him to come to my father. I found him, and\nrecognized him as a gentleman whom I had seen the other night for the\nfirst time behind the scenes. That agitated me, for I remembered his\nway of looking at me and kissing my hand--I thought it was in mockery.\nBut I delivered my errand, and he promised to go immediately to my\nfather, who came home again that very evening, bringing the Count with\nhim. I now began to feel a horrible dread of this man, for he worried\nme with his attentions, his eyes were always on me: I felt sure that\nwhatever else there might be in his mind toward me, below it all there\nwas scorn for the Jewess and the actress. And when he came to me the\nnext day in the theatre and would put my shawl around me, a terror took\nhold of me; I saw that my father wanted me to look pleased. The Count\nwas neither very young nor very old; his hair and eyes were pale; he\nwas tall and walked heavily, and his face was heavy and grave except\nwhen he looked at me. He smiled at me, and his smile went through me\nwith horror: I could not tell why he was so much worse to me than other\nmen. Some feelings are like our hearing: they come as sounds do, before\nwe know their reason. My father talked to me about him when we were\nalone, and praised him--said what a good friend he had been. I said\nnothing, because I supposed he had got my father out of prison. When\nthe Count came again, my father left the room. He asked me if I liked\nbeing on the stage. I said No, I only acted in obedience to my father.\nHe always spoke French, and called me 'petite ange' and such things,\nwhich I felt insulting. I knew he meant to make love to me, and I had\nit firmly in my mind that a nobleman and one who was not a Jew could\nhave no love for me that was not half contempt. But then he told me\nthat I need not act any longer; he wished me to visit him at his\nbeautiful place, where I might be queen of everything. It was difficult\nto me to speak, I felt so shaken with anger: I could only say, 'I would\nrather stay on the stage forever,' and I left him there. Hurrying out\nof the room I saw my father sauntering in the passage. My heart was\ncrushed. I went past him and locked myself up. It had sunk into me that\nmy father was in a conspiracy with that man against me. But the next\nday he persuaded me to come out: he said that I had mistaken\neverything, and he would explain: if I did not come out and act and\nfulfill my engagement, we should be ruined and he must starve. So I\nwent on acting, and for a week or more the Count never came near me. My\nfather changed our lodgings, and kept at home except when he went to\nthe theatre with me. He began one day to speak discouragingly of my\nacting, and say, I could never go on singing in public--I should lose\nmy voice--I ought to think of my future, and not put my nonsensical\nfeelings between me and my fortune. He said, 'What will you do? You\nwill be brought down to sing and beg at people's doors. You have had a\nsplendid offer and ought to accept it.' I could not speak: a horror\ntook possession of me when I thought of my mother and of him. I felt\nfor the first time that I should not do wrong to leave him. But the\nnext day he told me that he had put an end to my engagement at the\ntheatre, and that we were to go to Prague. I was getting suspicious of\neverything, and my will was hardening to act against him. It took us\ntwo days to pack and get ready; and I had it in my mind that I might be\nobliged to run away from my father, and then I would come to London and\ntry if it were possible to find my mother. I had a little money, and I\nsold some things to get more. I packed a few clothes in a little bag\nthat I could carry with me, and I kept my mind on the watch. My\nfather's silence--his letting drop that subject of the Count's\noffer--made me feel sure that there was a plan against me. I felt as if\nit had been a plan to take me to a madhouse. I once saw a picture of a\nmadhouse, that I could never forget; it seemed to me very much like\nsome of the life I had seen--the people strutting, quarreling,\nleering--the faces with cunning and malice in them. It was my will to\nkeep myself from wickedness; and I prayed for help. I had seen what\ndespised women were: and my heart turned against my father, for I saw\nalways behind him that man who made me shudder. You will think I had\nnot enough reason for my suspicions, and perhaps I had not, outside my\nown feeling; but it seemed to me that my mind had been lit up, and all\nthat might be stood out clear and sharp. If I slept, it was only to see\nthe same sort of things, and I could hardly sleep at all. Through our\njourney I was everywhere on the watch. I don't know why, but it came\nbefore me like a real event, that my father would suddenly leave me and\nI should find myself with the Count where I could not get away from\nhim. I thought God was warning me: my mother's voice was in my soul. It\nwas dark when we reached Prague, and though the strange bunches of\nlamps were lit it was difficult to distinguish faces as we drove along\nthe street. My father chose to sit outside--he was always smoking\nnow--and I watched everything in spite of the darkness. I do believe I\ncould see better then than I ever did before: the strange clearness\nwithin seemed to have got outside me. It was not my habit to notice\nfaces and figures much in the street; but this night I saw every one;\nand when we passed before a great hotel I caught sight only of a back\nthat was passing in--the light of the great bunch of lamps a good way\noff fell on it. I knew it--before the face was turned, as it fell into\nshadow, I knew who it was. Help came to me. I feel sure help came. I\ndid not sleep that night. I put on my plainest things--the cloak and\nhat I have worn ever since; and I sat watching for the light and the\nsound of the doors being unbarred. Some one rose early--at four\no'clock, to go to the railway. That gave me courage. I slipped out,\nwith my little bag under my cloak, and none noticed me. I had been a\nlong while attending to the railway guide that I might learn the way to\nEngland; and before the sun had risen I was in the train for Dresden.\nThen I cried for joy. I did not know whether my money would last out,\nbut I trusted. I could sell the things in my bag, and the little rings\nin my ears, and I could live on bread only. My only terror was lest my\nfather should follow me. But I never paused. I came on, and on, and on,\nonly eating bread now and then. When I got to Brussels I saw that I\nshould not have enough money, and I sold all that I could sell; but\nhere a strange thing happened. Putting my hand into the pocket of my\ncloak, I found a half-napoleon. Wondering and wondering how it came\nthere, I remembered that on the way from Cologne there was a young\nworkman sitting against me. I was frightened at every one, and did not\nlike to be spoken to. At first he tried to talk, but when he saw that I\ndid not like it, he left off. It was a long journey; I ate nothing but\na bit of bread, and he once offered me some of the food he brought in,\nbut I refused it. I do believe it was he who put that bit of gold in my\npocket. Without it I could hardly have got to Dover, and I did walk a\ngood deal of the way from Dover to London. I knew I should look like a\nmiserable beggar-girl. I wanted not to look very miserable, because if\nI found my mother it would grieve her to see me so. But oh, how vain my\nhope was that she would be there to see me come! As soon as I set foot\nin London, I began to ask for Lambeth and Blackfriars Bridge, but they\nwere a long way off, and I went wrong. At last I got to Blackfriars\nBridge and asked for Colman Street. People shook their heads. None knew\nit. I saw it in my mind--our doorsteps, and the white tiles hung in the\nwindows, and the large brick building opposite with wide doors. But\nthere was nothing like it. At last when I asked a tradesman where the\nCoburg Theatre and Colman Street were, he said, 'Oh, my little woman,\nthat's all done away with. The old streets have been pulled down;\neverything is new.' I turned away and felt as if death had laid a hand\non me. He said: 'Stop, stop! young woman; what is it you're wanting\nwith Colman Street, eh?' meaning well, perhaps. But his tone was what I\ncould not bear; and how could I tell him what I wanted? I felt blinded\nand bewildered with a sudden shock. I suddenly felt that I was very\nweak and weary, and yet where could I go? for I looked so poor and\ndusty, and had nothing with me--I looked like a street-beggar. And I\nwas afraid of all places where I could enter. I lost my trust. I\nthought I was forsaken. It seemed that I had been in a fever of\nhope--delirious--all the way from Prague: I thought that I was helped,\nand I did nothing but strain my mind forward and think of finding my\nmother; and now--there I stood in a strange world. All who saw me would\nthink ill of me, and I must herd with beggars. I stood on the bridge\nand looked along the river. People were going on to a steamboat. Many\nof them seemed poor, and I felt as if it would be a refuge to get away\nfrom the streets; perhaps the boat would take me where I could soon get\ninto a solitude. I had still some pence left, and I bought a loaf when\nI went on the boat. I wanted to have a little time and strength to\nthink of life and death. How could I live? And now again it seemed that\nif ever I were to find my mother again, death was the way to her. I\nate, that I might have strength to think. The boat set me down at a\nplace along the river--I don't know where--and it was late in the\nevening. I found some large trees apart from the road, and I sat down\nunder them that I might rest through the night. Sleep must have soon\ncome to me, and when I awoke it was morning. The birds were singing,\nand the dew was white about me, I felt chill and oh, so lonely! I got\nup and walked and followed the river a long way and then turned back\nagain. There was no reason why I should go anywhere. The world about me\nseemed like a vision that was hurrying by while I stood still with my\npain. My thoughts were stronger than I was; they rushed in and forced\nme to see all my life from the beginning; ever since I was carried away\nfrom my mother I had felt myself a lost child taken up and used by\nstrangers, who did not care what my life was to me, but only what I\ncould do for them. It seemed all a weary wandering and\nheart-loneliness--as if I had been forced to go to merrymakings without\nthe expectation of joy. And now it was worse. I was lost again, and I\ndreaded lest any stranger should notice me and speak to me. I had a\nterror of the world. None knew me; all would mistake me. I had seen so\nmany in my life who made themselves glad with scorning, and laughed at\nanother's shame. What could I do? This life seemed to be closing in\nupon me with a wall of fire--everywhere there was scorching that made\nme shrink. The high sunlight made me shrink. And I began to think that\nmy despair was the voice of God telling me to die. But it would take me\nlong to die of hunger. Then I thought of my people, how they had been\ndriven from land to land and been afflicted, and multitudes had died of\nmisery in their wandering--was I the first? And in the wars and\ntroubles when Christians were cruelest, our fathers had sometimes slain\ntheir children and afterward themselves: it was to save them from being\nfalse apostates. That seemed to make it right for me to put an end to\nmy life; for calamity had closed me in too, and I saw no pathway but to\nevil. But my mind got into war with itself, for there were contrary\nthings in it. I knew that some had held it wrong to hasten their own\ndeath, though they were in the midst of flames; and while I had some\nstrength left it was a longing to bear if I ought to bear--else where\nwas the good of all my life? It had not been happy since the first\nyears: when the light came every morning I used to think, 'I will bear\nit.' But always before I had some hope; now it was gone. With these\nthoughts I wandered and wandered, inwardly crying to the Most High,\nfrom whom I should not flee in death more than in life--though I had no\nstrong faith that He cared for me. The strength seemed departing from\nmy soul; deep below all my cries was the feeling that I was alone and\nforsaken. The more I thought the wearier I got, till it seemed I was\nnot thinking at all, but only the sky and the river and the Eternal God\nwere in my soul. And what was it whether I died or lived? If I lay down\nto die in the river, was it more than lying down to sleep?--for there\ntoo I committed my soul--I gave myself up. I could not bear memories\nany more; I could only feel what was present in me--it was all one\nlonging to cease from my weary life, which seemed only a pain outside\nthe great peace that I might enter into. That was how it was. When the\nevening came and the sun was gone, it seemed as if that was all I had\nto wait for. And a new strength came into me to will what I would do.\nYou know what I did. I was going to die. You know what happened--did he\nnot tell you? Faith came to me again; I was not forsaken. He told you\nhow he found me?\"\n\nMrs. Meyrick gave no audible answer, but pressed her lips against\nMirah's forehead.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n\"She's just a pearl; the mud has only washed her,\" was the fervid\nlittle woman's closing commentary when, _tete-à-tete_ with Deronda in\nthe back parlor that evening, she had conveyed Mirah's story to him\nwith much vividness.\n\n\"What is your feeling about a search for this mother?\" said Deronda.\n\"Have you no fears? I have, I confess.\"\n\n\"Oh, I believe the mother's good,\" said Mrs. Meyrick, with rapid\ndecisiveness; \"or _was_ good. She may be dead--that's my fear. A good\nwoman, you may depend: you may know it by the scoundrel the father is.\nWhere did the child get her goodness from? Wheaten flour has to be\naccounted for.\"\n\nDeronda was rather disappointed at this answer; he had wanted a\nconfirmation of his own judgment, and he began to put in demurrers. The\nargument about the mother would not apply to the brother; and Mrs.\nMeyrick admitted that the brother might be an ugly likeness of the\nfather. Then, as to advertising, if the name was Cohen, you might as\nwell advertise for two undescribed terriers; and here Mrs. Meyrick\nhelped him, for the idea of an advertisement, already mentioned to\nMirah, had roused the poor child's terror; she was convinced that her\nfather would see it--he saw everything in the papers. Certainly there\nwere safer means than advertising; men might be set to work whose\nbusiness it was to find missing persons; but Deronda wished Mrs.\nMeyrick to feel with him that it would be wiser to wait, before seeking\na dubious--perhaps a deplorable result; especially as he was engaged to\ngo abroad the next week for a couple of months. If a search were made,\nhe would like to be at hand, so that Mrs. Meyrick might not be unaided\nin meeting any consequences--supposing that she would generously\ncontinue to watch over Mirah.\n\n\"We should be very jealous of any one who took the task from us,\" said\nMrs. Meyrick. \"She will stay under my roof; there is Hans's old room\nfor her.\"\n\n\"Will she be content to wait?\" said Deronda, anxiously.\n\n\"No trouble there. It is not her nature to run into planning and\ndevising: only to submit. See how she submitted to that father! It was\na wonder to herself how she found the will and contrivance to run away\nfrom him. About finding her mother, her only notion now is to trust;\nsince you were sent to save her and we are good to her, she trusts that\nher mother will be found in the same unsought way. And when she is\ntalking I catch her feeling like a child.\"\n\nMrs. Meyrick hoped that the sum Deronda put into her hands as a\nprovision for Mirah's wants was more than would be needed; after a\nlittle while Mirah would perhaps like to occupy herself as the other\ngirls did, and make herself independent. Deronda pleaded that she must\nneed a long rest. \"Oh, yes; we will hurry nothing,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\n\"Rely upon it, she shall be taken tender care of. If you like to give\nme your address abroad, I will write to let you know how we get on. It\nis not fair that we should have all the pleasure of her salvation to\nourselves. And besides, I want to make believe that I am doing\nsomething for you as well as for Mirah.\"\n\n\"That is no make-believe. What should I have done without you last\nnight? Everything would have gone wrong. I shall tell Hans that the\nbest of having him for a friend is, knowing his mother.\"\n\nAfter that they joined the girls in the other room, where Mirah was\nseated placidly, while the others were telling her what they knew about\nMr. Deronda--his goodness to Hans, and all the virtues that Hans had\nreported of him.\n\n\"Kate burns a pastille before his portrait every day,\" said Mab. \"And I\ncarry his signature in a little black-silk bag round my neck to keep\noff the cramp. And Amy says the multiplication-table in his name. We\nmust all do something extra in honor of him, now he has brought you to\nus.\"\n\n\"I suppose he is too great a person to want anything,\" said Mirah,\nsmiling at Mab, and appealing to the graver Amy. \"He is perhaps very\nhigh in the world?\"\n\n\"He is very much above us in rank,\" said Amy. \"He is related to grand\npeople. I dare say he leans on some of the satin cushions we prick our\nfingers over.\"\n\n\"I am glad he is of high rank,\" said Mirah, with her usual quietness.\n\n\"Now, why are you glad of that?\" said Amy, rather suspicious of this\nsentiment, and on the watch for Jewish peculiarities which had not\nappeared.\n\n\"Because I have always disliked men of high rank before.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mr. Deronda is not so very high,\" said Kate, \"He need not hinder\nus from thinking ill of the whole peerage and baronetage if we like.\"\n\nWhen he entered, Mirah rose with the same look of grateful reverence\nthat she had lifted to him the evening before: impossible to see a\ncreature freer at once from embarrassment and boldness. Her theatrical\ntraining had left no recognizable trace; probably her manners had not\nmuch changed since she played the forsaken child at nine years of age;\nand she had grown up in her simplicity and truthfulness like a little\nflower-seed that absorbs the chance confusion of its surrounding into\nits own definite mould of beauty. Deronda felt that he was making\nacquaintance with something quite new to him in the form of womanhood.\nFor Mirah was not childlike from ignorance: her experience of evil and\ntrouble was deeper and stranger than his own. He felt inclined to watch\nher and listen to her as if she had come from a far off shore inhabited\nby a race different from our own.\n\nBut for that very reason he made his visit brief with his usual\nactivity of imagination as to how his conduct might affect others, he\nshrank from what might seem like curiosity or the assumption of a right\nto know as much as he pleased of one to whom he had done a service. For\nexample, he would have liked to hear her sing, but he would have felt\nthe expression of such a wish to be rudeness in him--since she could\nnot refuse, and he would all the while have a sense that she was being\ntreated like one whose accomplishments were to be ready on demand. And\nwhatever reverence could be shown to woman, he was bent on showing to\nthis girl. Why? He gave himself several good reasons; but whatever one\ndoes with a strong unhesitating outflow of will has a store of motive\nthat it would be hard to put into words. Some deeds seem little more\nthan interjections which give vent to the long passion of a life.\n\nSo Deronda soon took his farewell for the two months during which he\nexpected to be absent from London, and in a few days he was on his way\nwith Sir Hugo and Lady Mallinger to Leubronn.\n\nHe had fulfilled his intention of telling them about Mirah. The baronet\nwas decidedly of opinion that the search for the mother and brother had\nbetter be let alone. Lady Mallinger was much interested in the poor\ngirl, observing that there was a society for the conversion of the\nJews, and that it was to be hoped Mirah would embrace Christianity; but\nperceiving that Sir Hugo looked at her with amusement, she concluded\nthat she had said something foolish. Lady Mallinger felt apologetically\nabout herself as a woman who had produced nothing but daughters in a\ncase where sons were required, and hence regarded the apparent\ncontradictions of the world as probably due to the weakness of her own\nunderstanding. But when she was much puzzled, it was her habit to say\nto herself, \"I will ask Daniel.\" Deronda was altogether a convenience\nin the family; and Sir Hugo too, after intending to do the best for\nhim, had begun to feel that the pleasantest result would be to have\nthis substitute for a son always ready at his elbow.\n\nThis was the history of Deronda, so far as he knew it, up to the time\nof that visit to Leubronn in which he saw Gwendolen Harleth at the\ngaming-table.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI.\n\n    It is a common sentence that Knowledge is power; but who hath duly\n    Considered or set forth the power of Ignorance? Knowledge slowly\n    builds up what Ignorance in an hour pulls down. Knowledge, through\n    patient and frugal centuries, enlarges discovery and makes record of\n    it; Ignorance, wanting its day's dinner, lights a fire with the\n    record, and gives a flavor to its one roast with the burned souls of\n    many generations. Knowledge, instructing the sense, refining and\n    multiplying needs, transforms itself into skill and makes life various\n    with a new six days' work; comes Ignorance drunk on the seventh, with\n    a firkin of oil and a match and an easy \"Let there not be,\" and the\n    many-colored creation is shriveled up in blackness. Of a truth,\n    Knowledge is power, but it is a power reined by scruple, having a\n    conscience of what must be and what may be; whereas Ignorance is a\n    blind giant who, let him but wax unbound, would make it a sport to\n    seize the pillars that hold up the long-wrought fabric of human good,\n    and turn all the places of joy dark as a buried Babylon. And looking\n    at life parcel-wise, in the growth of a single lot, who having a\n    practiced vision may not see that ignorance of the true bond between\n    events, and false conceit of means whereby sequences may be compelled\n    --like that falsity of eyesight which overlooks the gradations of\n    distance, seeing that which is afar off as if it were within a step or\n    a grasp--precipitates the mistaken soul on destruction?\n\n\nIt was half-past ten in the morning when Gwendolen Harleth, after her\ngloomy journey from Leubronn, arrived at the station from which she\nmust drive to Offendene. No carriage or friend was awaiting her, for in\nthe telegram she had sent from Dover she had mentioned a later train,\nand in her impatience of lingering at a London station she had set off\nwithout picturing what it would be to arrive unannounced at half an\nhour's drive from home--at one of those stations which have been fixed\non not as near anywhere, but as equidistant from everywhere. Deposited\nas a _femme sole_ with her large trunks, and having to wait while a\nvehicle was being got from the large-sized lantern called the Railway\nInn, Gwendolen felt that the dirty paint in the waiting-room, the dusty\ndecanter of flat water, and the texts in large letters calling on her\nto repent and be converted, were part of the dreary prospect opened by\nher family troubles; and she hurried away to the outer door looking\ntoward the lane and fields. But here the very gleams of sunshine seemed\nmelancholy, for the autumnal leaves and grass were shivering, and the\nwind was turning up the feathers of a cock and two croaking hens which\nhad doubtless parted with their grown-up offspring and did not know\nwhat to do with themselves. The railway official also seemed without\nresources, and his innocent demeanor in observing Gwendolen and her\ntrunks was rendered intolerable by the cast in his eye; especially\nsince, being a new man, he did not know her, and must conclude that she\nwas not very high in the world. The vehicle--a dirty old barouche--was\nwithin sight, and was being slowly prepared by an elderly laborer.\nContemptible details these, to make part of a history; yet the turn of\nmost lives is hardly to be accounted for without them. They are\ncontinually entering with cumulative force into a mood until it gets\nthe mass and momentum of a theory or a motive. Even philosophy is not\nquite free from such determining influences; and to be dropped solitary\nat an ugly, irrelevant-looking spot, with a sense of no income on the\nmind, might well prompt a man to discouraging speculation on the origin\nof things and the reason of a world where a subtle thinker found\nhimself so badly off. How much more might such trifles tell on a young\nlady equipped for society with a fastidious taste, an Indian shawl over\nher arm, some twenty cubic feet of trunks by her side, and a mortal\ndislike to the new consciousness of poverty which was stimulating her\nimagination of disagreeables? At any rate they told heavily on poor\nGwendolen, and helped to quell her resistant spirit. What was the good\nof living in the midst of hardships, ugliness, and humiliation? This\nwas the beginning of being at home again, and it was a sample of what\nshe had to expect.\n\nHere was the theme on which her discontent rung its sad changes during\nher slow drive in the uneasy barouche, with one great trunk squeezing\nthe meek driver, and the other fastened with a rope on the seat in\nfront of her. Her ruling vision all the way from Leubronn had been that\nthe family would go abroad again; for of course there must be some\nlittle income left--her mamma did not mean that they would have\nliterally nothing. To go to a dull place abroad and live poorly, was\nthe dismal future that threatened her: she had seen plenty of poor\nEnglish people abroad and imagined herself plunged in the despised\ndullness of their ill-plenished lives, with Alice, Bertha, Fanny and\nIsabel all growing up in tediousness around her, while she advanced\ntoward thirty and her mamma got more and more melancholy. But she did\nnot mean to submit, and let misfortune do what it would with her: she\nhad not yet quite believed in the misfortune; but weariness and disgust\nwith this wretched arrival had begun to affect her like an\nuncomfortable waking, worse than the uneasy dreams which had gone\nbefore. The self-delight with which she had kissed her image in the\nglass had faded before the sense of futility in being anything\nwhatever--charming, clever, resolute--what was the good of it all?\nEvents might turn out anyhow, and men were hateful. Yes, men were\nhateful. But in these last hours, a certain change had come over their\nmeaning. It is one thing to hate stolen goods, and another thing to\nhate them the more because their being stolen hinders us from making\nuse of them. Gwendolen had begun to be angry with Grandcourt for being\nwhat had hindered her from marrying him, angry with him as the cause of\nher present dreary lot.\n\nBut the slow drive was nearly at an end, and the lumbering vehicle\ncoming up the avenue was within sight of the windows. A figure\nappearing under the portico brought a rush of new and less selfish\nfeeling in Gwendolen, and when springing from the carriage she saw the\ndear beautiful face with fresh lines of sadness in it, she threw her\narms round her mother's neck, and for the moment felt all sorrows only\nin relation to her mother's feeling about them.\n\nBehind, of course, were the sad faces of the four superfluous girls,\neach, poor thing--like those other many thousand sisters of us\nall--having her peculiar world which was of no importance to any one\nelse, but all of them feeling Gwendolen's presence to be somehow a\nrelenting of misfortune: where Gwendolen was, something interesting\nwould happen; even her hurried submission to their kisses, and \"Now go\naway, girls,\" carried the sort of comfort which all weakness finds in\ndecision and authoritativeness. Good Miss Merry, whose air of meek\ndepression, hitherto held unaccountable in a governess affectionately\nattached to the family, was now at the general level of circumstances,\ndid not expect any greeting, but busied herself with the trunks and the\ncoachman's pay; while Mrs. Davilow and Gwendolen hastened up-stairs and\nshut themselves in the black and yellow bedroom.\n\n\"Never mind, mamma dear,\" said Gwendolen, tenderly pressing her\nhandkerchief against the tears that were rolling down Mrs. Davilow's\ncheeks. \"Never mind. I don't mind. I will do something. I will be\nsomething. Things will come right. It seemed worse because I was away.\nCome now! you must be glad because I am here.\"\n\nGwendolen felt every word of that speech. A rush of compassionate\ntenderness stirred all her capability of generous resolution; and the\nself-confident projects which had vaguely glanced before her during her\njourney sprang instantaneously into new definiteness. Suddenly she\nseemed to perceive how she could be \"something.\" It was one of her best\nmoments, and the fond mother, forgetting everything below that tide\nmark, looked at her with a sort of adoration. She said--\n\n\"Bless you, my good, good darling! I can be happy, if you can!\"\n\nBut later in the day there was an ebb; the old slippery rocks, the old\nweedy places reappeared. Naturally, there was a shrinking of courage as\nmisfortune ceased to be a mere announcement, and began to disclose\nitself as a grievous tyrannical inmate. At first--that ugly drive at an\nend--it was still Offendene that Gwendolen had come home to, and all\nsurroundings of immediate consequence to her were still there to secure\nher personal ease; the roomy stillness of the large solid house while\nshe rested; all the luxuries of her toilet cared for without trouble to\nher; and a little tray with her favorite food brought to her in\nprivate. For she had said, \"Keep them all away from us to-day, mamma.\nLet you and me be alone together.\"\n\nWhen Gwendolen came down into the drawing-room, fresh as a newly-dipped\nswan, and sat leaning against the cushions of the settee beside her\nmamma, their misfortune had not yet turned its face and breath upon\nher. She felt prepared to hear everything, and began in a tone of\ndeliberate intention--\n\n\"What have you thought of doing, exactly, mamma?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, the next thing to be done is to move away from this\nhouse. Mr. Haynes most fortunately is as glad to have it now as he\nwould have been when we took it. Lord Brackenshaw's agent is to arrange\neverything with him to the best advantage for us: Bazley, you know; not\nat all an ill-natured man.\"\n\n\"I cannot help thinking that Lord Brackenshaw would let you stay here\nrent-free, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, whose talents had not been applied\nto business so much as to discernment of the admiration excited by her\ncharms.\n\n\"My dear child, Lord Brackenshaw is in Scotland, and knows nothing\nabout us. Neither your uncle nor I would choose to apply to him.\nBesides, what could we do in this house without servants, and without\nmoney to warm it? The sooner we are out the better. We have nothing to\ncarry but our clothes, you know?\"\n\n\"I suppose you mean to go abroad, then?\" said Gwendolen. After all,\nthis is what she had familiarized her mind with.\n\n\"Oh, no, dear, no. How could we travel? You never did learn anything\nabout income and expenses,\" said Mrs. Davilow, trying to smile, and\nputting her hand on Gwendolen's as she added, mournfully, \"that makes\nit so much harder for you, my pet.\"\n\n\"But where are we to go?\" said Gwendolen, with a trace of sharpness in\nher tone. She felt a new current of fear passing through her.\n\n\"It is all decided. A little furniture is to be got in from the\nrectory--all that can be spared.\" Mrs. Davilow hesitated. She dreaded\nthe reality for herself less than the shock she must give to Gwendolen,\nwho looked at her with tense expectancy, but was silent.\n\n\"It is Sawyer's Cottage we are to go to.\"\n\nAt first, Gwendolen remained silent, paling with anger--justifiable\nanger, in her opinion. Then she said with haughtiness--\n\n\"That is impossible. Something else than that ought to have been\nthought of. My uncle ought not to allow that. I will not submit to it.\"\n\n\"My sweet child, what else could have been thought of? Your uncle, I am\nsure, is as kind as he can be: but he is suffering himself; he has his\nfamily to bring up. And do you quite understand? You must remember--we\nhave nothing. We shall have absolutely nothing except what he and my\nsister give us. They have been as wise and active a possible, and we\nmust try to earn something. I and the girls are going to work a\ntable-cloth border for the Ladies' Charity at Winchester, and a\ncommunion cloth that the parishioners are to present to Pennicote\nChurch.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow went into these details timidly: but how else was she to\nbring the fact of their position home to this poor child who, alas!\nmust submit at present, whatever might be in the background for her?\nand she herself had a superstition that there must be something better\nin the background.\n\n\"But surely somewhere else than Sawyer's Cottage might have been\nfound,\" Gwendolen persisted--taken hold of (as if in a nightmare) by\nthe image of this house where an exciseman had lived.\n\n\"No, indeed, dear. You know houses are scarce, and we may be thankful\nto get anything so private. It is not so very bad. There are two little\nparlors and four bedrooms. You shall sit alone whenever you like.\"\n\nThe ebb of sympathetic care for her mamma had gone so low just now,\nthat Gwendolen took no notice of these deprecatory words.\n\n\"I cannot conceive that all your property is gone at once, mamma. How\ncan you be sure in so short a time? It is not a week since you wrote to\nme.\"\n\n\"The first news came much earlier, dear. But I would not spoil your\npleasure till it was quite necessary.\"\n\n\"Oh, how vexatious!\" said Gwendolen, coloring with fresh anger. \"If I\nhad known, I could have brought home the money I had won: and for want\nof knowing, I stayed and lost it. I had nearly two hundred pounds, and\nit would have done for us to live on a little while, till I could carry\nout some plan.\" She paused an instant and then added more impetuously,\n\"Everything has gone against me. People have come near me only to\nblight me.\"\n\nAmong the \"people\" she was including Deronda. If he had not interfered\nin her life she would have gone to the gaming-table again with a few\nnapoleons, and might have won back her losses.\n\n\"We must resign ourselves to the will of Providence, my child,\" said\npoor Mrs. Davilow, startled by this revelation of the gambling, but not\ndaring to say more. She felt sure that \"people\" meant Grandcourt, about\nwhom her lips were sealed. And Gwendolen answered immediately--\n\n\"But I don't resign myself. I shall do what I can against it. What is\nthe good of calling the people's wickedness Providence? You said in\nyour letter it was Mr. Lassman's fault we had lost our money. Has he\nrun away with it all?\"\n\n\"No, dear, you don't understand. There were great speculations: he\nmeant to gain. It was all about mines and things of that sort. He\nrisked too much.\"\n\n\"I don't call that Providence: it was his improvidence with our money,\nand he ought to be punished. Can't we go to law and recover our\nfortune? My uncle ought to take measures, and not sit down by such\nwrongs. We ought to go to law.\"\n\n\"My dear child, law can never bring back money lost in that way. Your\nuncle says it is milk spilled upon the ground. Besides, one must have a\nfortune to get any law: there is no law for people who are ruined. And\nour money has only gone along with other's people's. We are not the\nonly sufferers: others have to resign themselves besides us.\"\n\n\"But I don't resign myself to live at Sawyer's Cottage and see you\nworking for sixpences and shillings because of that. I shall not do it.\nI shall do what is more befitting our rank and education.\"\n\n\"I am sure your uncle and all of us will approve of that, dear, and\nadmire you the more for it,\" said Mrs. Davilow, glad of an unexpected\nopening for speaking on a difficult subject. \"I didn't mean that you\nshould resign yourself to worse when anything better offered itself.\nBoth your uncle and aunt have felt that your abilities and education\nwere a fortune for you, and they have already heard of something within\nyour reach.\"\n\n\"What is that, mamma?\" some of Gwendolen's anger gave way to interest,\nand she was not without romantic conjectures.\n\n\"There are two situations that offer themselves. One is in a bishop's\nfamily, where there are three daughters, and the other is in quite a\nhigh class of school; and in both, your French, and music, and\ndancing--and then your manners and habits as a lady, are exactly what\nis wanted. Each is a hundred a year--and--just for the present,\"--Mrs.\nDavilow had become frightened and hesitating,--\"to save you from the\npetty, common way of living that we must go to--you would perhaps\naccept one of the two.\"\n\n\"What! be like Miss Graves at Madame Meunier's? No.\"\n\n\"I think, myself, that Dr. Monpert's would be more suitable. There\ncould be no hardship in a bishop's family.\"\n\n\"Excuse me, mamma. There are hardships everywhere for a governess. And\nI don't see that it would be pleasanter to be looked down on in a\nbishop's family than in any other. Besides, you know very well I hate\nteaching. Fancy me shut up with three awkward girls something like\nAlice! I would rather emigrate than be a governess.\"\n\nWhat it precisely was to emigrate, Gwendolen was not called on to\nexplain. Mrs. Davilow was mute, seeing no outlet, and thinking with\ndread of the collision that might happen when Gwendolen had to meet her\nuncle and aunt. There was an air of reticence in Gwendolen's haughty,\nresistant speeches which implied that she had a definite plan in\nreserve; and her practical ignorance continually exhibited, could not\nnullify the mother's belief in the effectiveness of that forcible will\nand daring which had held mastery over herself.\n\n\"I have some ornaments, mamma, and I could sell them,\" said Gwendolen.\n\"They would make a sum: I want a little sum--just to go on with. I dare\nsay Marshall, at Wanchester, would take them: I know he showed me some\nbracelets once that he said he had bought from a lady. Jocosa might go\nand ask him. Jocosa is going to leave us, of course. But she might do\nthat first.\"\n\n\"She would do anything she could, poor, dear soul. I have not told you\nyet--she wanted me to take all her savings--her three hundred pounds. I\ntell her to set up a little school. It will be hard for her to go into\na new family now she has been so long with us.\"\n\n\"Oh, recommend her for the bishop's daughter's,\" said Gwendolen, with a\nsudden gleam of laughter in her face. \"I am sure she will do better\nthan I should.\"\n\n\"Do take care not to say such things to your uncle,\" said Mrs. Davilow.\n\"He will be hurt at your despising what he has exerted himself about.\nBut I dare say you have something else in your mind that he might not\ndisapprove, if you consulted him.\"\n\n\"There is some one else I want to consult first. Are the Arrowpoint's\nat Quetcham still, and is Herr Klesmer there? But I daresay you know\nnothing about it, poor, dear mamma. Can Jeffries go on horseback with a\nnote?\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, Jefferies is not here, and the dealer has taken the\nhorses. But some one could go for us from Leek's farm. The Arrowpoints\nare at Quetcham, I know. Miss Arrowpoint left her card the other day: I\ncould not see her. But I don't know about Herr Klesmer. Do you want to\nsend before to-morrow?\"\n\n\"Yes, as soon as possible. I will write a note,\" said Gwendolen, rising.\n\n\"What can you be thinking of, Gwen?\" said Mrs. Davilow, relieved in the\nmidst of her wonderment by signs of alacrity and better humor.\n\n\"Don't mind what, there's a dear, good mamma,\" said Gwendolen,\nreseating herself a moment to give atoning caresses. \"I mean to do\nsomething. Never mind what until it is all settled. And then you shall\nbe comforted. The dear face!--it is ten years older in these three\nweeks. Now, now, now! don't cry\"--Gwendolen, holding her mamma's head\nwith both hands, kissed the trembling eyelids. \"But mind you don't\ncontradict me or put hindrances in my way. I must decide for myself. I\ncannot be dictated to by my uncle or any one else. My life is my own\naffair. And I think\"--here her tone took an edge of scorn--\"I think I\ncan do better for you than let you live in Sawyer's Cottage.\"\n\nIn uttering this last sentence Gwendolen again rose, and went to a desk\nwhere she wrote the following note to Klesmer:--\n\n    Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Herr Klesmer, and ventures\n    to request of him the very great favor that he will call upon her, if\n    possible, to-morrow. Her reason for presuming so far on his kindness\n    is of a very serious nature. Unfortunate family circumstances have\n    obliged her to take a course in which she can only turn for advice to\n    the great knowledge and judgment of Herr Klesmer.\n\n\"Pray get this sent to Quetcham at once, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, as she\naddressed the letter. \"The man must be told to wait for an answer. Let\nno time be lost.\"\n\nFor the moment, the absorbing purpose was to get the letter dispatched;\nbut when she had been assured on this point, another anxiety arose and\nkept her in a state of uneasy excitement. If Klesmer happened not to be\nat Quetcham, what could she do next? Gwendolen's belief in her star, so\nto speak, had had some bruises. Things had gone against her. A splendid\nmarriage which presented itself within reach had shown a hideous flaw.\nThe chances of roulette had not adjusted themselves to her claims; and\na man of whom she knew nothing had thrust himself between her and her\nintentions. The conduct of those uninteresting people who managed the\nbusiness of the world had been culpable just in the points most\ninjurious to her in particular. Gwendolen Harleth, with all her beauty\nand conscious force, felt the close threats of humiliation: for the\nfirst time the conditions of this world seemed to her like a hurrying\nroaring crowd in which she had got astray, no more cared for and\nprotected than a myriad of other girls, in spite of its being a\npeculiar hardship to her. If Klesmer were not at Quetcham--that would\nbe all of a piece with the rest: the unwelcome negative urged itself as\na probability, and set her brain working at desperate alternatives\nwhich might deliver her from Sawyer's Cottage or the ultimate necessity\nof \"taking a situation,\" a phrase that summed up for her the\ndisagreeables most wounding to her pride, most irksome to her tastes;\nat least so far as her experience enabled her to imagine disagreeables.\n\nStill Klesmer might be there, and Gwendolen thought of the result in\nthat case with a hopefulness which even cast a satisfactory light over\nher peculiar troubles, as what might well enter into the biography of\ncelebrities and remarkable persons. And if she had heard her immediate\nacquaintances cross-examined as to whether they thought her remarkable,\nthe first who said \"No\" would have surprised her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII.\n\n  We please our fancy with ideal webs\n  Of innovation, but our life meanwhile\n  Is in the loom, where busy passion plies\n  The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds\n  The accustomed pattern.\n\n\nGwendolen's note, coming \"pat betwixt too early and too late,\" was put\ninto Klesmer's hands just when he was leaving Quetcham, and in order to\nmeet her appeal to his kindness he, with some inconvenience to himself\nspent the night at Wanchester. There were reasons why he would not\nremain at Quetcham.\n\nThat magnificent mansion, fitted with regard to the greatest expense,\nhad in fact became too hot for him, its owners having, like some great\npoliticians, been astonished at an insurrection against the established\norder of things, which we plain people after the event can perceive to\nhave been prepared under their very noses.\n\nThere were as usual many guests in the house, and among them one in\nwhom Miss Arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political\nman of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt on\npublic grounds that he required a larger fortune to support the title\nproperly. Heiresses vary, and persons interested in one of them\nbeforehand are prepared to find that she is too yellow or too red, tall\nand toppling or short and square, violent and capricious or moony and\ninsipid; but in every case it is taken for granted that she will\nconsider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others\nthink her fortunes ought to go. Nature, however, not only accommodates\nherself ill to our favorite practices by making \"only children\"\ndaughters, but also now and then endows the misplaced daughter with a\nclear head and a strong will. The Arrowpoints had already felt some\nanxiety owing to these endowments of their Catherine. She would not\naccept the view of her social duty which required her to marry a needy\nnobleman or a commoner on the ladder toward nobility; and they were not\nwithout uneasiness concerning her persistence in declining suitable\noffers. As to the possibility of her being in love with Klesmer they\nwere not at all uneasy--a very common sort of blindness. For in general\nmortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an\neffect toward which they have done everything, and at the absence of an\neffect toward which they had done nothing but desire it. Parents are\nastonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the\nmost time-honored and expensive means of securing it; husbands and\nwives are mutually astonished at the loss of affection which they have\ntaken no pains to keep; and all of us in our turn are apt to be\nastonished that our neighbors do not admire us. In this way it happens\nthat the truth seems highly improbable. The truth is something\ndifferent from the habitual lazy combinations begotten by our wishes.\nThe Arrowpoints' hour of astonishment was come.\n\nWhen there is a passion between an heiress and a proud\nindependent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an\nunderstanding; but the difficulties are likely to be overcome unless\nthe proud man secures himself by a constant _alibi_. Brief meetings\nafter studied absence are potent in disclosure: but more potent still\nis frequent companionship, with full sympathy in taste and admirable\nqualities on both sides; especially where the one is in the position of\nteacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability\nwhich also gives the teacher delight. The situation is famous in\nhistory, and has no less charm now than it had in the days of Abelard.\n\nBut this kind of comparison had not occurred to the Arrowpoints when\nthey first engaged Klesmer to come down to Quetcham. To have a\nfirst-rate musician in your house is a privilege of wealth; Catherine's\nmusical talent demanded every advantage; and she particularly desired\nto use her quieter time in the country for more thorough study. Klesmer\nwas not yet a Liszt, understood to be adored by ladies of all European\ncountries with the exception of Lapland: and even with that\nunderstanding it did not follow that he would make proposals to an\nheiress. No musician of honor would do so. Still less was it\nconceivable that Catherine would give him the slightest pretext for\nsuch daring. The large check that Mr. Arrowpoint was to draw in\nKlesmer's name seemed to make him as safe an inmate as a footman. Where\nmarriage is inconceivable, a girl's sentiments are safe.\n\nKlesmer was eminently a man of honor, but marriages rarely begin with\nformal proposals, and moreover, Catherine's limit of the conceivable\ndid not exactly correspond with her mother's.\n\nOutsiders might have been more apt to think that Klesmer's position was\ndangerous for himself if Miss Arrowpoint had been an acknowledged\nbeauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is\nthat which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. There is a\ncharm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that\ncertifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every\nunostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no\nsweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which\nenters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on\nwhom no intention will be lost. What dignity of meaning goes on\ngathering in frowns and laughs which are never observed in the wrong\nplace; what suffused adorableness in a human frame where there is a\nmind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute\nfinely! The more obvious beauty, also adorable sometimes--one may say\nit without blasphemy--begins by being an apology for folly, and ends\nlike other apologies in becoming tiresome by iteration; and that\nKlesmer, though very susceptible to it, should have a passionate\nattachment to Miss Arrowpoint, was no more a paradox than any other\ntriumph of a manifold sympathy over a monotonous attraction. We object\nless to be taxed with the enslaving excess of our passions than with\nour deficiency in wider passion; but if the truth were known, our\nreputed intensity is often the dullness of not knowing what else to do\nwith ourselves. Tannhäuser, one suspects, was a knight of ill-furnished\nimagination, hardly of larger discourse than a heavy Guardsman; Merlin\nhad certainly seen his best days, and was merely repeating himself,\nwhen he fell into that hopeless captivity; and we know that Ulysses\nfelt so manifest an _ennui_ under similar circumstances that Calypso\nherself furthered his departure. There is indeed a report that he\nafterward left Penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in\nworsted work, and it was probably from her that Telemachus got his\nmean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and\nthe daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this\nalready dubious scandal as to the relation between companionship and\nconstancy.\n\nKlesmer was as versatile and fascinating as a young Ulysses on a\nsufficient acquaintance--one whom nature seemed to have first made\ngenerously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all\nthe abundant rest, and, as in Mendelssohn, finding expression for\nitself not only in the highest finish of execution, but in that fervor\nof creative work and theoretic belief which pierces devoted purpose.\nHis foibles of arrogance and vanity did not exceed such as may be found\nin the best English families; and Catherine Arrowpoint had no\ncorresponding restlessness to clash with his: notwithstanding her\nnative kindliness she was perhaps too coolly firm and self-sustained.\nBut she was one of those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has\nthe charm of discovery; whose integrity of faculty and expression\nbegets a wish to know what they will say on all subjects or how they\nwill perform whatever they undertake; so that they end by raising not\nonly a continual expectation but a continual sense of fulfillment--the\nsystole and diastole of blissful companionship. In such cases the\noutward presentment easily becomes what the image is to the worshipper.\nIt was not long before the two became aware that each was interesting\nto the other; but the \"how far\" remained a matter of doubt. Klesmer did\nnot conceive that Miss Arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a\npossible lover, and she was not accustomed to think of herself as\nlikely to stir more than a friendly regard, or to fear the expression\nof more from any man who was not enamored of her fortune. Each was\ncontent to suffer some unshared sense of denial for the sake of loving\nthe other's society a little too well; and under these conditions no\nneed had been felt to restrict Klesmer's visits for the last year\neither in country or in town. He knew very well that if Miss Arrowpoint\nhad been poor he would have made ardent love to her instead of sending\na storm through the piano, or folding his arms and pouring out a\nhyperbolical tirade about something as impersonal as the north pole;\nand she was not less aware that if it had been possible for Klesmer to\nwish for her hand she would have found overmastering reasons for giving\nit to him. Here was the safety of full cups, which are as secure from\noverflow as the half-empty, always supposing no disturbance. Naturally,\nsilent feeling had not remained at the same point any more than the\nstealthly dial-hand, and in the present visit to Quetcham, Klesmer had\nbegun to think that he would not come again; while Catherine was more\nsensitive to his frequent _brusquerie_, which she rather resented as a\nneedless effort to assert his footing of superior in every sense except\nthe conventional.\n\nMeanwhile enters the expectant peer, Mr. Bult, an esteemed party man\nwho, rather neutral in private life, had strong opinions concerning the\ndistricts of the Niger, was much at home also in Brazils, spoke with\ndecision of affairs in the South Seas, was studious of his\nParliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and\nsuffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of\nlife. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an\nundeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but\nthat he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident,\nand had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be\nreckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a\nserious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind Miss\nArrowpoint's addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in\nantique lace. He was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner\noutburst of Klesmer's on the lack of idealism in English politics,\nwhich left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply\nby the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this\nexcuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous\nfeelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what\nthen? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of \"Buy\ncheap, sell dear.\" On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and\nother, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally\nignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not\nsurprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished\nat his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way\nthat would have told at a constituents' dinner--to be accounted for\nprobably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that\nfermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged\nhim to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the\ndrawing-room he for the first time went up to Klesmer at the piano,\nMiss Arrowpoint being near, and said--\n\n\"I had no idea before that you were a political man.\"\n\nKlesmer's only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and\nstare at Mr. Bult.\n\n\"You must have been used to public speaking. You speak uncommonly well,\nthough I don't agree with you. From what you said about sentiment, I\nfancy you are a Panslavist.\"\n\n\"No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew,\" said Klesmer, flashing\na smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like\nrush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery\nrather offensive and Polish, but--Miss Arrowpoint being there--did not\nlike to move away.\n\n\"Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas,\" said Miss Arrowpoint, trying to\nmake the best of the situation. \"He looks forward to a fusion of races.\"\n\n\"With all my heart,\" said Mr. Bult, willing to be gracious. \"I was sure\nhe had too much talent to be a mere musician.\"\n\n\"Ah, sir, you are under some mistake there,\" said Klesmer, firing up.\n\"No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little.\nA creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is\na mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box\nand look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. We help\nto rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men.\nWe count ourselves on level benches with legislators. And a man who\nspeaks effectively through music is compelled to something more\ndifficult than parliamentary eloquence.\"\n\nWith the last word Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away.\n\nMiss Arrowpoint colored, and Mr. Bult observed, with his usual\nphlegmatic stolidity, \"Your pianist does not think small beer of\nhimself.\"\n\n\"Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist,\" said Miss Arrowpoint,\napologetically. \"He is a great musician in the fullest sense of the\nword. He will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn.\"\n\n\"Ah, you ladies understand these things,\" said Mr. Bult, none the less\nconvinced that these things were frivolous because Klesmer had shown\nhimself a coxcomb.\n\nCatherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, found an\nopportunity the next day in the music-room to say, \"Why were you so\nheated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm.\"\n\n\"You wish me to be complaisant to him?\" said Klesmer, rather fiercely.\n\n\"I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil.\"\n\n\"You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?--you have a respect\nfor a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he\ncan't turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness\nsuited to the dignity of the English gentleman.\"\n\n\"I did not say that.\"\n\n\"You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me.\"\n\n\"Now you are slightly nearer the truth,\" said Catherine, smiling.\n\n\"Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off\nat once.\"\n\n\"I don't see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you\nshould not mind my criticism of your impatience.\"\n\n\"But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant\nimpertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his\nplace. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But\nI beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even\nyou can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste\nfor you.\"\n\n\"That is true,\" said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. \"He is\nof a caste to which I look up--a caste above mine.\"\n\nKlesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up\nand walked to a little distance, from which he said--\n\n\"That is finely felt--I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same.\nI have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on\nexceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of\nitself. And your Mr. Bull's company fits me 'wie die Faust ins Auge.' I\nam neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg.\"\n\nThere was no answer.\n\n\"You agree with me that I had better go?\" said Klesmer, with some\nirritation.\n\n\"Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have\nonly to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time\nin the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere\nelse. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything\nelse than a sacrifice.\"\n\n\"Why should I make the sacrifice?\" said Klesmer, going to seat himself\nat the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of\nan echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine's \"Ich\nhab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch.\"\n\n\"That is the mystery,\" said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything,\nbut from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of\npaper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication\nimposed by a cruel fairy.\n\n\"You can conceive no motive?\" said Klesmer, folding his arms.\n\n\"None that seems in the least probable.\"\n\n\"Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in\nthe world--the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and\nmy armor.\"\n\nCatherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the\npaper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on--\n\n\"This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found\nanything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing.\nBut you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you\nof being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing\nto you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake.\nDid you not say so?\"\n\n\"Very likely,\" was the answer, in a low murmur.\n\n\"It was a bitter word. Well, at least one man who has seen women as\nplenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And\nsince he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There\nis an argument in favor of some other man. But don't give yourself for\na meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make\nmy excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint.\" Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked\nquickly toward the door.\n\n\"You must take this heap of manuscript,\" then said Catherine, suddenly\nmaking a desperate effort. She had risen to fetch the heap from another\ntable. Klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets\nbetween them.\n\n\"Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?\" said\nCatherine. To her the effort was something like the leap of a woman\nfrom the deck into the lifeboat.\n\n\"It would be too hard--impossible--you could not carry it through. I am\nnot worth what you would have to encounter. I will not accept the\nsacrifice. It would be thought a _mésalliance_ for you and I should be\nliable to the worst accusations.\"\n\n\"Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but\nthat we should miss the passing of our lives together.\"\n\nThe decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the\nend willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and\nCatherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her\nfather and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised\nto marry Klesmer.\n\nMrs. Arrowpoint's state of mind was pitiable. Imagine Jean Jacques,\nafter his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up\namong children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they\noffered him for breakfast with the primitive flint knife; or Saint\nJust, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of pre-eminence,\nreceiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech,\nwhich warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal\nlength. Something of the same sort befell the authoress of \"Tasso,\"\nwhen what she had safely demanded of the dead Leonora was enacted by\nher own Catherine. It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence,\nand keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid\nearth and are liable to heavy dining. Besides, it has long been\nunderstood that the proprieties of literature are not those of\npractical life. Mrs. Arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of\neverything. She not only liked to feel herself at a higher level of\nliterary sentiment than the ladies with whom she associated; she wished\nnot to be behind them in any point of social consideration. While\nKlesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his\npeculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: but to see him by a\nsudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of\nwhat the world would say. And the poor lady had been used to represent\nher Catherine as a model of excellence.\n\nUnder the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched\nat any phrase that would serve as a weapon.\n\n\"If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall\nhorsewhip him off the premises. Pray, speak, Mr. Arrowpoint.\"\n\nThe father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by\nsaying, \"This will never do, Cath.\"\n\n\"Do!\" cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; \"who in their senses ever thought it would\ndo? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. It is a\ncomedy you have got up, Catherine. Else you are mad.\"\n\n\"I am quite sane and serious, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame.\nHe never thought of my marrying him. I found out that he loved me, and\nloving him, I told him I would marry him.\"\n\n\"Leave that unsaid, Catherine,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. \"Every\none else will say that for you. You will be a public fable. Every one\nwill say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to\ncome to the house--who is nobody knows what--a gypsy, a Jew, a mere\nbubble of the earth.\"\n\n\"Never mind, mamma,\" said Catherine, indignant in her turn. \"We all\nknow he is a genius--as Tasso was.\"\n\n\"Those times were not these, nor is Klesmer Tasso,\" said Mrs.\nArrowpoint, getting more heated. \"There is no sting in _that_ sarcasm,\nexcept the sting of undutifulness.\"\n\n\"I am sorry to hurt you, mamma. But I will not give up the happiness of\nmy life to ideas that I don't believe in and customs I have no respect\nfor.\"\n\n\"You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that you are\nour only child--that it lies with you to place a great property in the\nright hands?\"\n\n\"What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade.\"\n\n\"Mr. Arrowpoint, _will_ you sit by and hear this without speaking?\"\n\n\"I am a gentleman, Cath. We expect you to marry a gentleman,\" said the\nfather, exerting himself.\n\n\"And a man connected with the institutions of this country,\" said the\nmother. \"A woman in your position has serious duties. Where duty and\ninclination clash, she must follow duty.\"\n\n\"I don't deny that,\" said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to\nher mother's heat. \"But one may say very true things and apply them\nfalsely. People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what\nthey desire any one else to do.\"\n\n\"Your parent's desire makes no duty for you, then?\"\n\n\"Yes, within reason. But before I give up the happiness of my life--\"\n\n\"Catherine, Catherine, it will not be your happiness,\" said Mrs.\nArrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones.\n\n\"Well, what seems to me my happiness--before I give it up, I must see\nsome better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman, or a\nman who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. I\nfeel at liberty to marry the man I love and think worthy, unless some\nhigher duty forbids.\"\n\n\"And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it.\nIt is a woman's duty not to lower herself. You are lowering yourself.\nMr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?\"\n\n\"You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you,\" said\nMr. Arrowpoint. \"He won't do at the head of estates. He has a deuced\nforeign look--is an unpractical man.\"\n\n\"I really can't see what that has to do with it, papa. The land of\nEngland has often passed into the hands of foreigners--Dutch soldiers,\nsons of foreign women of bad character:--if our land were sold\nto-morrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign\nmerchant on 'Change. It is in everybody's mouth that successful\nswindlers may buy up half the land in the country. How can I stem that\ntide?\"\n\n\"It will never do to argue about marriage, Cath,\" said Mr. Arrowpoint.\n\"It's no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. We\nmust do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public\ngood.\"\n\n\"I can't see any public good concerned here, papa,\" said Catherine.\n\"Why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the\nproperty gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? That seems\nto be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false\nambition. I should call it a public evil. People had better make a new\nsort of public good by changing their ambitions.\"\n\n\"That is mere sophistry, Catherine,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. \"Because you\ndon't wish to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a\nmountebank or a charlatan.\"\n\n\"I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma.\"\n\n\"No, I dare say not,\" rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn.\n\"You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each\nother.\"\n\n\"It can't be done, Cath,\" said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a\nbetter-humored reasoning for his wife's impetuosity. \"A man like\nKlesmer can't marry such a property as yours. It can't be done.\"\n\n\"It certainly will not be done,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously.\n\"Where is the man? Let him be fetched.\"\n\n\"I cannot fetch him to be insulted,\" said Catherine. \"Nothing will be\nachieved by that.\"\n\n\"I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not\nmarry your fortune,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint.\n\n\"Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it.\"\n\n\"Then you had better fetch him.\"\n\nCatherine only went into the music-room and said, \"Come.\" She felt no\nneed to prepare Klesmer.\n\n\"Herr Klesmer,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous\nstateliness, \"it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us\nand our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution.\"\n\n\"Your marrying is out of the question,\" said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too\nheavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment\nunrelieved by a cigar. \"It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been\ncalled out for less.\"\n\n\"You have taken a base advantage of our confidence,\" burst in Mrs.\nArrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of\nspeech to her husband.\n\nKlesmer made a low bow in silent irony.\n\n\"The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the\nhouse at once,\" continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without\nmentioning the money.\n\n\"I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter's wish,\" said\nKlesmer. \"My engagement is to her.\"\n\n\"It is useless to discuss the question,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. \"We\nshall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall\ndisinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should\nknow that.\"\n\n\"Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about\nher. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater\nthan I am worthy of.\"\n\n\"It is no sacrifice to me,\" said Catherine, \"except that I am sorry to\nhurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a\nwretched fatality of my life.\"\n\n\"You mean to defy us, then?\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint.\n\n\"I mean to marry Herr Klesmer,\" said Catherine, firmly.\n\n\"He had better not count on our relenting,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose\nmanners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned\namong the privileges of women.\n\n\"Madam,\" said Klesmer, \"certain reasons forbid me to retort. But\nunderstand that I consider it out of the power either of you, or of\nyour fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an\nartist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other.\nI am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life\nbut her companionship.\"\n\n\"You will leave the house, however,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint.\n\n\"I go at once,\" said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room.\n\n\"Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma,\" said Catherine; \"I consider\nmyself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him.\"\n\nThe mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal.\n\n\"It's all very fine,\" said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone;\n\"but what the deuce are we to do with the property?\"\n\n\"There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name.\"\n\n\"Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time,\" said Mr.\nArrowpoint, relighting his cigar.\n\nAnd thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers,\nKlesmer had left Quetcham.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII.\n\n    Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each\n    has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the\n    manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. To carry the\n    map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold.\n    And in fancy to cast his shoe over Eden is little warrant that a man\n    shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there.\n\n    The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are\n    such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous\n    pulsing of their self-satisfaction--as it were a hidden seed of\n    madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise\n    notion of standing-place or lever.\n\n\n\"Pray go to church, mamma,\" said Gwendolen the next morning. \"I prefer\nseeing Herr Klesmer alone.\" (He had written in reply to her note that\nhe would be with her at eleven.)\n\n\"That is hardly correct, I think,\" said Mrs. Davilow, anxiously.\n\n\"Our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical\nrules,\" said Gwendolen, contemptuously. \"They are insulting as well as\nridiculous.\"\n\n\"You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a\ncorner.\"\n\n\"No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too\nirritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone, Take them all to\nchurch.\"\n\nGwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the\ngirls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting\nat the dining-room windows.\n\nIt was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of\nautumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the\nwindows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the\nglass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs\nwith their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the\nsuperannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting\nSaint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty\nknicknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had\nachieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory\nwas just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck\nwith admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said,\nwhatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed\nwith keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life\nfelt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person's\nopinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element\nof deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful\ngift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward\nsoliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable\nconclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt\nclever enough for anything.\n\nTo fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and\nlaying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then\ncatching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was\ndiverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it.\nDressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm\nwhiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair\nand her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try\nagain the Roman trick of a statue in black, white, and tawny marble.\nSeeing her image slowly advancing, she thought \"I _am_ beautiful\"--not\nexultingly, but with grave decision. Being beautiful was after all the\ncondition on which she most needed external testimony. If any one\nobjected to the turn of her nose or the form of her neck and chin, she\nhad not the sense that she could presently show her power of attainment\nin these branches of feminine perfection.\n\nThere was not much time to fill up in this way before the sound of\nwheels, the loud ring, and the opening doors assured her that she was\nnot by any accident to be disappointed. This slightly increased her\ninward flutter. In spite of her self-confidence, she dreaded Klesmer as\npart of that unmanageable world which was independent of her\nwishes--something vitriolic that would not cease to burn because you\nsmiled or frowned at it. Poor thing! she was at a higher crisis of her\nwoman's fate than in her last experience with Grandcourt. The\nquestioning then, was whether she should take a particular man as a\nhusband. The inmost fold of her questioning now was whether she need\ntake a husband at all--whether she could not achieve substantially for\nherself and know gratified ambition without bondage.\n\nKlesmer made his most deferential bow in the wide doorway of the\nantechamber--showing also the deference of the finest gray kerseymere\ntrousers and perfect gloves (the 'masters of those who know' are\nhappily altogether human). Gwendolen met him with unusual gravity, and\nholding out her hand said, \"It is most kind of you to come, Herr\nKlesmer. I hope you have not thought me presumptuous.\"\n\n\"I took your wish as a command that did me honor,\" said Klesmer, with\nanswering gravity. He was really putting by his own affairs in order to\ngive his utmost attention to what Gwendolen might have to say; but his\ntemperament was still in a state of excitation from the events of\nyesterday, likely enough to give his expressions a more than usually\nbiting edge.\n\nGwendolen for once was under too great a strain of feeling to remember\nformalities. She continued standing near the piano, and Klesmer took\nhis stand near the other end of it with his back to the light and his\nterribly omniscient eyes upon her. No affectation was of use, and she\nbegan without delay.\n\n\"I wish to consult you, Herr Klesmer. We have lost all our fortune; we\nhave nothing. I must get my own bread, and I desire to provide for my\nmamma, so as to save her from any hardship. The only way I can think\nof--and I should like it better than anything--is to be an actress--to\ngo on the stage. But, of course, I should like to take a high position,\nand I thought--if you thought I could\"--here Gwendolen became a little\nmore nervous--\"it would be better for me to be a singer--to study\nsinging also.\"\n\nKlesmer put down his hat upon the piano, and folded his arms as if to\nconcentrate himself.\n\n\"I know,\" Gwendolen resumed, turning from pale to pink and back\nagain--\"I know that my method of singing is very defective; but I have\nbeen ill taught. I could be better taught; I could study. And you will\nunderstand my wish:--to sing and act too, like Grisi, is a much higher\nposition. Naturally, I should wish to take as high rank as I can. And I\ncan rely on your judgment. I am sure you will tell me the truth.\"\n\nGwendolen somehow had the conviction that now she made this serious\nappeal the truth would be favorable.\n\nStill Klesmer did not speak. He drew off his gloves quickly, tossed\nthem into his hat, rested his hands on his hips, and walked to the\nother end of the room. He was filled with compassion for this girl: he\nwanted to put a guard on his speech. When he turned again, he looked at\nher with a mild frown of inquiry, and said with gentle though quick\nutterance, \"You have never seen anything, I think, of artists and their\nlives?--I mean of musicians, actors, artists of that kind?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Gwendolen, not perturbed by a reference to this obvious\nfact in the history of a young lady hitherto well provided for.\n\n\"You are--pardon me,\" said Klesmer, again pausing near the piano--\"in\ncoming to a conclusion on such a matter as this, everything must be\ntaken into consideration--you are perhaps twenty?\"\n\n\"I am twenty-one,\" said Gwendolen, a slight fear rising in her. \"Do you\nthink I am too old?\"\n\nKlesmer pouted his under lip and shook his long fingers upward in a\nmanner totally enigmatic.\n\n\"Many persons begin later than others,\" said Gwendolen, betrayed by her\nhabitual consciousness of having valuable information to bestow.\n\nKlesmer took no notice, but said with more studied gentleness than\never, \"You have probably not thought of an artistic career until now:\nyou did not entertain the notion, the longing--what shall I say?--you\ndid not wish yourself an actress, or anything of that sort, till the\npresent trouble?\"\n\n\"Not exactly: but I was fond of acting. I have acted; you saw me, if\nyou remember--you saw me here in charades, and as Hermione,\" said\nGwendolen, really fearing that Klesmer had forgotten.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" he answered quickly, \"I remember--I remember perfectly,\"\nand again walked to the other end of the room, It was difficult for him\nto refrain from this kind of movement when he was in any argument\neither audible or silent.\n\nGwendolen felt that she was being weighed. The delay was unpleasant.\nBut she did not yet conceive that the scale could dip on the wrong\nside, and it seemed to her only graceful to say, \"I shall be very much\nobliged to you for taking the trouble to give me your advice, whatever\nit maybe.\"\n\n\"Miss Harleth,\" said Klesmer, turning toward her and speaking with a\nslight increase of accent, \"I will veil nothing from you in this\nmatter. I should reckon myself guilty if I put a false visage on\nthings--made them too black or too white. The gods have a curse for him\nwho willingly tells another the wrong road. And if I misled one who is\nso young, so beautiful--who, I trust, will find her happiness along the\nright road, I should regard myself as a--_Bösewicht_.\" In the last word\nKlesmer's voice had dropped to a loud whisper.\n\nGwendolen felt a sinking of heart under this unexpected solemnity, and\nkept a sort of fascinated gaze on Klesmer's face, as he went on.\n\n\"You are a beautiful young lady--you have been brought up in ease--you\nhave done what you would--you have not said to yourself, 'I must know\nthis exactly,' 'I must understand this exactly,' 'I must do this\nexactly,'\"--in uttering these three terrible _musts_, Klesmer lifted up\nthree long fingers in succession. \"In sum, you have not been called\nupon to be anything but a charming young lady, whom it is an\nimpoliteness to find fault with.\"\n\nHe paused an instant; then resting his fingers on his hips again, and\nthrusting out his powerful chin, he said--\n\n\"Well, then, with that preparation, you wish to try the life of an\nartist; you wish to try a life of arduous, unceasing work,\nand--uncertain praise. Your praise would have to be earned, like your\nbread; and both would come slowly, scantily--what do I say?--they may\nhardly come at all.\"\n\nThis tone of discouragement, which Klesmer had hoped might suffice\nwithout anything more unpleasant, roused some resistance in Gwendolen.\nWith a slight turn of her head away from him, and an air of pique, she\nsaid--\n\n\"I thought that you, being an artist, would consider the life one of\nthe most honorable and delightful. And if I can do nothing better?--I\nsuppose I can put up with the same risks as other people do.\"\n\n\"Do nothing better?\" said Klesmer, a little fired. \"No, my dear Miss\nHarleth, you could do nothing better--neither man nor woman could do\nanything better--if you could do what was best or good of its kind. I\nam not decrying the life of the true artist. I am exalting it. I say,\nit is out of the reach of any but choice organizations--natures framed\nto love perfection and to labor for it; ready, like all true lovers, to\nendure, to wait, to say, I am not yet worthy, but she--Art, my\nmistress--is worthy, and I will live to merit her. An honorable life?\nYes. But the honor comes from the inward vocation and the hard-won\nachievement: there is no honor in donning the life as a livery.\"\n\nSome excitement of yesterday had revived in Klesmer and hurried him\ninto speech a little aloof from his immediate friendly purpose. He had\nwished as delicately as possible to rouse in Gwendolen a sense of her\nunfitness for a perilous, difficult course; but it was his wont to be\nangry with the pretensions of incompetence, and he was in danger of\ngetting chafed. Conscious of this, he paused suddenly. But Gwendolen's\nchief impression was that he had not yet denied her the power of doing\nwhat would be good of its kind. Klesmer's fervor seemed to be a sort of\nglamor such as he was prone to throw over things in general; and what\nshe desired to assure him of was that she was not afraid of some\npreliminary hardships. The belief that to present herself in public on\nthe stage must produce an effect such as she had been used to feel\ncertain of in private life; was like a bit of her flesh--it was not to\nbe peeled off readily, but must come with blood and pain. She said, in\na tone of some insistance--\n\n\"I am quite prepared to bear hardships at first. Of course no one can\nbecome celebrated all at once. And it is not necessary that every one\nshould be first-rate--either actresses or singers. If you would be so\nkind as to tell me what steps I should take, I shall have the courage\nto take them. I don't mind going up hill. It will be easier than the\ndead level of being a governess. I will take any steps you recommend.\"\n\nKlesmer was convinced now that he must speak plainly.\n\n\"I will tell you the steps, not that I recommend, but that will be\nforced upon you. It is all one, so far, what your goal will\nbe--excellence, celebrity, second, third rateness--it is all one. You\nmust go to town under the protection of your mother. You must put\nyourself under training--musical, dramatic, theatrical:--whatever you\ndesire to do you have to learn\"--here Gwendolen looked as if she were\ngoing to speak, but Klesmer lifted up his hand and said, decisively, \"I\nknow. You have exercised your talents--you recite--you sing--from the\ndrawing-room _standpunkt_. My dear Fräulein, you must unlearn all that.\nYou have not yet conceived what excellence is: you must unlearn your\nmistaken admirations. You must know what you have to strive for, and\nthen you must subdue your mind and body to unbroken discipline. Your\nmind, I say. For you must not be thinking of celebrity: put that candle\nout of your eyes, and look only at excellence. You would of course earn\nnothing--you could get no engagement for a long while. You would need\nmoney for yourself and your family. But that,\" here Klesmer frowned and\nshook his fingers as if to dismiss a triviality, \"that could perhaps be\nfound.\"\n\nGwendolen turned pink and pale during this speech. Her pride had felt a\nterrible knife-edge, and the last sentence only made the smart keener.\nShe was conscious of appearing moved, and tried to escape from her\nweakness by suddenly walking to a seat and pointing out a chair to\nKlesmer. He did not take it, but turned a little in order to face her\nand leaned against the piano. At that moment she wished that she had\nnot sent for him: this first experience of being taken on some other\nground than that of her social rank and her beauty was becoming bitter\nto her. Klesmer, preoccupied with a serious purpose, went on without\nchange of tone.\n\n\"Now, what sort of issue might be fairly expected from all this\nself-denial? You would ask that. It is right that your eyes should be\nopen to it. I will tell you truthfully. This issue would be uncertain,\nand, most probably, would not be worth much.\"\n\nAt these relentless words Klesmer put out his lip and looked through\nhis spectacles with the air of a monster impenetrable by beauty.\n\nGwendolen's eyes began to burn, but the dread of showing weakness urged\nher to added self-control. She compelled herself to say, in a hard\ntone--\n\n\"You think I want talent, or am too old to begin.\"\n\nKlesmer made a sort of hum, and then descended on an emphatic \"Yes! The\ndesire and the training should have begun seven years ago--or a good\ndeal earlier. A mountebank's child who helps her father to earn\nshillings when she is six years old--a child that inherits a singing\nthroat from a long line of choristers and learns to sing as it learns\nto talk, has a likelier beginning. Any great achievement in acting or\nin music grows with the growth. Whenever an artist has been able to\nsay, 'I came, I saw, I conquered,' it has been at the end of patient\npractice. Genius at first is little more than a great capacity for\nreceiving discipline. Singing and acting, like the fine dexterity of\nthe juggler with his cups and balls, require a shaping of the organs\ntoward a finer and finer certainty of effect. Your muscles--your whole\nframe--must go like a watch, true, true to a hair. That is the work of\nspring-time, before habits have been determined.\"\n\n\"I did not pretend to genius,\" said Gwendolen, still feeling that she\nmight somehow do what Klesmer wanted to represent as impossible. \"I\nonly suppose that I might have a little talent--enough to improve.\"\n\n\"I don't deny that,\" said Klesmer. \"If you had been put in the right\ntrack some years ago and had worked well you might now have made a\npublic singer, though I don't think your voice would have counted for\nmuch in public. For the stage your personal charms and intelligence\nmight then have told without the present drawback of inexperience--lack\nof discipline--lack of instruction.\"\n\nCertainly Klesmer seemed cruel, but his feeling was the reverse of\ncruel. Our speech, even when we are most single-minded, can never take\nits line absolutely from one impulse; but Klesmer's was, as far as\npossible, directed by compassion for poor Gwendolen's ignorant\neagerness to enter on a course of which he saw all the miserable\ndetails with a definiteness which he could not if he would have\nconveyed to her mind.\n\nGwendolen, however, was not convinced. Her self-opinion rallied, and\nsince the counselor whom she had called in gave a decision of such\nsevere peremptoriness, she was tempted to think that his judgment was\nnot only fallible but biased. It occurred to her that a simpler and\nwiser step for her to have taken would have been to send a letter\nthrough the post to the manager of a London theatre, asking him to make\nan appointment. She would make no further reference to her singing;\nKlesmer, she saw, had set himself against her singing. But she felt\nequal to arguing with him about her going on the stage, and she\nanswered in a resistant tone--\n\n\"I understood, of course, that no one can be a finished actress at\nonce. It may be impossible to tell beforehand whether I should succeed;\nbut that seems to me a reason why I should try. I should have thought\nthat I might have taken an engagement at a theatre meanwhile, so as to\nearn money and study at the same time.\"\n\n\"Can't be done, my dear Miss Harleth--I speak plainly--it can't be\ndone. I must clear your mind of these notions which have no more\nresemblance to reality than a pantomime. Ladies and gentlemen think\nthat when they have made their toilet and drawn on their gloves they\nare as presentable on the stage as in a drawing-room. No manager thinks\nthat. With all your grace and charm, if you were to present yourself as\nan aspirant to the stage, a manager would either require you to pay as\nan amateur for being allowed to perform or he would tell you to go and\nbe taught--trained to bear yourself on the stage, as a horse, however\nbeautiful, must be trained for the circus; to say nothing of that study\nwhich would enable you to personate a character consistently, and\nanimate it with the natural language of face, gesture, and tone. For\nyou to get an engagement fit for you straight away is out of the\nquestion.\"\n\n\"I really cannot understand that,\" said Gwendolen, rather\nhaughtily--then, checking herself, she added in another tone--\"I shall\nbe obliged to you if you will explain how it is that such poor\nactresses get engaged. I have been to the theatre several times, and I\nam sure there were actresses who seemed to me to act not at all well\nand who were quite plain.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear Miss Harleth, that is the easy criticism of the buyer. We\nwho buy slippers toss away this pair and the other as clumsy; but there\nwent an apprenticeship to the making of them. Excuse me; you could not\nat present teach one of those actresses; but there is certainly much\nthat she could teach you. For example, she can pitch her voice so as to\nbe heard: ten to one you could not do it till after many trials. Merely\nto stand and move on the stage is an art--requires practice. It is\nunderstood that we are not now talking of a _comparse_ in a petty\ntheatre who earns the wages of a needle-woman. That is out of the\nquestion for you.\"\n\n\"Of course I must earn more than that,\" said Gwendolen, with a sense of\nwincing rather than of being refuted, \"but I think I could soon learn\nto do tolerably well all those little things you have mentioned. I am\nnot so very stupid. And even in Paris, I am sure, I saw two actresses\nplaying important ladies' parts who were not at all ladies and quite\nugly. I suppose I have no particular talent, but I _must_ think it is\nan advantage, even on the stage, to be a lady and not a perfect fright.\"\n\n\"Ah, let us understand each other,\" said Klesmer, with a flash of new\nmeaning. \"I was speaking of what you would have to go through if you\naimed at becoming a real artist--if you took music and the drama as a\nhigher vocation in which you would strive after excellence. On that\nhead, what I have said stands fast. You would find--after your\neducation in doing things slackly for one-and-twenty years--great\ndifficulties in study; you would find mortifications in the treatment\nyou would get when you presented yourself on the footing of skill. You\nwould be subjected to tests; people would no longer feign not to see\nyour blunders. You would at first only be accepted on trial. You would\nhave to bear what I may call a glaring insignificance: any success must\nbe won by the utmost patience. You would have to keep your place in a\ncrowd, and after all it is likely you would lose it and get out of\nsight. If you determine to face these hardships and still try, you will\nhave the dignity of a high purpose, even though you may have chosen\nunfortunately. You will have some merit, though you may win no prize.\nYou have asked my judgment on your chances of winning. I don't pretend\nto speak absolutely; but measuring probabilities, my judgment is:--you\nwill hardly achieve more than mediocrity.\"\n\nKlesmer had delivered himself with emphatic rapidity, and now paused a\nmoment. Gwendolen was motionless, looking at her hands, which lay over\neach other on her lap, till the deep-toned, long-drawn \"_But_,\" with\nwhich he resumed, had a startling effect, and made her look at him\nagain.\n\n\"But--there are certainly other ideas, other dispositions with which a\nyoung lady may take up an art that will bring her before the public.\nShe may rely on the unquestioned power of her beauty as a passport. She\nmay desire to exhibit herself to an admiration which dispenses with\nskill. This goes a certain way on the stage: not in music: but on the\nstage, beauty is taken when there is nothing more commanding to be had.\nNot without some drilling, however: as I have said before,\ntechnicalities have in any case to be mastered. But these excepted, we\nhave here nothing to do with art. The woman who takes up this career is\nnot an artist: she is usually one who thinks of entering on a luxurious\nlife by a short and easy road--perhaps by marriage--that is her most\nbrilliant chance, and the rarest. Still, her career will not be\nluxurious to begin with: she can hardly earn her own poor bread\nindependently at once, and the indignities she will be liable to are\nsuch as I will not speak of.\"\n\n\"I desire to be independent,\" said Gwendolen, deeply stung and\nconfusedly apprehending some scorn for herself in Klesmer's words.\n\"That was my reason for asking whether I could not get an immediate\nengagement. Of course I cannot know how things go on about theatres.\nBut I thought that I could have made myself independent. I have no\nmoney, and I will not accept help from any one.\"\n\nHer wounded pride could not rest without making this disclaimer. It was\nintolerable to her that Klesmer should imagine her to have expected\nother help from him than advice.\n\n\"That is a hard saying for your friends,\" said Klesmer, recovering the\ngentleness of tone with which he had begun the conversation. \"I have\ngiven you pain. That was inevitable. I was bound to put the truth, the\nunvarnished truth, before you. I have not said--I will not say--you\nwill do wrong to choose the hard, climbing path of an endeavoring\nartist. You have to compare its difficulties with those of any less\nhazardous--any more private course which opens itself to you. If you\ntake that more courageous resolve I will ask leave to shake hands with\nyou on the strength of our freemasonry, where we are all vowed to the\nservice of art, and to serve her by helping every fellow-servant.\"\n\nGwendolen was silent, again looking at her hands. She felt herself very\nfar away from taking the resolve that would enforce acceptance; and\nafter waiting an instant or two, Klesmer went on with deepened\nseriousness.\n\n\"Where there is the duty of service there must be the duty of accepting\nit. The question is not one of personal obligation. And in relation to\npractical matters immediately affecting your future--excuse my\npermitting myself to mention in confidence an affair of my own. I am\nexpecting an event which would make it easy for me to exert myself on\nyour behalf in furthering your opportunities of instruction and\nresidence in London--under the care, that is, of your family--without\nneed for anxiety on your part. If you resolve to take art as a\nbread-study, you need only undertake the study at first; the bread will\nbe found without trouble. The event I mean is my marriage--in fact--you\nwill receive this as a matter of confidence--my marriage with Miss\nArrowpoint, which will more than double such right as I have to be\ntrusted by you as a friend. Your friendship will have greatly risen in\nvalue for _her_ by your having adopted that generous labor.\"\n\nGwendolen's face had begun to burn. That Klesmer was about to marry\nMiss Arrowpoint caused her no surprise, and at another moment she would\nhave amused herself in quickly imagining the scenes that must have\noccurred at Quetcham. But what engrossed her feeling, what filled her\nimagination now, was the panorama of her own immediate future that\nKlesmer's words seemed to have unfolded. The suggestion of Miss\nArrowpoint as a patroness was only another detail added to its\nrepulsiveness: Klesmer's proposal to help her seemed an additional\nirritation after the humiliating judgment he had passed on her\ncapabilities. His words had really bitten into her self-confidence and\nturned it into the pain of a bleeding wound; and the idea of presenting\nherself before other judges was now poisoned with the dread that they\nalso might be harsh; they also would not recognize the talent she was\nconscious of. But she controlled herself, and rose from her seat before\nshe made any answer. It seemed natural that she should pause. She went\nto the piano and looked absently at leaves of music, pinching up the\ncorners. At last she turned toward Klesmer and said, with almost her\nusual air of proud equality, which in this interview had not been\nhitherto perceptible.\n\n\"I congratulate you sincerely, Herr Klesmer. I think I never saw any\none so admirable as Miss Arrowpoint. And I have to thank you for every\nsort of kindness this morning. But I can't decide now. If I make the\nresolve you have spoken of, I will use your permission--I will let you\nknow. But I fear the obstacles are too great. In any case, I am deeply\nobliged to you. It was very bold of me to ask you to take this trouble.\"\n\nKlesmer's inward remark was, \"She will never let me know.\" But with the\nmost thorough respect in his manner, he said, \"Command me at any time.\nThere is an address on this card which will always find me with little\ndelay.\"\n\nWhen he had taken up his hat and was going to make his bow, Gwendolen's\nbetter self, conscious of an ingratitude which the clear-seeing Klesmer\nmust have penetrated, made a desperate effort to find its way above the\nstifling layers of egoistic disappointment and irritation. Looking at\nhim with a glance of the old gayety, she put out her hand, and said\nwith a smile, \"If I take the wrong road, it will not be because of your\nflattery.\"\n\n\"God forbid that you should take any road but one where you will find\nand give happiness!\" said Klesmer, fervently. Then, in foreign fashion,\nhe touched her fingers lightly with his lips, and in another minute she\nheard the sound of his departing wheels getting more distant on the\ngravel.\n\nGwendolen had never in her life felt so miserable. No sob came, no\npassion of tears, to relieve her. Her eyes were burning; and the\nnoonday only brought into more dreary clearness the absence of interest\nfrom her life. All memories, all objects, the pieces of music\ndisplayed, the open piano--the very reflection of herself in the\nglass--seemed no better than the packed-up shows of a departing fair.\nFor the first time since her consciousness began, she was having a\nvision of herself on the common level, and had lost the innate sense\nthat there were reasons why she should not be slighted, elbowed,\njostled--treated like a passenger with a third-class ticket, in spite\nof private objections on her own part. She did not move about; the\nprospects begotten by disappointment were too oppressively\npreoccupying; she threw herself into the shadiest corner of a settee,\nand pressed her fingers over her burning eyelids. Every word that\nKlesmer had said seemed to have been branded into her memory, as most\nwords are which bring with them a new set of impressions and make an\nepoch for us. Only a few hours before, the dawning smile of\nself-contentment rested on her lips as she vaguely imagined a future\nsuited to her wishes: it seemed but the affair of a year or so for her\nto become the most approved Juliet of the time: or, if Klesmer\nencouraged her idea of being a singer, to proceed by more gradual steps\nto her place in the opera, while she won money and applause by\noccasional performances. Why not? At home, at school, among\nacquaintances, she had been used to have her conscious superiority\nadmitted; and she had moved in a society where everything, from low\narithmetic to high art, is of the amateur kind, politely supposed to\nfall short of perfection only because gentlemen and ladies are not\nobliged to do more than they like--otherwise they would probably give\nforth abler writings, and show themselves more commanding artists than\nany the world is at present obliged to put up with. The self-confident\nvisions that had beguiled her were not of a highly exceptional kind;\nand she had at least shown some rationality in consulting the person\nwho knew the most and had flattered her the least. In asking Klesmer's\nadvice, however, she had rather been borne up by a belief in his latent\nadmiration than bent on knowing anything more unfavorable that might\nhave lain behind his slight objections to her singing; and the truth\nshe had asked for, with an expectation that it would be agreeable, had\ncome like a lacerating thong.\n\n\"Too old--should have begun seven years ago--you will not, at best,\nachieve more than mediocrity--hard, incessant work, uncertain\npraise--bread coming slowly, scantily, perhaps not at\nall--mortifications, people no longer feigning not to see your\nblunders--glaring insignificance\"--all these phrases rankled in her;\nand even more galling was the hint that she could only be accepted on\nthe stage as a beauty who hoped to get a husband. The \"indignities\"\nthat she might be visited with had no very definite form for her, but\nthe mere association of anything called \"indignity\" with herself,\nroused a resentful alarm. And along with the vaguer images which were\nraised by those biting words, came the precise conception of\ndisagreeables which her experience enabled her to imagine. How could\nshe take her mamma and the four sisters to London? if it were not\npossible for her to earn money at once? And as for submitting to be a\n_protégé_, and asking her mamma to submit with her to the humiliation\nof being supported by Miss Arrowpoint--that was as bad as being a\ngoverness; nay, worse; for suppose the end of all her study to be as\nworthless as Klesmer clearly expected it to be, the sense of favors\nreceived and never repaid, would embitter the miseries of\ndisappointment. Klesmer doubtless had magnificent ideas about helping\nartists; but how could he know the feelings of ladies in such matters?\nIt was all over: she had entertained a mistaken hope; and there was an\nend of it.\n\n\"An end of it!\" said Gwendolen, aloud, starting from her seat as she\nheard the steps and voices of her mamma and sisters coming in from\nchurch. She hurried to the piano and began gathering together her\npieces of music with assumed diligence, while the expression on her\npale face and in her burning eyes was what would have suited a woman\nenduring a wrong which she might not resent, but would probably revenge.\n\n\"Well, my darling,\" said gentle Mrs. Davilow, entering, \"I see by the\nwheel-marks that Klesmer has been here. Have you been satisfied with\nthe interview?\" She had some guesses as to its object, but felt timid\nabout implying them.\n\n\"Satisfied, mamma? oh, yes,\" said Gwendolen, in a high, hard tone, for\nwhich she must be excused, because she dreaded a scene of emotion. If\nshe did not set herself resolutely to feign proud indifference, she\nfelt that she must fall into a passionate outburst of despair, which\nwould cut her mamma more deeply than all the rest of their calamities.\n\n\"Your uncle and aunt were disappointed at not seeing you,\" said Mrs.\nDavilow, coming near the piano, and watching Gwendolen's movements. \"I\nonly said that you wanted rest.\"\n\n\"Quite right, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in the same tone, turning to put\naway some music.\n\n\"Am I not to know anything now, Gwendolen? Am I always to be in the\ndark?\" said Mrs. Davilow, too keenly sensitive to her daughter's manner\nand expression not to fear that something painful had occurred.\n\n\"There is really nothing to tell now, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in a\nstill higher voice. \"I had a mistaken idea about something I could do.\nHerr Klesmer has undeceived me. That is all.\"\n\n\"Don't look and speak in that way, my dear child: I cannot bear it,\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, breaking down. She felt an undefinable terror.\n\nGwendolen looked at her a moment in silence, biting her inner lip; then\nshe went up to her, and putting her hands on her mamma's shoulders,\nsaid, with a drop in her voice to the lowest undertone, \"Mamma, don't\nspeak to me now. It is useless to cry and waste our strength over what\ncan't be altered. You will live at Sawyer's Cottage, and I am going to\nthe bishop's daughters. There is no more to be said. Things cannot be\naltered, and who cares? It makes no difference to any one else what we\ndo. We must try not to care ourselves. We must not give way. I dread\ngiving way. Help me to be quiet.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow was like a frightened child under her daughter's face and\nvoice; her tears were arrested and she went away in silence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV.\n\n  \"I question things but do not find\n  One that will answer to my mind:\n  And all the world appears unkind.\"\n                            --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nGwendolen was glad that she had got through her interview with Klesmer\nbefore meeting her uncle and aunt. She had made up her mind now that\nthere were only disagreeables before her, and she felt able to maintain\na dogged calm in the face of any humiliation that might be proposed.\n\nThe meeting did not happen until the Monday, when Gwendolen went to the\nrectory with her mamma. They had called at Sawyer's Cottage by the way,\nand had seen every cranny of the narrow rooms in a mid-day light,\nunsoftened by blinds and curtains; for the furnishing to be done by\ngleanings from the rectory had not yet begun.\n\n\"How _shall_ you endure it, mamma?\" said Gwendolen, as they walked\naway. She had not opened her lips while they were looking round at the\nbare walls and floors, and the little garden with the cabbage-stalks,\nand the yew arbor all dust and cobwebs within. \"You and the four girls\nall in that closet of a room, with the green and yellow paper pressing\non your eyes? And without me?\"\n\n\"It will be some comfort that you have not to bear it too, dear.\"\n\n\"If it were not that I must get some money, I would rather be there\nthan go to be a governess.\"\n\n\"Don't set yourself against it beforehand, Gwendolen. If you go to the\npalace you will have every luxury about you. And you know how much you\nhave always cared for that. You will not find it so hard as going up\nand down those steep narrow stairs, and hearing the crockery rattle\nthrough the house, and the dear girls talking.\"\n\n\"It is like a bad dream,\" said Gwendolen, impetuously. \"I cannot\nbelieve that my uncle will let you go to such a place. He ought to have\ntaken some other steps.\"\n\n\"Don't be unreasonable, dear child. What could he have done?\"\n\n\"That was for him to find out. It seems to me a very extraordinary\nworld if people in our position must sink in this way all at once,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, the other worlds with which she was conversant being\nconstructed with a sense of fitness that arranged her own future\nagreeably.\n\nIt was her temper that framed her sentences under this entirely new\npressure of evils: she could have spoken more suitably on the\nvicissitudes in other people's lives, though it was never her\naspiration to express herself virtuously so much as cleverly--a point\nto be remembered in extenuation of her words, which were usually worse\nthan she was.\n\nAnd, notwithstanding the keen sense of her own bruises, she was capable\nof some compunction when her uncle and aunt received her with a more\naffectionate kindness than they had ever shown before. She could not\nbut be struck by the dignified cheerfulness with which they talked of\nthe necessary economies in their way of living, and in the education of\nthe boys. Mr. Gascoigne's worth of character, a little obscured by\nworldly opportunities--as the poetic beauty of women is obscured by the\ndemands of fashionable dressing--showed itself to great advantage under\nthis sudden reduction of fortune. Prompt and methodical, he had set\nhimself not only to put down his carriage, but to reconsider his worn\nsuits of clothes, to leave off meat for breakfast, to do without\nperiodicals, to get Edwy from school and arrange hours of study for all\nthe boys under himself, and to order the whole establishment on the\nsparest footing possible. For all healthy people economy has its\npleasures; and the rector's spirit had spread through the household.\nMrs. Gascoigne and Anna, who always made papa their model, really did\nnot miss anything they cared about for themselves, and in all sincerity\nfelt that the saddest part of the family losses was the change for Mrs.\nDavilow and her children.\n\nAnna for the first time could merge her resentment on behalf of Rex in\nher sympathy with Gwendolen; and Mrs. Gascoigne was disposed to hope\nthat trouble would have a salutary effect on her niece, without\nthinking it her duty to add any bitters by way of increasing the\nsalutariness. They had both been busy devising how to get blinds and\ncurtains for the cottage out of the household stores; but with delicate\nfeeling they left these matters in the back-ground, and talked at first\nof Gwendolen's journey, and the comfort it was to her mamma to have her\nat home again.\n\nIn fact there was nothing for Gwendolen to take as a justification for\nextending her discontent with events to the persons immediately around\nher, and she felt shaken into a more alert attention, as if by a call\nto drill that everybody else was obeying, when her uncle began in a\nvoice of firm kindness to talk to her of the efforts he had been making\nto get her a situation which would offer her as many advantages as\npossible. Mr. Gascoigne had not forgotten Grandcourt, but the\npossibility of further advances from that quarter was something too\nvague for a man of his good sense to be determined by it: uncertainties\nof that kind must not now slacken his action in doing the best he could\nfor his niece under actual conditions.\n\n\"I felt that there was no time to be lost, Gwendolen; for a position in\na good family where you will have some consideration is not to be had\nat a moment's notice. And however long we waited we could hardly find\none where you would be better off than at Bishop Mompert's. I am known\nto both him and Mrs. Mompert, and that of course is an advantage to\nyou. Our correspondence has gone on favorably; but I cannot be\nsurprised that Mrs. Mompert wishes to see you before making an absolute\nengagement. She thinks of arranging for you to meet her at Wanchester\nwhen she is on her way to town. I dare say you will feel the interview\nrather trying for you, my dear; but you will have a little time to\nprepare your mind.\"\n\n\"Do you know _why_ she wants to see me, uncle?\" said Gwendolen, whose\nmind had quickly gone over various reasons that an imaginary Mrs.\nMompert with three daughters might be supposed to entertain, reasons\nall of a disagreeable kind to the person presenting herself for\ninspection.\n\nThe rector smiled. \"Don't be alarmed, my dear. She would like to have a\nmore precise idea of you than my report can give. And a mother is\nnaturally scrupulous about a companion for her daughters. I have told\nher you are very young. But she herself exercises a close supervision\nover her daughters' education, and that makes her less anxious as to\nage. She is a woman of taste and also of strict principle, and objects\nto having a French person in the house. I feel sure that she will think\nyour manners and accomplishments as good as she is likely to find; and\nover the religious and moral tone of the education she, and indeed the\nbishop himself, will preside.\"\n\nGwendolen dared not answer, but the repression of her decided dislike\nto the whole prospect sent an unusually deep flush over her face and\nneck, subsiding as quickly as it came. Anna, full of tender fears, put\nher little hand into her cousin's, and Mr. Gascoigne was too kind a man\nnot to conceive something of the trial which this sudden change must be\nfor a girl like Gwendolen. Bent on giving a cheerful view of things, he\nwent on, in an easy tone of remark, not as if answering supposed\nobjections--\n\n\"I think so highly of the position, that I should have been tempted to\ntry and get it for Anna, if she had been at all likely to meet Mrs.\nMompert's wants. It is really a home, with a continuance of education\nin the highest sense: 'governess' is a misnomer. The bishop's views are\nof a more decidedly Low Church color than my own--he is a close friend\nof Lord Grampian's; but, though privately strict, he is not by any\nmeans narrow in public matters. Indeed, he has created as little\ndislike in his diocese as any bishop on the bench. He has always\nremained friendly to me, though before his promotion, when he was an\nincumbent of this diocese, we had a little controversy about the Bible\nSociety.\"\n\nThe rector's words were too pregnant with satisfactory meaning to\nhimself for him to imagine the effect they produced in the mind of his\nniece. \"Continuance of education\"--\"bishop's views\"--\"privately\nstrict\"--\"Bible Society,\"--it was as if he had introduced a few snakes\nat large for the instruction of ladies who regarded them as all alike\nfurnished with poison-bags, and, biting or stinging, according to\nconvenience. To Gwendolen, already shrinking from the prospect open to\nher, such phrases came like the growing heat of a burning glass--not at\nall as the links of persuasive reflection which they formed for the\ngood uncle. She began, desperately, to seek an alternative.\n\n\"There was another situation, I think, mamma spoke of?\" she said, with\ndetermined self-mastery.\n\n'\"Yes,\" said the rector, in rather a depreciatory tone; \"but that is in\na school. I should not have the same satisfaction in your taking that.\nIt would be much harder work, you are aware, and not so good in any\nother respect. Besides, you have not an equal chance of getting it.\"\n\n\"Oh dear no,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, \"it would be much less appropriate,\nYou might not have a bedroom to yourself.\" And Gwendolen's memories of\nschool suggested other particulars which forced her to admit to herself\nthat this alternative would be no relief. She turned to her uncle again\nand said, apparently in acceptance of his ideas--\n\n\"When is Mrs. Mompert likely to send for me?\"\n\n\"That is rather uncertain, but she has promised not to entertain any\nother proposal till she has seen you. She has entered with much feeling\ninto your position. It will be within the next fortnight, probably. But\nI must be off now. I am going to let part of my glebe uncommonly well.\"\n\nThe rector ended very cheerfully, leaving the room with the\nsatisfactory conviction that Gwendolen was going to adapt herself to\ncircumstances like a girl of good sense. Having spoken appropriately,\nhe naturally supposed that the effects would be appropriate; being\naccustomed, as a household and parish authority, to be asked to \"speak\nto\" refractory persons, with the understanding that the measure was\nmorally coercive.\n\n\"What a stay Henry is to us all?\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, when her husband\nhad left the room.\n\n\"He is indeed,\" said Mrs. Davilow, cordially. \"I think cheerfulness is\na fortune in itself. I wish I had it.\"\n\n\"And Rex is just like him,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne. \"I must tell you the\ncomfort we have had in a letter from him. I must read you a little\nbit,\" she added, taking the letter from her pocket, while Anna looked\nrather frightened--she did not know why, except that it had been a rule\nwith her not to mention Rex before Gwendolen.\n\nThe proud mother ran her eyes over the letter, seeking for sentences to\nread aloud. But apparently she had found it sown with what might seem\nto be closer allusions than she desired to the recent past, for she\nlooked up, folding the letter, and saying--\n\n\"However, he tells us that our trouble has made a man of him; he sees a\nreason for any amount of work: he means to get a fellowship, to take\npupils, to set one of his brothers going, to be everything that is most\nremarkable. The letter is full of fun--just like him. He says, 'Tell\nmother she has put out an advertisement for a jolly good hard-working\nson, in time to hinder me from taking ship; and I offer myself for the\nplace.' The letter came on Friday. I never saw my husband so much moved\nby anything since Rex was born. It seemed a gain to balance our loss.\"\n\nThis letter, in fact, was what had helped both Mrs. Gascoigne and Anna\nto show Gwendolen an unmixed kindliness; and she herself felt very\namiably about it, smiling at Anna, and pinching her chin, as much as to\nsay, \"Nothing is wrong with you now, is it?\" She had no gratuitously\nill-natured feeling, or egoistic pleasure in making men miserable. She\nonly had an intense objection to their making her miserable.\n\nBut when the talk turned on furniture for the cottage Gwendolen was not\nroused to show even a languid interest. She thought that she had done\nas much as could be expected of her this morning, and indeed felt at an\nheroic pitch in keeping to herself the struggle that was going on\nwithin her. The recoil of her mind from the only definite prospect\nallowed her, was stronger than even she had imagined beforehand. The\nidea of presenting herself before Mrs. Mompert in the first instance,\nto be approved or disapproved, came as pressure on an already painful\nbruise; even as a governess, it appeared she was to be tested and was\nliable to rejection. After she had done herself the violence to accept\nthe bishop and his wife, they were still to consider whether they would\naccept her; it was at her peril that she was to look, speak, or be\nsilent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of\nself-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound\nincessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on:\nthere was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or\nother would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest\ninclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious\ntopics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome\ngirl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and\nwho six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop\nrather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an\nentrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an\nactress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but\nhis words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride\nand even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting\namongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious\nmen, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong\ngrating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that\nof the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very\nmarrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the\ngaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat\nher with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony\nas Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her\nsusceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her\nfood and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any\nsuch warning as Klesmer's she could not have thought it an attractive\nfreedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of\nstrangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less\nrepulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be\npetted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against\nthis hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the\nworld--to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for\nsomething quite different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one\nhour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have\nexpected in her lot and what it was actually to be. The family\ntroubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her--even for\npoor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying.\nAs to hoping that if she went to the Momperts' and was patient a little\nwhile, things might get better--it would be stupid to entertain hopes\nfor herself after all that had happened: her talents, it appeared,\nwould never be recognized as anything remarkable, and there was not a\nsingle direction in which probability seemed to flatter her wishes.\nSome beautiful girls who, like her, had read romances where even plain\ngovernesses are centres of attraction and are sought in marriage, might\nhave solaced themselves a little by transporting such pictures into\ntheir own future; but even if Gwendolen's experience had led her to\ndwell on love-making and marriage as her elysium, her heart was too\nmuch oppressed by what was near to her, in both the past and the\nfuture, for her to project her anticipations very far off. She had a\nworld-nausea upon her, and saw no reason all through her life why she\nshould wish to live. No religious view of trouble helped her: her\ntroubles had in her opinion all been caused by other people's\ndisagreeable or wicked conduct; and there was really nothing pleasant\nto be counted on in the world: that was her feeling; everything else\nshe had heard said about trouble was mere phrase-making not attractive\nenough for her to have caught it up and repeated it. As to the\nsweetness of labor and fulfilled claims; the interest of inward and\noutward activity; the impersonal delights of life as a perpetual\ndiscovery; the dues of courage, fortitude, industry, which it is mere\nbaseness not to pay toward the common burden; the supreme worth of the\nteacher's vocation;--these, even if they had been eloquently preached\nto her, could have been no more than faintly apprehended doctrines: the\nfact which wrought upon her was her invariable observation that for a\nlady to become a governess--to \"take a situation\"--was to descend in\nlife and to be treated at best with a compassionate patronage. And poor\nGwendolen had never dissociated happiness from personal pre-eminence\nand _éclat_. That where these threatened to forsake her, she should\ntake life to be hardly worth the having, cannot make her so unlike the\nrest of us, men or women, that we should cast her out of our\ncompassion; our moments of temptation to a mean opinion of things in\ngeneral being usually dependent on some susceptibility about ourselves\nand some dullness to subjects which every one else would consider more\nimportant. Surely a young creature is pitiable who has the labyrinth of\nlife before her and no clue--to whom distrust in herself and her good\nfortune has come as a sudden shock, like a rent across the path that\nshe was treading carelessly.\n\nIn spite of her healthy frame, her irreconcilable repugnance affected\nher even physically; she felt a sort of numbness and could set about\nnothing; the least urgency, even that she should take her meals, was an\nirritation to her; the speech of others on any subject seemed\nunreasonable, because it did not include her feeling and was an\nignorant claim on her. It was not in her nature to busy herself with\nthe fancies of suicide to which disappointed young people are prone:\nwhat occupied and exasperated her was the sense that there was nothing\nfor her but to live in a way she hated. She avoided going to the\nrectory again: it was too intolerable to have to look and talk as if\nshe were compliant; and she could not exert herself to show interest\nabout the furniture of that horrible cottage. Miss Merry was staying on\npurpose to help, and such people as Jocosa liked that sort of thing.\nHer mother had to make excuses for her not appearing, even when Anna\ncame to see her. For that calm which Gwendolen had promised herself to\nmaintain had changed into sick motivelessness: she thought, \"I suppose\nI shall begin to pretend by-and-by, but why should I do it now?\"\n\nHer mother watched her with silent distress; and, lapsing into the\nhabit of indulgent tenderness, she began to think what she imagined\nthat Gwendolen was thinking, and to wish that everything should give\nway to the possibility of making her darling less miserable.\n\nOne day when she was in the black and yellow bedroom and her mother was\nlingering there under the pretext of considering and arranging\nGwendolen's articles of dress, she suddenly roused herself to fetch the\ncasket which contained the ornaments.\n\n\"Mamma,\" she began, glancing over the upper layer, \"I had forgotten\nthese things. Why didn't you remind me of them? Do see about getting\nthem sold. You will not mind about parting with them. You gave them all\nto me long ago.\"\n\nShe lifted the upper tray and looked below.\n\n\"If we can do without them, darling, I would rather keep them for you,\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, seating herself beside Gwendolen with a feeling of\nrelief that she was beginning to talk about something. The usual\nrelation between them had become reversed. It was now the mother who\ntried to cheer the daughter. \"Why, how came you to put that pocket\nhandkerchief in here?\"\n\nIt was the handkerchief with the corner torn off which Gwendolen had\nthrust in with the turquoise necklace.\n\n\"It happened to be with the necklace--I was in a hurry.\" said\nGwendolen, taking the handkerchief away and putting it in her pocket.\n\"Don't sell the necklace, mamma,\" she added, a new feeling having come\nover her about that rescue of it which had formerly been so offensive.\n\n\"No, dear, no; it was made out of your dear father's chain. And I\nshould prefer not selling the other things. None of them are of any\ngreat value. All my best ornaments were taken from me long ago.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow colored. She usually avoided any reference to such facts\nabout Gwendolen's step-father as that he had carried off his wife's\njewelry and disposed of it. After a moment's pause she went on--\n\n\"And these things have not been reckoned on for any expenses. Carry\nthem with you.\"\n\n\"That would be quite useless, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, coldly.\n\"Governesses don't wear ornaments. You had better get me a gray frieze\nlivery and a straw poke, such as my aunt's charity children wear.\"\n\n\"No, dear, no; don't take that view of it. I feel sure the Momperts\nwill like you the better for being graceful and elegant.\"\n\n\"I am not at all sure what the Momperts will like me to be. It is\nenough that I am expected to be what they like,\" said Gwendolen\nbitterly.\n\n\"If there is anything you would object to less--anything that could be\ndone--instead of your going to the bishop's, do say so, Gwendolen. Tell\nme what is in your heart. I will try for anything you wish,\" said the\nmother, beseechingly. \"Don't keep things away from me. Let us bear them\ntogether.\"\n\n\"Oh, mamma, there is nothing to tell. I can't do anything better. I\nmust think myself fortunate if they will have me. I shall get some\nmoney for you. That is the only thing I have to think of. I shall not\nspend any money this year: you will have all the eighty pounds. I don't\nknow how far that will go in housekeeping; but you need not stitch your\npoor fingers to the bone, and stare away all the sight that the tears\nhave left in your dear eyes.\"\n\nGwendolen did not give any caresses with her words as she had been used\nto do. She did not even look at her mother, but was looking at the\nturquoise necklace as she turned it over her fingers.\n\n\"Bless you for your tenderness, my good darling!\" said Mrs. Davilow,\nwith tears in her eyes. \"Don't despair because there are clouds now.\nYou are so young. There may be great happiness in store for you yet.\"\n\n\"I don't see any reason for expecting it, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in a\nhard tone; and Mrs. Davilow was silent, thinking as she had often\nthought before--\"What did happen between her and Mr. Grandcourt?\"\n\n\"I _will_ keep this necklace, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, laying it apart\nand then closing the casket. \"But do get the other things sold, even if\nthey will not bring much. Ask my uncle what to do with them. I shall\ncertainly not use them again. I am going to take the veil. I wonder if\nall the poor wretches who have ever taken it felt as I do.\"\n\n\"Don't exaggerate evils, dear.\"\n\n\"How can any one know that I exaggerate, when I am speaking of my own\nfeeling? I did not say what any one else felt.\"\n\nShe took out the torn handkerchief from her pocket again, and wrapped\nit deliberately round the necklace. Mrs. Davilow observed the action\nwith some surprise, but the tone of her last words discouraged her from\nasking any question.\n\nThe \"feeling\" Gwendolen spoke of with an air of tragedy was not to be\nexplained by the mere fact that she was going to be a governess: she\nwas possessed by a spirit of general disappointment. It was not simply\nthat she had a distaste for what she was called on to do: the distaste\nspread itself over the world outside her penitentiary, since she saw\nnothing very pleasant in it that seemed attainable by her even if she\nwere free. Naturally her grievances did not seem to her smaller than\nsome of her male contemporaries held theirs to be when they felt a\nprofession too narrow for their powers, and had an _à priori_\nconviction that it was not worth while to put forth their latent\nabilities. Because her education had been less expensive than theirs,\nit did not follow that she should have wider emotions or a keener\nintellectual vision. Her griefs were feminine; but to her as a woman\nthey were not the less hard to bear, and she felt an equal right to the\nPromethean tone.\n\nBut the movement of mind which led her to keep the necklace, to fold it\nup in the handkerchief, and rise to put it in her _nécessaire_, where\nshe had first placed it when it had been returned to her, was more\npeculiar, and what would be called less reasonable. It came from that\nstreak of superstition in her which attached itself both to her\nconfidence and her terror--a superstition which lingers in an intense\npersonality even in spite of theory and science; any dread or hope for\nself being stronger than all reasons for or against it. Why she should\nsuddenly determine not to part with the necklace was not much clearer\nto her than why she should sometimes have been frightened to find\nherself in the fields alone: she had a confused state of emotion about\nDeronda--was it wounded pride and resentment, or a certain awe and\nexceptional trust? It was something vague and yet mastering, which\nimpelled her to this action about the necklace. There is a great deal\nof unmapped country within us which would have to be taken into account\nin an explanation of our gusts and storms.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV.\n\n    How trace the why and wherefore in a mind reduced to the barrenness of\n    a fastidious egoism, in which all direct desires are dulled, and have\n    dwindled from motives into a vacillating expectation of motives: a\n    mind made up of moods, where a fitful impulse springs here and there\n    conspicuously rank amid the general weediness? 'Tis a condition apt to\n    befall a life too much at large, unmoulded by the pressure of\n    obligation. _Nam deteriores omnes sumus licentiae_, or, as a more\n    familiar tongue might deliver it, _\"As you like\" is a bad finger-post._\n\n\nPotentates make known their intentions and affect the funds at a small\nexpense of words. So when Grandcourt, after learning that Gwendolen had\nleft Leubronn, incidentally pronounced that resort of fashion a beastly\nhole, worse than Baden, the remark was conclusive to Mr. Lush that his\npatron intended straightway to return to Diplow. The execution was sure\nto be slower than the intention, and, in fact, Grandcourt did loiter\nthrough the next day without giving any distinct orders about\ndeparture--perhaps because he discerned that Lush was expecting them:\nhe lingered over his toilet, and certainly came down with a faded\naspect of perfect distinction which made fresh complexions and hands\nwith the blood in them, seem signs of raw vulgarity; he lingered on the\nterrace, in the gambling-rooms, in the reading-room, occupying himself\nin being indifferent to everybody and everything around him. When he\nmet Lady Mallinger, however, he took some trouble--raised his hat,\npaused, and proved that he listened to her recommendation of the waters\nby replying, \"Yes; I heard somebody say how providential it was that\nthere always happened to be springs at gambling places.\"\n\n\"Oh, that was a joke,\" said innocent Lady Mallinger, misled by\nGrandcourt's languid seriousness, \"in imitation of the old one about\nthe towns and the rivers, you know.\"\n\n\"Ah, perhaps,\" said Grandcourt, without change of expression. Lady\nMallinger thought this worth telling to Sir Hugo, who said, \"Oh, my\ndear, he is not a fool. You must not suppose that he can't see a joke.\nHe can play his cards as well as most of us.\"\n\n\"He has never seemed to me a very sensible man,\" said Lady Mallinger,\nin excuse of herself. She had a secret objection to meeting Grandcourt,\nwho was little else to her than a large living sign of what she felt to\nbe her failure as a wife--the not having presented Sir Hugo with a son.\nHer constant reflection was that her husband might fairly regret his\nchoice, and if he had not been very good might have treated her with\nsome roughness in consequence, gentlemen naturally disliking to be\ndisappointed.\n\nDeronda, too, had a recognition from Grandcourt, for which he was not\ngrateful, though he took care to return it with perfect civility. No\nreasoning as to the foundations of custom could do away with the\nearly-rooted feeling that his birth had been attended with injury for\nwhich his father was to blame; and seeing that but for this injury\nGrandcourt's prospects might have been his, he was proudly resolute not\nto behave in any way that might be interpreted into irritation on that\nscore. He saw a very easy descent into mean unreasoning rancor and\ntriumph in others' frustration; and being determined not to go down\nthat ugly pit, he turned his back on it, clinging to the kindlier\naffections within him as a possession. Pride certainly helped him\nwell--the pride of not recognizing a disadvantage for one's self which\nvulgar minds are disposed to exaggerate, such as the shabby equipage of\npoverty: he would not have a man like Grandcourt suppose himself envied\nby him. But there is no guarding against interpretation. Grandcourt did\nbelieve that Deronda, poor devil, who he had no doubt was his cousin by\nthe father's side, inwardly winced under their mutual position;\nwherefore the presence of that less lucky person was more agreeable to\nhim than it would otherwise have been. An imaginary envy, the idea that\nothers feel their comparative deficiency, is the ordinary _cortège_ of\negoism; and his pet dogs were not the only beings that Grandcourt liked\nto feel his power over in making them jealous. Hence he was civil\nenough to exchange several words with Deronda on the terrace about the\nhunting round Diplow, and even said, \"You had better come over for a\nrun or two when the season begins.\"\n\nLush, not displeased with delay, amused himself very well, partly in\ngossiping with Sir Hugo and in answering his questions about\nGrandcourt's affairs so far as they might affect his willingness to\npart with his interest in Diplow. Also about Grandcourt's personal\nentanglements, the baronet knew enough already for Lush to feel\nreleased from silence on a sunny autumn day, when there was nothing\nmore agreeable to do in lounging promenades than to speak freely of a\ntyrannous patron behind his back. Sir Hugo willingly inclined his ear\nto a little good-humored scandal, which he was fond of calling _traits\nde moeurs_; but he was strict in keeping such communications from\nhearers who might take them too seriously. Whatever knowledge he had of\nhis nephew's secrets, he had never spoken of it to Deronda, who\nconsidered Grandcourt a pale-blooded mortal, but was far from wishing\nto hear how the red corpuscles had been washed out of him. It was\nLush's policy and inclination to gratify everybody when he had no\nreason to the contrary; and the baronet always treated him well, as one\nof those easy-handled personages who, frequenting the society of\ngentlemen, without being exactly gentlemen themselves, can be the more\nserviceable, like the second-best articles of our wardrobe, which we\nuse with a comfortable freedom from anxiety.\n\n\"Well, you will let me know the turn of events,\" said Sir Hugo, \"if\nthis marriage seems likely to come off after all, or if anything else\nhappens to make the want of money pressing. My plan would be much\nbetter for him than burdening Ryelands.\"\n\n\"That's true,\" said Lush, \"only it must not be urged on him--just\nplaced in his way that the scent may tickle him. Grandcourt is not a\nman to be always led by what makes for his own interest; especially if\nyou let him see that it makes for your interest too. I'm attached to\nhim, of course. I've given up everything else for the sake of keeping\nby him, and it has lasted a good fifteen years now. He would not easily\nget any one else to fill my place. He's a peculiar character, is\nHenleigh Grandcourt, and it has been growing on him of late years.\nHowever, I'm of a constant disposition, and I've been a sort of\nguardian to him since he was twenty; an uncommonly fascinating fellow\nhe was then, to be sure--and could be now, if he liked. I'm attached to\nhim; and it would be a good deal worse for him if he missed me at his\nelbow.\"\n\nSir Hugo did not think it needful to express his sympathy or even\nassent, and perhaps Lush himself did not expect this sketch of his\nmotives to be taken as exact. But how can a man avoid himself as a\nsubject in conversation? And he must make some sort of decent toilet in\nwords, as in cloth and linen. Lush's listener was not severe: a member\nof Parliament could allow for the necessities of verbal toilet; and the\ndialogue went on without any change of mutual estimate.\n\nHowever, Lush's easy prospect of indefinite procrastination was cut off\nthe next morning by Grandcourt's saluting him with the question--\n\n\"Are you making all the arrangements for our starting by the Paris\ntrain?\"\n\n\"I didn't know you meant to start,\" said Lush, not exactly taken by\nsurprise.\n\n\"You might have known,\" said Grandcourt, looking at the burned length\nof his cigar, and speaking in that lowered tone which was usual with\nhim when he meant to express disgust and be peremptory. \"Just see to\neverything, will you? and mind no brute gets into the same carriage\nwith us. And leave my P. P. C. at the Mallingers.\"\n\nIn consequence they were at Paris the next day; but here Lush was\ngratified by the proposal or command that he should go straight on to\nDiplow and see that everything was right, while Grandcourt and the\nvalet remained behind; and it was not until several days later that\nLush received the telegram ordering the carriage to the Wanchester\nstation.\n\nHe had used the interim actively, not only in carrying out Grandcourt's\norders about the stud and household, but in learning all he could of\nGwendolen, and how things were going on at Offendene. What was the\nprobable effect that the news of the family misfortunes would have on\nGrandcourt's fitful obstinacy he felt to be quite incalculable. So far\nas the girl's poverty might be an argument that she would accept an\noffer from him now in spite of any previous coyness, it might remove\nthat bitter objection to risk a repulse which Lush divined to be one of\nGrandcourt's deterring motives; on the other hand, the certainty of\nacceptance was just \"the sort of thing\" to make him lapse hither and\nthither with no more apparent will than a moth. Lush had had his patron\nunder close observation for many years, and knew him perhaps better\nthan he knew any other subject; but to know Grandcourt was to doubt\nwhat he would do in any particular case. It might happen that he would\nbehave with an apparent magnanimity, like the hero of a modern French\ndrama, whose sudden start into moral splendor after much lying and\nmeanness, leaves you little confidence as to any part of his career\nthat may follow the fall of the curtain. Indeed, what attitude would\nhave been more honorable for a final scene than that of declining to\nseek an heiress for her money, and determining to marry the attractive\ngirl who had none? But Lush had some general certainties about\nGrandcourt, and one was that of all inward movements those of\ngenerosity were least likely to occur in him. Of what use, however, is\na general certainty that an insect will not walk with his head\nhindmost, when what you need to know is the play of inward stimulus\nthat sends him hither and thither in a network of possible paths? Thus\nLush was much at fault as to the probable issue between Grandcourt and\nGwendolen, when what he desired was a perfect confidence that they\nwould never be married. He would have consented willingly that\nGrandcourt should marry an heiress, or that he should marry Mrs.\nGlasher: in the one match there would have been the immediate abundance\nthat prospective heirship could not supply, in the other there would\nhave been the security of the wife's gratitude, for Lush had always\nbeen Mrs. Glasher's friend; and that the future Mrs. Grandcourt should\nnot be socially received could not affect his private comfort. He would\nnot have minded, either, that there should be no marriage in question\nat all; but he felt himself justified in doing his utmost to hinder a\nmarriage with a girl who was likely to bring nothing but trouble to her\nhusband--not to speak of annoyance if not ultimate injury to her\nhusband's old companion, whose future Mr. Lush earnestly wished to make\nas easy as possible, considering that he had well deserved such\ncompensation for leading a dog's life, though that of a dog who enjoyed\nmany tastes undisturbed, and who profited by a large establishment. He\nwished for himself what he felt to be good, and was not conscious of\nwishing harm to any one else; unless perhaps it were just now a little\nharm to the inconvenient and impertinent Gwendolen. But the\neasiest-humored of luxury and music, the toad-eater the least liable to\nnausea, must be expected to have his susceptibilities. And Mr. Lush was\naccustomed to be treated by the world in general as an apt, agreeable\nfellow: he had not made up his mind to be insulted by more than one\nperson.\n\nWith this imperfect preparation of a war policy, Lush was awaiting\nGrandcourt's arrival, doing little more than wondering how the campaign\nwould begin. The first day Grandcourt was much occupied with the\nstables, and amongst other things he ordered a groom to put a\nside-saddle on Criterion and let him review the horse's paces. This\nmarked indication of purpose set Lush on considering over again whether\nhe should incur the ticklish consequences of speaking first, while he\nwas still sure that no compromising step had been taken; and he rose\nthe next morning almost resolved that if Grandcourt seemed in as good a\nhumor as yesterday and entered at all into talk, he would let drop the\ninteresting facts about Gwendolen and her family, just to see how they\nwould work, and to get some guidance. But Grandcourt did not enter into\ntalk, and in answer to a question even about his own convenience, no\nfish could have maintained a more unwinking silence. After he had read\nhis letters he gave various orders to be executed or transmitted by\nLush, and then thrust his shoulder toward that useful person, who\naccordingly rose to leave the room. But before he was out of the door\nGrandcourt turned his head slightly and gave a broken, languid \"Oh.\"\n\n\"What is it?\" said Lush, who, it must have been observed, did not take\nhis dusty puddings with a respectful air.\n\n\"Shut the door, will you? I can't speak into the corridor.\"\n\nLush closed the door, came forward, and chose to sit down.\n\nAfter a little pause Grandcourt said, \"Is Miss Harleth at Offendene?\"\nHe was quite certain that Lush had made it his business to inquire\nabout her, and he had some pleasure in thinking that Lush did not want\n_him_ to inquire.\n\n\"Well, I hardly know,\" said Lush, carelessly. \"The family's utterly\ndone up. They and the Gascoignes too have lost all their money. It's\nowing to some rascally banking business. The poor mother hasn't a\n_sou_, it seems. She and the girls have to huddle themselves into a\nlittle cottage like a laborer's.\"\n\n\"Don't lie to me, if you please,\" said Grandcourt, in his lowest\naudible tone. \"It's not amusing, and it answers no other purpose.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said Lush, more nettled than was common with\nhim--the prospect before him being more than commonly disturbing.\n\n\"Just tell me the truth, will you?\"\n\n\"It's no invention of mine. I have heard the story from\nseveral--Bazley, Brackenshaw's man, for one. He is getting a new tenant\nfor Offendene.\"\n\n\"I don't mean that. Is Miss Harleth there, or is she not?\" said\nGrandcourt, in his former tone.\n\n\"Upon my soul, I can't tell,\" said Lush, rather sulkily. \"She may have\nleft yesterday. I heard she had taken a situation as governess; she may\nbe gone to it for what I know. But if you wanted to see her no doubt\nthe mother would send for her back.\" This sneer slipped off his tongue\nwithout strict intention.\n\n\"Send Hutchins to inquire whether she will be there tomorrow.\" Lush did\nnot move. Like many persons who have thought over beforehand what they\nshall say in given cases, he was impelled by an unexpected irritation\nto say some of those prearranged things before the cases were given.\nGrandcourt, in fact, was likely to get into a scrape so tremendous that\nit was impossible to let him take the first step toward it without\nremonstrance. Lush retained enough caution to use a tone of rational\nfriendliness, still he felt his own value to his patron, and was\nprepared to be daring.\n\n\"It would be as well for you to remember, Grandcourt, that you are\ncoming under closer fire now. There can be none of the ordinary\nflirting done, which may mean everything or nothing. You must make up\nyour mind whether you wish to be accepted; and more than that, how you\nwould like being refused. Either one or the other. You can't be\nphilandering after her again for six weeks.\"\n\nGrandcourt said nothing, but pressed the newspaper down on his knees\nand began to light another cigar. Lush took this as a sign that he was\nwilling to listen, and was the more bent on using the opportunity; he\nwanted, if possible, to find out which would be the more potent cause\nof hesitation--probable acceptance or probable refusal.\n\n\"Everything has a more serious look now than it had before. There is\nher family to be provided for. You could not let your wife's mother\nlive in beggary. It will be a confoundedly hampering affair. Marriage\nwill pin you down in a way you haven't been used to; and in point of\nmoney you have not too much elbow-room. And after all, what will you\nget by it? You are master over your estates, present or future, as far\nas choosing your heir goes; it's a pity to go on encumbering them for a\nmere whim, which you may repent of in a twelvemonth. I should be sorry\nto see you making a mess of your life in that way. If there were\nanything solid to be gained by the marriage, that would be a different\naffair.\"\n\nLush's tone had gradually become more and more unctuous in its\nfriendliness of remonstrance, and he was almost in danger of forgetting\nthat he was merely gambling in argument. When he left off, Grandcourt\ntook his cigar out of his mouth, and looking steadily at the moist end\nwhile he adjusted the leaf with his delicate finger-tips, said--\n\n\"I knew before that you had an objection to my marrying Miss Harleth.\"\nHere he made a little pause before he continued. \"But I never\nconsidered that a reason against it.\"\n\n\"I never supposed you did,\" answered Lush, not unctuously but dryly.\n\"It was not _that_ I urged as a reason. I should have thought it might\nhave been a reason against it, after all your experience, that you\nwould be acting like the hero of a ballad, and making yourself\nabsurd--and all for what? You know you couldn't make up your mind\nbefore. It's impossible you can care much about her. And as for the\ntricks she is likely to play, you may judge of that from what you heard\nat Leubronn. However, what I wished to point out to you was, that there\ncan be no shilly-shally now.\"\n\n\"Perfectly,\" said Grandcourt, looking round at Lush and fixing him with\nnarrow eyes; \"I don't intend that there should be. I dare say it's\ndisagreeable to you. But if you suppose I care a damn for that you are\nmost stupendously mistaken.\"\n\n\"Oh, well,\" said Lush, rising with his hands in his pockets, and\nfeeling some latent venom still within him, \"if you have made up your\nmind!--only there's another aspect of the affair. I have been speaking\non the supposition that it was absolutely certain she would accept you,\nand that destitution would have no choice. But I am not so sure that\nthe young lady is to be counted on. She is kittle cattle to shoe, I\nthink. And she had her reasons for running away before.\" Lush had moved\na step or two till he stood nearly in front of Grandcourt, though at\nsome distance from him. He did not feel himself much restrained by\nconsequences, being aware that the only strong hold he had on his\npresent position was his serviceableness; and even after a quarrel the\nwant of him was likely sooner or later to recur. He foresaw that\nGwendolen would cause him to be ousted for a time, and his temper at\nthis moment urged him to risk a quarrel.\n\n\"She had her reasons,\" he repeated more significantly.\n\n\"I had come to that conclusion before,\" said Grandcourt, with\ncontemptuous irony.\n\n\"Yes, but I hardly think you know what her reasons were.\"\n\n\"You do, apparently,\" said Grandcourt, not betraying by so much as an\neyelash that he cared for the reasons.\n\n\"Yes, and you had better know too, that you may judge of the influence\nyou have over her if she swallows her reasons and accepts you. For my\nown part I would take odds against it. She saw Lydia in Cardell Chase\nand heard the whole story.\"\n\nGrandcourt made no immediate answer, and only went on smoking. He was\nso long before he spoke that Lush moved about and looked out of the\nwindows, unwilling to go away without seeing some effect of his daring\nmove. He had expected that Grandcourt would tax him with having\ncontrived the affair, since Mrs. Glasher was then living at Gadsmere, a\nhundred miles off, and he was prepared to admit the fact: what he cared\nabout was that Grandcourt should be staggered by the sense that his\nintended advances must be made to a girl who had that knowledge in her\nmind and had been scared by it. At length Grandcourt, seeing Lush turn\ntoward him, looked at him again and said, contemptuously, \"What\nfollows?\"\n\nHere certainly was a \"mate\" in answer to Lush's \"check:\" and though his\nexasperation with Grandcourt was perhaps stronger than it had ever been\nbefore, it would have been idiocy to act as if any further move could\nbe useful. He gave a slight shrug with one shoulder, and was going to\nwalk away, when Grandcourt, turning on his seat toward the table, said,\nas quietly as if nothing had occurred, \"Oblige me by pushing that pen\nand paper here, will you?\"\n\nNo thunderous, bullying superior could have exercised the imperious\nspell that Grandcourt did. Why, instead of being obeyed, he had never\nbeen told to go to a warmer place, was perhaps a mystery to those who\nfound themselves obeying him. The pen and paper were pushed to him, and\nas he took them he said, \"Just wait for this letter.\"\n\nHe scrawled with ease, and the brief note was quickly addressed. \"Let\nHutchins go with it at once, will you?\" said Grandcourt, pushing the\nletter away from him.\n\nAs Lush had expected, it was addressed to Miss Harleth, Offendene. When\nhis irritation had cooled down he was glad there had been no explosive\nquarrel; but he felt sure that there was a notch made against him, and\nthat somehow or other he was intended to pay. It was also clear to him\nthat the immediate effect of his revelation had been to harden\nGrandcourt's previous determination. But as to the particular movements\nthat made this process in his baffling mind, Lush could only toss up\nhis chin in despair of a theory.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI.\n\n  He brings white asses laden with the freight\n  Of Tyrian vessels, purple, gold and balm,\n  To bribe my will: I'll bid them chase him forth,\n  Nor let him breathe the taint of his surmise\n  On my secure resolve.\n                         Ay, 'tis secure:\n  And therefore let him come to spread his freight.\n  For firmness hath its appetite and craves\n  The stronger lure, more strongly to resist;\n  Would know the touch of gold to fling it off;\n  Scent wine to feel its lip the soberer;\n  Behold soft byssus, ivory, and plumes\n  To say, \"They're fair, but I will none of them,\"\n  And flout Enticement in the very face.\n\n\nMr. Gascoigne one day came to Offendene with what he felt to be the\nsatisfactory news that Mrs. Mompert had fixed Tuesday in the following\nweek for her interview with Gwendolen at Wanchester. He said nothing of\nhis having incidentally heard that Mr. Grandcourt had returned to\nDiplow; knowing no more than she did that Leubronn had been the goal of\nher admirer's journeying, and feeling that it would be unkind uselessly\nto revive the memory of a brilliant prospect under the present\nreverses. In his secret soul he thought of his niece's unintelligible\ncaprice with regret, but he vindicated her to himself by considering\nthat Grandcourt had been the first to behave oddly, in suddenly walking\naway when there had the best opportunity for crowning his marked\nattentions. The rector's practical judgment told him that his chief\nduty to his niece now was to encourage her resolutely to face the\nchange in her lot, since there was no manifest promise of any event\nthat would avert it.\n\n\"You will find an interest in varied experience, my dear, and I have no\ndoubt you will be a more valuable woman for having sustained such a\npart as you are called to.\"\n\n\"I cannot pretend to believe that I shall like it,\" said Gwendolen, for\nthe first time showing her uncle some petulance. \"But I am quite aware\nthat I am obliged to bear it.\"\n\nShe remembered having submitted to his admonition on a different\noccasion when she was expected to like a very different prospect.\n\n\"And your good sense will teach you to behave suitably under it,\" said\nMr. Gascoigne, with a shade more gravity. \"I feel sure that Mrs.\nMompert will be pleased with you. You will know how to conduct yourself\nto a woman who holds in all senses the relation of a superior to you.\nThis trouble has come on you young, but that makes it in some respects\neasier, and there is a benefit in all chastisement if we adjust our\nminds to it.\"\n\nThis was precisely what Gwendolen was unable to do; and after her uncle\nwas gone, the bitter tears, which had rarely come during the late\ntrouble, rose and fell slowly as she sat alone. Her heart denied that\nthe trouble was easier because she was young. When was she to have any\nhappiness, if it did not come while she was young? Not that her visions\nof possible happiness for herself were as unmixed with necessary evil\nas they used to be--not that she could still imagine herself plucking\nthe fruits of life without suspicion of their core. But this general\ndisenchantment with the world--nay, with herself, since it appeared\nthat she was not made for easy pre-eminence--only intensified her sense\nof forlornness; it was a visibly sterile distance enclosing the dreary\npath at her feet, in which she had no courage to tread. She was in that\nfirst crisis of passionate youthful rebellion against what is not fitly\ncalled pain, but rather the absence of joy--that first rage of\ndisappointment in life's morning, which we whom the years have subdued\nare apt to remember but dimly as part of our own experience, and so to\nbe intolerant of its self-enclosed unreasonableness and impiety. What\npassion seems more absurd, when we have got outside it and looked at\ncalamity as a collective risk, than this amazed anguish that I and not\nThou, He or She, should be just the smitten one? Yet perhaps some who\nhave afterward made themselves a willing fence before the breast of\nanother, and have carried their own heart-wound in heroic silence--some\nwho have made their deeds great, nevertheless began with this angry\namazement at their own smart, and on the mere denial of their fantastic\ndesires raged as if under the sting of wasps which reduced the universe\nfor them to an unjust infliction of pain. This was nearly poor\nGwendolen's condition. What though such a reverse as hers had often\nhappened to other girls? The one point she had been all her life\nlearning to care for was, that it had happened to _her_: it was what\n_she_ felt under Klesmer's demonstration that she was not remarkable\nenough to command fortune by force of will and merit; it was what _she_\nwould feel under the rigors of Mrs. Mompert's constant expectation,\nunder the dull demand that she should be cheerful with three Miss\nMomperts, under the necessity of showing herself entirely submissive,\nand keeping her thoughts to herself. To be a queen disthroned is not so\nhard as some other down-stepping: imagine one who had been made to\nbelieve in his own divinity finding all homage withdrawn, and himself\nunable to perform a miracle that would recall the homage and restore\nhis own confidence. Something akin to this illusion and this\nhelplessness had befallen the poor spoiled child, with the lovely lips\nand eyes and the majestic figure--which seemed now to have no magic in\nthem.\n\nShe rose from the low ottoman where she had been sitting purposeless,\nand walked up and down the drawing-room, resting her elbow on one palm\nwhile she leaned down her cheek on the other, and a slow tear fell. She\nthought, \"I have always, ever since I was little, felt that mamma was\nnot a happy woman; and now I dare say I shall be more unhappy than she\nhas been.\"\n\nHer mind dwelt for a few moments on the picture of herself losing her\nyouth and ceasing to enjoy--not minding whether she did this or that:\nbut such picturing inevitably brought back the image of her mother.\n\n\"Poor mamma! it will be still worse for her now. I can get a little\nmoney for her--that is all I shall care about now.\" And then with an\nentirely new movement of her imagination, she saw her mother getting\nquite old and white, and herself no longer young but faded, and their\ntwo faces meeting still with memory and love, and she knowing what was\nin her mother's mind--\"Poor Gwen too is sad and faded now\"--and then,\nfor the first time, she sobbed, not in anger, but with a sort of tender\nmisery.\n\nHer face was toward the door, and she saw her mother enter. She barely\nsaw that; for her eyes were large with tears, and she pressed her\nhandkerchief against them hurriedly. Before she took it away she felt\nher mother's arms round her, and this sensation, which seemed a\nprolongation of her inward vision, overcame her will to be reticent;\nshe sobbed anew in spite of herself, as they pressed their cheeks\ntogether.\n\nMrs. Davilow had brought something in her hand which had already caused\nher an agitating anxiety, and she dared not speak until her darling had\nbecome calmer. But Gwendolen, with whom weeping had always been a\npainful manifestation to be resisted, if possible, again pressed her\nhandkerchief against her eyes, and, with a deep breath, drew her head\nbackward and looked at her mother, who was pale and tremulous.\n\n\"It was nothing, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, thinking that her mother had\nbeen moved in this way simply by finding her in distress. \"It is all\nover now.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Davilow had withdrawn her arms, and Gwendolen perceived a\nletter in her hand.\n\n\"What is that letter?--worse news still?\" she asked, with a touch of\nbitterness.\n\n\"I don't know what you will think it, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, keeping\nthe letter in her hand. \"You will hardly guess where it comes from.\"\n\n\"Don't ask me to guess anything,\" said Gwendolen, rather impatiently,\nas if a bruise were being pressed.\n\n\"It is addressed to you, dear.\"\n\nGwendolen gave the slightest perceptible toss of the head.\n\n\"It comes from Diplow,\" said Mrs. Davilow, giving her the letter.\n\nShe knew Grandcourt's indistinct handwriting, and her mother was not\nsurprised to see her blush deeply; but watching her as she read, and\nwondering much what was the purport of the letter, she saw the color\ndie out. Gwendolen's lips even were pale as she turned the open note\ntoward her mother. The words were few and formal:\n\nMr. Grandcourt presents his compliments to Miss Harleth, and begs to\nknow whether he may be permitted to call at Offendene tomorrow after\ntwo and to see her alone. Mr. Grandcourt has just returned from\nLeubronn, where he had hoped to find Miss Harleth.\n\nMrs. Davilow read, and then looked at her daughter inquiringly, leaving\nthe note in her hand. Gwendolen let it fall to the floor, and turned\naway.\n\n\"It must be answered, darling,\" said Mrs. Davilow, timidly. \"The man\nwaits.\"\n\nGwendolen sank on the settee, clasped her hands, and looked straight\nbefore her, not at her mother. She had the expression of one who had\nbeen startled by a sound and was listening to know what would come of\nit. The sudden change of the situation was bewildering. A few minutes\nbefore she was looking along an inescapable path of repulsive monotony,\nwith hopeless inward rebellion against the imperious lot which left her\nno choice: and lo, now, a moment of choice was come. Yet--was it\ntriumph she felt most or terror? Impossible for Gwendolen not to feel\nsome triumph in a tribute to her power at a time when she was first\ntasting the bitterness of insignificance: again she seemed to be\ngetting a sort of empire over her own life. But how to use it? Here\ncame the terror. Quick, quick, like pictures in a book beaten open with\na sense of hurry, came back vividly, yet in fragments, all that she had\ngone through in relation to Grandcourt--the allurements, the\nvacillations, the resolve to accede, the final repulsion; the incisive\nface of that dark-eyed lady with the lovely boy: her own pledge (was it\na pledge not to marry him?)--the new disbelief in the worth of men and\nthings for which that scene of disclosure had become a symbol. That\nunalterable experience made a vision at which in the first agitated\nmoment, before tempering reflections could suggest themselves, her\nnative terror shrank.\n\nWhere was the good of choice coming again? What did she wish? Anything\ndifferent? No! And yet in the dark seed-growths of consciousness a new\nwish was forming itself--\"I wish I had never known it!\" Something,\nanything she wished for that would have saved her from the dread to let\nGrandcourt come.\n\nIt was no long while--yet it seemed long to Mrs. Davilow, before she\nthought it well to say, gently--\n\n\"It will be necessary for you to write, dear. Or shall I write an\nanswer for you--which you will dictate?\"\n\n\"No, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, drawing a deep breath. \"But please lay me\nout the pen and paper.\"\n\nThat was gaining time. Was she to decline Grandcourt's visit--close the\nshutters--not even look out on what would happen?--though with the\nassurance that she should remain just where she was? The young activity\nwithin her made a warm current through her terror and stirred toward\nsomething that would be an event--toward an opportunity in which she\ncould look and speak with the former effectiveness. The interest of the\nmorrow was no longer at a deadlock.\n\n\"There is really no reason on earth why you should be so alarmed at the\nman's waiting a few minutes, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, remonstrantly, as\nMrs. Davilow, having prepared the writing materials, looked toward her\nexpectantly. \"Servants expect nothing else than to wait. It is not to\nbe supposed that I must write on the instant.\"\n\n\"No, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, in the tone of one corrected, turning to\nsit down and take up a bit of work that lay at hand; \"he can wait\nanother quarter of an hour, if you like.\"\n\nIf was very simple speech and action on her part, but it was what might\nhave been subtly calculated. Gwendolen felt a contradictory desire to\nbe hastened: hurry would save her from deliberate choice.\n\n\"I did not mean him to wait long enough for that needlework to be\nfinished,\" she said, lifting her hands to stroke the backward curves of\nher hair, while she rose from her seat and stood still.\n\n\"But if you don't feel able to decide?\" said Mrs. Davilow,\nsympathizingly.\n\n\"I _must_ decide,\" said Gwendolen, walking to the writing-table and\nseating herself. All the while there was a busy undercurrent in her,\nlike the thought of a man who keeps up a dialogue while he is\nconsidering how he can slip away. Why should she not let him come? It\nbound her to nothing. He had been to Leubronn after her: of course he\nmeant a direct unmistakable renewal of the suit which before had been\nonly implied. What then? She could reject him. Why was she to deny\nherself the freedom of doing this--which she would like to do?\n\n\"If Mr. Grandcourt has only just returned from Leubronn,\" said Mrs.\nDavilow, observing that Gwendolen leaned back in her chair after taking\nthe pen in her hand--\"I wonder whether he has heard of our misfortunes?\"\n\n\"That could make no difference to a man in his position,\" said\nGwendolen, rather contemptuously,\n\n\"It would to some men,\" said Mrs. Davilow. \"They would not like to take\na wife from a family in a state of beggary almost, as we are. Here we\nare at Offendene with a great shell over us, as usual. But just imagine\nhis finding us at Sawyer's Cottage. Most men are afraid of being bored\nor taxed by a wife's family. If Mr. Grandcourt did know, I think it a\nstrong proof of his attachment to you.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow spoke with unusual emphasis: it was the first time she had\nventured to say anything about Grandcourt which would necessarily seem\nintended as an argument in favor of him, her habitual impression being\nthat such arguments would certainly be useless and might be worse. The\neffect of her words now was stronger than she could imagine. They\nraised a new set of possibilities in Gwendolen's mind--a vision of what\nGrandcourt might do for her mother if she, Gwendolen, did--what she was\nnot going to do. She was so moved by a new rush of ideas that, like one\nconscious of being urgently called away, she felt that the immediate\ntask must be hastened: the letter must be written, else it might be\nendlessly deferred. After all, she acted in a hurry, as she had wished\nto do. To act in a hurry was to have a reason for keeping away from an\nabsolute decision, and to leave open as many issues as possible.\n\nShe wrote: \"Miss Harleth presents her compliments to Mr. Grandcourt.\nShe will be at home after two o'clock to-morrow.\"\n\nBefore addressing the note she said, \"Pray ring the bell, mamma, if\nthere is any one to answer it.\" She really did not know who did the\nwork of the house.\n\nIt was not till after the letter had been taken away and Gwendolen had\nrisen again, stretching out one arm and then resting it on her head,\nwith a low moan which had a sound of relief in it, that Mrs. Davilow\nventured to ask--\n\n\"What did you say, Gwen?\"\n\n\"I said that I should be at home,\" answered Gwendolen, rather loftily.\nThen after a pause, \"You must not expect, because Mr. Grandcourt is\ncoming, that anything is going to happen, mamma.\"\n\n\"I don't allow myself to expect anything, dear. I desire you to follow\nyour own feeling. You have never told me what that was.\"\n\n\"What is the use of telling?\" said Gwendolen, hearing a reproach in\nthat true statement. \"When I have anything pleasant to tell, you may be\nsure I will tell you.\"\n\n\"But Mr. Grandcourt will consider that you have already accepted him,\nin allowing him to come. His note tells you plainly enough that he is\ncoming to make you an offer.\"\n\n\"Very well; and I wish to have the pleasure of refusing him.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow looked up in wonderment, but Gwendolen implied her wish\nnot to be questioned further by saying--\n\n\"Put down that detestable needle-work, and let us walk in the avenue. I\nam stifled.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII.\n\n  Desire has trimmed the sails, and Circumstance\n  Brings but the breeze to fill them.\n\n\nWhile Grandcourt on his beautiful black Yarico, the groom behind him on\nCriterion, was taking the pleasant ride from Diplow to Offendene,\nGwendolen was seated before the mirror while her mother gathered up the\nlengthy mass of light-brown hair which she had been carefully brushing.\n\n\"Only gather it up easily and make a coil, mamma,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Let me bring you some ear-rings, Gwen,\" said Mrs. Davilow, when the\nhair was adjusted, and they were both looking at the reflection in the\nglass. It was impossible for them not to notice that the eyes looked\nbrighter than they had done of late, that there seemed to be a shadow\nlifted from the face, leaving all the lines once more in their placid\nyouthfulness. The mother drew some inference that made her voice rather\ncheerful. \"You do want your earrings?\"\n\n\"No, mamma; I shall not wear any ornaments, and I shall put on my black\nsilk. Black is the only wear when one is going to refuse an offer,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, with one of her old smiles at her mother, while she\nrose to throw off her dressing-gown.\n\n\"Suppose the offer is not made after all,\" said Mrs. Davilow, not\nwithout a sly intention.\n\n\"Then that will be because I refuse it beforehand,\" said Gwendolen. \"It\ncomes to the same thing.\"\n\nThere was a proud little toss of the head as she said this; and when\nshe walked down-stairs in her long black robes, there was just that\nfirm poise of head and elasticity of form which had lately been\nmissing, as in a parched plant. Her mother thought, \"She is quite\nherself again. It must be pleasure in his coming. Can her mind be\nreally made up against him?\"\n\nGwendolen would have been rather angry if that thought had been\nuttered; perhaps all the more because through the last twenty hours,\nwith a brief interruption of sleep, she had been so occupied with\nperpetually alternating images and arguments for and against the\npossibility of her marrying Grandcourt, that the conclusion which she\nhad determined on beforehand ceased to have any hold on her\nconsciousness: the alternate dip of counterbalancing thoughts begotten\nof counterbalancing desires had brought her into a state in which no\nconclusion could look fixed to her. She would have expressed her\nresolve as before; but it was a form out of which the blood had been\nsucked--no more a part of quivering life than the \"God's will be done\"\nof one who is eagerly watching chances. She did not mean to accept\nGrandcourt; from the first moment of receiving his letter she had meant\nto refuse him; still, that could not but prompt her to look the\nunwelcome reasons full in the face until she had a little less awe of\nthem, could not hinder her imagination from filling out her knowledge\nin various ways, some of which seemed to change the aspect of what she\nknew. By dint of looking at a dubious object with a constructive\nimagination, who can give it twenty different shapes. Her indistinct\ngrounds of hesitation before the interview at the Whispering Stones, at\npresent counted for nothing; they were all merged in the final\nrepulsion. If it had not been for that day in Cardell Chase, she said\nto herself now, there would have been no obstacle to her marrying\nGrandcourt. On that day and after it, she had not reasoned and\nbalanced; she had acted with a force of impulse against which all\nquestioning was no more than a voice against a torrent. The impulse had\ncome--not only from her maidenly pride and jealousy, not only from the\nshock of another woman's calamity thrust close on her vision, but--from\nher dread of wrong-doing, which was vague, it was true, and aloof from\nthe daily details of her life, but not the less strong. Whatever was\naccepted as consistent with being a lady she had no scruple about; but\nfrom the dim region of what was called disgraceful, wrong, guilty, she\nshrunk with mingled pride and terror; and even apart from shame, her\nfeeling would have made her place any deliberate injury of another in\nthe region of guilt.\n\nBut now--did she know exactly what was the state of the case with\nregard to Mrs. Glasher and her children? She had given a sort of\npromise--had said, \"I will not interfere with your wishes.\" But would\nanother woman who married Grandcourt be in fact the decisive obstacle\nto her wishes, or be doing her and her boy any real injury? Might it\nnot be just as well, nay better, that Grandcourt should marry? For what\ncould not a woman do when she was married, if she knew how to assert\nherself? Here all was constructive imagination. Gwendolen had about as\naccurate a conception of marriage--that is to say, of the mutual\ninfluences, demands, duties of man and woman in the state of\nmatrimony--as she had of magnetic currents and the law of storms.\n\n\"Mamma managed badly,\" was her way of summing up what she had seen of\nher mother's experience: she herself would manage quite differently.\nAnd the trials of matrimony were the last theme into which Mrs. Davilow\ncould choose to enter fully with this daughter.\n\n\"I wonder what mamma and my uncle would say if they knew about Mrs.\nGlasher!\" thought Gwendolen in her inward debating; not that she could\nimagine herself telling them, even if she had not felt bound to\nsilence. \"I wonder what anybody would say; or what they would say to\nMr. Grandcourt's marrying some one else and having other children!\" To\nconsider what \"anybody\" would say, was to be released from the\ndifficulty of judging where everything was obscure to her when feeling\nhad ceased to be decisive. She had only to collect her memories, which\nproved to her that \"anybody\" regarded the illegitimate children as more\nrightfully to be looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than\nillegitimate fathers. The verdict of \"anybody\" seemed to be that she\nhad no reason to concern herself greatly on behalf of Mrs. Glasher and\nher children.\n\nBut there was another way in which they had caused her concern. What\nothers might think, could not do away with a feeling which in the first\ninstance would hardly be too strongly described as indignation and\nloathing that she should have been expected to unite herself with an\noutworn life, full of backward secrets which must have been more keenly\nfelt than any association with _her_. True, the question of love on her\nown part had occupied her scarcely at all in relation to Grandcourt.\nThe desirability of marriage for her had always seemed due to other\nfeeling than love; and to be enamored was the part of the man, on whom\nthe advances depended. Gwendolen had found no objection to Grandcourt's\nway of being enamored before she had had that glimpse of his past,\nwhich she resented as if it had been a deliberate offense against her.\nHis advances to _her_ were deliberate, and she felt a retrospective\ndisgust for them. Perhaps other men's lives were of the same kind--full\nof secrets which made the ignorant suppositions of the women they\nwanted to marry a farce at which they were laughing in their sleeves.\n\nThese feelings of disgust and indignation had sunk deep; and though\nother troublous experience in the last weeks had dulled them from\npassion into remembrance, it was chiefly their reverberating activity\nwhich kept her firm to the understanding with herself, that she was not\ngoing to accept Grandcourt. She had never meant to form a new\ndetermination; she had only been considering what might be thought or\nsaid. If anything could have induced her to change, it would have been\nthe prospect of making all things easy for \"poor mamma:\" that, she\nadmitted, was a temptation. But no! she was going to refuse him.\nMeanwhile, the thought that he was coming to be refused was\ninspiriting: she had the white reins in her hands again; there was a\nnew current in her frame, reviving her from the beaten-down\nconsciousness in which she had been left by the interview with Klesmer.\nShe was not now going to crave an opinion of her capabilities; she was\ngoing to exercise her power.\n\nWas this what made her heart palpitate annoyingly when she heard the\nhorse's footsteps on the gravel?--when Miss Merry, who opened the door\nto Grandcourt, came to tell her that he was in the drawing-room? The\nhours of preparation and the triumph of the situation were apparently\nof no use: she might as well have seen Grandcourt coming suddenly on\nher in the midst of her despondency. While walking into the\ndrawing-room, she had to concentrate all her energy in that\nself-control, which made her appear gravely gracious--as she gave her\nhand to him, and answered his hope that she was quite well in a voice\nas low and languid as his own. A moment afterward, when they were both\nof them seated on two of the wreath-painted chairs--Gwendolen upright\nwith downcast eyelids, Grandcourt about two yards distant, leaning one\narm over the back of his chair and looking at her, while he held his\nhat in his left hand--any one seeing them as a picture would have\nconcluded that they were in some stage of love-making suspense. And\ncertainly the love-making had begun: she already felt herself being\nwooed by this silent man seated at an agreeable distance, with the\nsubtlest atmosphere of attar of roses and an attention bent wholly on\nher. And he also considered himself to be wooing: he was not a man to\nsuppose that his presence carried no consequences; and he was exactly\nthe man to feel the utmost piquancy in a girl whom he had not found\nquite calculable.\n\n\"I was disappointed not to find you at Leubronn,\" he began, his usual\nbroken drawl having just a shade of amorous languor in it. \"The place\nwas intolerable without you. A mere kennel of a place. Don't you think\nso?\"\n\n\"I can't judge what it would be without myself,\" said Gwendolen,\nturning her eyes on him, with some recovered sense of mischief. \"_With_\nmyself I like it well enough to have stayed longer, if I could. But I\nwas obliged to come home on account of family troubles.\"\n\n\"It was very cruel of you to go to Leubronn,\" said Grandcourt, taking\nno notice of the troubles, on which Gwendolen--she hardly knew\nwhy--wished that there should be a clear understanding at once. \"You\nmust have known that it would spoil everything: you knew you were the\nheart and soul of everything that went on. Are you quite reckless about\nme?\"\n\nIt would be impossible to say \"yes\" in a tone that would be taken\nseriously; equally impossible to say \"no;\" but what else could she say?\nIn her difficulty, she turned down her eyelids again and blushed over\nface and neck. Grandcourt saw her in a new phase, and believed that she\nwas showing her inclination. But he was determined that she should show\nit more decidedly.\n\n\"Perhaps there is some deeper interest? Some attraction--some\nengagement--which it would have been only fair to make me aware of? Is\nthere any man who stands between us?\"\n\nInwardly the answer framed itself. \"No; but there is a woman.\" Yet how\ncould she utter this? Even if she had not promised that woman to be\nsilent, it would have been impossible for her to enter on the subject\nwith Grandcourt. But how could she arrest his wooing by beginning to\nmake a formal speech--\"I perceive your intention--it is most\nflattering, etc.\"? A fish honestly invited to come and be eaten has a\nclear course in declining, but how if it finds itself swimming against\na net? And apart from the network, would she have dared at once to say\nanything decisive? Gwendolen had not time to be clear on that point. As\nit was, she felt compelled to silence, and after a pause, Grandcourt\nsaid--\n\n\"Am I to understand that some one else is preferred?\"\n\nGwendolen, now impatient of her own embarrassment, determined to rush\nat the difficulty and free herself. She raised her eyes again and said\nwith something of her former clearness and defiance, \"No\"--wishing him\nto understand, \"What then? I may not be ready to take _you_.\" There was\nnothing that Grandcourt could not understand which he perceived likely\nto affect his _amour propre_.\n\n\"The last thing I would do, is to importune you. I should not hope to\nwin you by making myself a bore. If there were no hope for me, I would\nask you to tell me so at once, that I might just ride away to--no\nmatter where.\"\n\nAlmost to her own astonishment, Gwendolen felt a sudden alarm at the\nimage of Grandcourt finally riding away. What would be left her then?\nNothing but the former dreariness. She liked him to be there. She\nsnatched at the subject that would defer any decisive answer.\n\n\"I fear you are not aware of what has happened to us. I have lately had\nto think so much of my mamma's troubles, that other subjects have been\nquite thrown into the background. She has lost all her fortune, and we\nare going to leave this place. I must ask you to excuse my seeming\npreoccupied.\"\n\nIn eluding a direct appeal Gwendolen recovered some of her\nself-possession. She spoke with dignity and looked straight at\nGrandcourt, whose long, narrow, impenetrable eyes met hers, and\nmysteriously arrested them: mysteriously; for the subtly-varied drama\nbetween man and woman is often such as can hardly be rendered in words\nput together like dominoes, according to obvious fixed marks. The word\nof all work, Love, will no more express the myriad modes of mutual\nattraction, than the word Thought can inform you what is passing\nthrough your neighbor's mind. It would be hard to tell on which\nside--Gwendolen's or Grandcourt's--the influence was more mixed. At\nthat moment his strongest wish was to be completely master of this\ncreature--this piquant combination of maidenliness and mischief: that\nshe knew things which had made her start away from him, spurred him to\ntriumph over that repugnance; and he was believing that he should\ntriumph. And she--ah, piteous equality in the need to dominate!--she\nwas overcome like the thirsty one who is drawn toward the seeming water\nin the desert, overcome by the suffused sense that here in this man's\nhomage to her lay the rescue from helpless subjection to an oppressive\nlot.\n\nAll the while they were looking at each other; and Grandcourt said,\nslowly and languidly, as if it were of no importance, other things\nhaving been settled--\n\n\"You will tell me now, I hope, that Mrs. Davilow's loss of fortune will\nnot trouble you further. You will trust me to prevent it from weighing\nupon her. You will give me the claim to provide against that.\"\n\nThe little pauses and refined drawlings with which this speech was\nuttered, gave time for Gwendolen to go through the dream of a life. As\nthe words penetrated her, they had the effect of a draught of wine,\nwhich suddenly makes all things easier, desirable things not so wrong,\nand people in general less disagreeable. She had a momentary phantasmal\nlove for this man who chose his words so well, and who was a mere\nincarnation of delicate homage. Repugnance, dread, scruples--these were\ndim as remembered pains, while she was already tasting relief under the\nimmediate pain of hopelessness. She imagined herself already springing\nto her mother, and being playful again. Yet when Grandcourt had ceased\nto speak, there was an instant in which she was conscious of being at\nthe turning of the ways.\n\n\"You are very generous,\" she said, not moving her eyes, and speaking\nwith a gentle intonation.\n\n\"You accept what will make such things a matter of course?\" said\nGrandcourt, without any new eagerness. \"You consent to become my wife?\"\n\nThis time Gwendolen remained quite pale. Something made her rise from\nher seat in spite of herself and walk to a little distance. Then she\nturned and with her hands folded before her stood in silence.\n\nGrandcourt immediately rose too, resting his hat on the chair, but\nstill keeping hold of it. The evident hesitation of this destitute girl\nto take his splendid offer stung him into a keenness of interest such\nas he had not known for years. None the less because he attributed her\nhesitation entirely to her knowledge about Mrs. Glasher. In that\nattitude of preparation, he said--\n\n\"Do you command me to go?\" No familiar spirit could have suggested to\nhim more effective words.\n\n\"No,\" said Gwendolen. She could not let him go: that negative was a\nclutch. She seemed to herself to be, after all, only drifted toward the\ntremendous decision--but drifting depends on something besides the\ncurrents when the sails have been set beforehand.\n\n\"You accept my devotion?\" said Grandcourt, holding his hat by his side\nand looking straight into her eyes, without other movement. Their eyes\nmeeting in that way seemed to allow any length of pause: but wait as\nlong as she would, how could she contradict herself! What had she\ndetained him for? He had shut out any explanation.\n\n\"Yes,\" came as gravely from Gwendolen's lips as if she had been\nanswering to her name in a court of justice. He received it gravely,\nand they still looked at each other in the same attitude. Was there\never such a way before of accepting the bliss-giving \"Yes\"? Grandcourt\nliked better to be at that distance from her, and to feel under a\nceremony imposed by an indefinable prohibition that breathed from\nGwendolen's bearing.\n\nBut he did at length lay down his hat and advance to take her hand,\njust pressing his lips upon it and letting it go again. She thought his\nbehavior perfect, and gained a sense of freedom which made her almost\nready to be mischievous. Her \"Yes\" entailed so little at this moment\nthat there was nothing to screen the reversal of her gloomy prospects;\nher vision was filled by her own release from the Momperts, and her\nmother's release from Sawyer's Cottage. With a happy curl of the lips,\nshe said--\n\n\"Will you not see mamma? I will fetch her.\"\n\n\"Let us wait a little,\" said Grandcourt, in his favorite attitude,\nhaving his left forefinger and thumb in his waist-coat pocket, and with\nhis right hand caressing his whisker, while he stood near Gwendolen and\nlooked at her--not unlike a gentleman who has a felicitous introduction\nat an evening party.\n\n\"Have you anything else to say to me,\" said Gwendolen, playfully.\n\n\"Yes--I know having things said to you is a great bore,\" said\nGrandcourt, rather sympathetically.\n\n\"Not when they are things I like to hear.\"\n\n\"Will it bother you to be asked how soon we can be married?\"\n\n\"I think it will, to-day,\" said Gwendolen, putting up her chin saucily.\n\n\"Not to-day, then, but to-morrow. Think of it before I come to-morrow.\nIn a fortnight--or three weeks--as soon as possible.\"\n\n\"Ah, you think you will be tired of my company,\" said Gwendolen. \"I\nnotice when people are married the husband is not so much with his wife\nas when they are engaged. But perhaps I shall like that better, too.\"\n\nShe laughed charmingly.\n\n\"You shall have whatever you like,\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"And nothing that I don't like?--please say that; because I think I\ndislike what I don't like more than I like what I like,\" said\nGwendolen, finding herself in the woman's paradise, where all her\nnonsense is adorable.\n\nGrandcourt paused; these were subtilties in which he had much\nexperience of his own. \"I don't know--this is such a brute of a world,\nthings are always turning up that one doesn't like. I can't always\nhinder your being bored. If you like to ride Criterion, I can't hinder\nhis coming down by some chance or other.\"\n\n\"Ah, my friend Criterion, how is he?\"\n\n\"He is outside: I made the groom ride him, that you might see him. He\nhad the side-saddle on for an hour or two yesterday. Come to the window\nand look at him.\"\n\nThey could see the two horses being taken slowly round the sweep, and\nthe beautiful creatures, in their fine grooming, sent a thrill of\nexultation through Gwendolen. They were the symbols of command and\nluxury, in delightful contrast with the ugliness of poverty and\nhumiliation at which she had lately been looking close.\n\n\"Will you ride Criterion to-morrow?\" said Grandcourt. \"If you will,\neverything shall be arranged.\"\n\n\"I should like it of all things,\" said Gwendolen. \"I want to lose\nmyself in a gallop again. But now I must go and fetch mamma.\"\n\n\"Take my arm to the door, then,\" said Grandcourt, and she accepted.\nTheir faces were very near each other, being almost on a level, and he\nwas looking at her. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable\nthan any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss\nher, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the\nmiddle of the room and said half archly, half earnestly--\n\n\"Oh, while I think of it--there is something I dislike that you can\nsave me from. I do _not_ like Mr. Lush's company.\"\n\n\"You shall not have it. I'll get rid of him.\"\n\n\"You are not fond of him yourself?\"\n\n\"Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a\npoor devil,\" said Grandcourt, in an _adagio_ of utter indifference.\n\"They got him to travel with me when I was a lad. He was always that\ncoarse-haired kind of brute--sort of cross between a hog and a\n_dilettante_.\"\n\nGwendolen laughed. All that seemed kind and natural enough:\nGrandcourt's fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. And when they\nreached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of\neasy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least\ndisagreeable of husbands.\n\nMrs. Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bed-room when Gwendolen\nentered, stepped toward her quickly, and kissing her on both cheeks\nsaid in a low tone, \"Come down, mamma, and see Mr. Grandcourt. I am\nengaged to him.\"\n\n\"My darling child,\" said Mrs. Davilow, with a surprise that was rather\nsolemn than glad.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gwendolen, in the same tone, and with a quickness which\nimplied that it was needless to ask questions. \"Everything is settled.\nYou are not going to Sawyer's Cottage, I am not going to be inspected\nby Mrs. Mompert, and everything is to be as I like. So come down with\nme immediately.\"\n\n\n\n\nBOOK IV--GWENDOLEN GETS HER CHOICE.\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII.\n\n    \"Il est plus aisé de connoître l'homme en général que de connoître un\n    homme en particulier.--LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.\"\n\n\nAn hour after Grandcourt had left, the important news of Gwendolen's\nengagement was known at the rectory, and Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, with\nAnna, spent the evening at Offendene.\n\n\"My dear, let me congratulate you on having created a strong\nattachment,\" said the rector. \"You look serious, and I don't wonder at\nit: a lifelong union is a solemn thing. But from the way Mr. Grandcourt\nhas acted and spoken I think we may already see some good arising out\nof our adversity. It has given you an opportunity of observing your\nfuture husband's delicate liberality.\"\n\nMr. Gascoigne referred to Grandcourt's mode of implying that he would\nprovide for Mrs. Davilow--a part of the love-making which Gwendolen had\nremembered to cite to her mother with perfect accuracy.\n\n\"But I have no doubt that Mr. Grandcourt would have behaved quite as\nhandsomely if you had not gone away to Germany, Gwendolen, and had been\nengaged to him, as you no doubt might have been, more than a month\nago,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, feeling that she had to discharge a duty on\nthis occasion. \"But now there is no more room for caprice; indeed, I\ntrust you have no inclination to any. A woman has a great debt of\ngratitude to a man who perseveres in making her such an offer. But no\ndoubt you feel properly.\"\n\n\"I am not at all sure that I do, aunt,\" said Gwendolen, with saucy\ngravity. \"I don't know everything it is proper to feel on being\nengaged.\"\n\nThe rector patted her shoulder and smiled as at a bit of innocent\nnaughtiness, and his wife took his behavior as an indication that she\nwas not to be displeased. As for Anna, she kissed Gwendolen and said,\n\"I do hope you will be happy,\" but then sank into the background and\ntried to keep the tears back too. In the late days she had been\nimagining a little romance about Rex--how if he still longed for\nGwendolen her heart might be softened by trouble into love, so that\nthey could by-and-by be married. And the romance had turned to a prayer\nthat she, Anna, might be able to rejoice like a good sister, and only\nthink of being useful in working for Gwendolen, as long as Rex was not\nrich. But now she wanted grace to rejoice in something else. Miss Merry\nand the four girls, Alice with the high shoulders, Bertha and Fanny the\nwhisperers, and Isabel the listener, were all present on this family\noccasion, when everything seemed appropriately turning to the honor and\nglory of Gwendolen, and real life was as interesting as \"Sir Charles\nGrandison.\" The evening passed chiefly in decisive remarks from the\nrector, in answer to conjectures from the two elder ladies. According\nto him, the case was not one in which he could think it his duty to\nmention settlements: everything must, and doubtless would safely be\nleft to Mr. Grandcourt.\n\n\"I should like to know exactly what sort of places Ryelands and\nGadsmere are,\" said Mrs. Davilow.\n\n\"Gadsmere, I believe, is a secondary place,\" said Mr. Gascoigne; \"But\nRyelands I know to be one of our finest seats. The park is extensive\nand the woods of a very valuable order. The house was built by Inigo\nJones, and the ceilings are painted in the Italian style. The estate is\nsaid to be worth twelve thousand a year, and there are two livings, one\na rectory, in the gift of the Grandcourts. There may be some burdens on\nthe land. Still, Mr. Grandcourt was an only child.\"\n\n\"It would be most remarkable,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, \"if he were to\nbecome Lord Stannery in addition to everything else. Only think: there\nis the Grandcourt estate, the Mallinger estate, _and_ the baronetcy,\n_and_ the peerage,\"--she was marking off the items on her fingers, and\npaused on the fourth while she added, \"but they say there will be no\nland coming to him with the peerage.\" It seemed a pity there was\nnothing for the fifth finger.\n\n\"The peerage,\" said the rector, judiciously, \"must be regarded as a\nremote chance. There are two cousins between the present peer and Mr.\nGrandcourt. It is certainly a serious reflection how death and other\ncauses do sometimes concentrate inheritances on one man. But an excess\nof that kind is to be deprecated. To be Sir Mallinger Grandcourt\nMallinger--I suppose that will be his style--with corresponding\nproperties, is a valuable talent enough for any man to have committed\nto him. Let us hope it will be well used.\"\n\n\"And what a position for the wife, Gwendolen!\" said Mrs. Gascoigne; \"a\ngreat responsibility indeed. But you must lose no time in writing to\nMrs. Mompert, Henry. It is a good thing that you have an engagement of\nmarriage to offer as an excuse, else she might feel offended. She is\nrather a high woman.\"\n\n\"I am rid of that horror,\" thought Gwendolen, to whom the name of\nMompert had become a sort of Mumbo-jumbo. She was very silent through\nthe evening, and that night could hardly sleep at all in her little\nwhite bed. It was a rarity in her strong youth to be wakeful: and\nperhaps a still greater rarity for her to be careful that her mother\nshould not know of her restlessness. But her state of mind was\naltogether new: she who had been used to feel sure of herself, and\nready to manage others, had just taken a decisive step which she had\nbeforehand thought that she would not take--nay, perhaps, was bound not\nto take. She could not go backward now; she liked a great deal of what\nlay before her; and there was nothing for her to like if she went back.\nBut her resolution was dogged by the shadow of that previous resolve\nwhich had at first come as the undoubting movement of her whole being.\nWhile she lay on her pillow with wide-open eyes, \"looking on darkness\nwhich the blind do see,\" she was appalled by the idea that she was\ngoing to do what she had once started away from with repugnance. It was\nnew to her that a question of right or wrong in her conduct should\nrouse her terror; she had known no compunction that atoning caresses\nand presents could not lay to rest. But here had come a moment when\nsomething like a new consciousness was awaked. She seemed on the edge\nof adopting deliberately, as a notion for all the rest of her life,\nwhat she had rashly said in her bitterness, when her discovery had\ndriven her away to Leubronn:--that it did not signify what she did; she\nhad only to amuse herself as best she could. That lawlessness, that\ncasting away of all care for justification, suddenly frightened her: it\ncame to her with the shadowy array of possible calamity behind\nit--calamity which had ceased to be a mere name for her; and all the\ninfiltrated influences of disregarded religious teaching, as well as\nthe deeper impressions of something awful and inexorable enveloping\nher, seemed to concentrate themselves in the vague conception of\navenging power. The brilliant position she had longed for, the imagined\nfreedom she would create for herself in marriage, the deliverance from\nthe dull insignificance of her girlhood--all immediately before her;\nand yet they had come to her hunger like food with the taint of\nsacrilege upon it, which she must snatch with terror. In the darkness\nand loneliness of her little bed, her more resistant self could not act\nagainst the first onslaught of dread after her irrevocable decision.\nThat unhappy-faced woman and her children--Grandcourt and his relations\nwith her--kept repeating themselves in her imagination like the\nclinging memory of a disgrace, and gradually obliterated all other\nthought, leaving only the consciousness that she had taken those scenes\ninto her life. Her long wakefulness seemed a delirium; a faint, faint\nlight penetrated beside the window-curtain; the chillness increased.\nShe could bear it no longer, and cried \"Mamma!\"\n\n\"Yes, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, immediately, in a wakeful voice.\n\n\"Let me come to you.\"\n\nShe soon went to sleep on her mother's shoulder, and slept on till\nlate, when, dreaming of a lit-up ball-room, she opened her eyes on her\nmother standing by the bedside with a small packet in her hand.\n\n\"I am sorry to wake you, darling, but I thought it better to give you\nthis at once. The groom has brought Criterion; he has come on another\nhorse, and says he is to stay here.\"\n\nGwendolen sat up in bed and opened the packet. It was a delicate\nenameled casket, and inside was a splendid diamond ring with a letter\nwhich contained a folded bit of colored paper and these words:--\n\n    Pray wear this ring when I come at twelve in sign of our betrothal. I\n    enclose a check drawn in the name of Mr. Gascoigne, for immediate\n    expenses. Of course Mrs. Davilow will remain at Offendene, at least\n    for some time. I hope, when I come, you will have granted me an early\n    day, when you may begin to command me at a shorter distance.\n\n    Yours devotedly,\n\n    H. M. GRANDCOURT.\n\nThe check was for five hundred pounds, and Gwendolen turned it toward\nher mother, with the letter.\n\n\"How very kind and delicate!\" said Mrs. Davilow, with much feeling.\n\"But I really should like better not to be dependent on a son-in-law. I\nand the girls could get along very well.\"\n\n\"Mamma, if you say that again, I will not marry him,\" said Gwendolen,\nangrily.\n\n\"My dear child, I trust you are not going to marry only for my sake,\"\nsaid Mrs. Davilow, depreciatingly.\n\nGwendolen tossed her head on the pillow away from her mother, and let\nthe ring lie. She was irritated at this attempt to take away a motive.\nPerhaps the deeper cause of her irritation was the consciousness that\nshe was not going to marry solely for her mamma's sake--that she was\ndrawn toward the marriage in ways against which stronger reasons than\nher mother's renunciation were yet not strong enough to hinder her. She\nhad waked up to the signs that she was irrevocably engaged, and all the\nugly visions, the alarms, the arguments of the night, must be met by\ndaylight, in which probably they would show themselves weak. \"What I\nlong for is your happiness, dear,\" continued Mrs. Davilow, pleadingly.\n\"I will not say anything to vex you. Will you not put on the ring?\"\n\nFor a few moments Gwendolen did not answer, but her thoughts were\nactive. At last she raised herself with a determination to do as she\nwould do if she had started on horseback, and go on with spirit,\nwhatever ideas might be running in her head.\n\n\"I thought the lover always put on the betrothal ring himself,\" she\nsaid laughingly, slipping the ring on her finger, and looking at it\nwith a charming movement of her head. \"I know why he has sent it,\" she\nadded, nodding at her mamma.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"He would rather make me put it on than ask me to let him do it. Aha!\nhe is very proud. But so am I. We shall match each other. I should hate\na man who went down on his knees, and came fawning on me. He really is\nnot disgusting.\"\n\n\"That is very moderate praise, Gwen.\"\n\n\"No, it is not, for a man,\" said Gwendolen gaily. \"But now I must get\nup and dress. Will you come and do my hair, mamma, dear,\" she went on,\ndrawing down her mamma's face to caress it with her own cheeks, \"and\nnot be so naughty any more as to talk of living in poverty? You must\nbear to be made comfortable, even if you don't like it. And Mr.\nGrandcourt behaves perfectly, now, does he not?\"\n\n\"Certainly he does,\" said Mrs. Davilow, encouraged, and persuaded that\nafter all Gwendolen was fond of her betrothed. She herself thought him\na man whose attentions were likely to tell on a girl's feeling. Suitors\nmust often be judged as words are, by the standing and the figure they\nmake in polite society: it is difficult to know much else of them. And\nall the mother's anxiety turned not on Grandcourt's character, but on\nGwendolen's mood in accepting him.\n\nThe mood was necessarily passing through a new phase this morning. Even\nin the hour of making her toilet, she had drawn on all the knowledge\nshe had for grounds to justify her marriage. And what she most dwelt on\nwas the determination, that when she was Grandcourt's wife, she would\nurge him to the most liberal conduct toward Mrs. Glasher's children.\n\n\"Of what use would it be to her that I should not marry him? He could\nhave married her if he liked; but he did _not_ like. Perhaps she is to\nblame for that. There must be a great deal about her that I know\nnothing of. And he must have been good to her in many ways, else she\nwould not have wanted to marry him.\"\n\nBut that last argument at once began to appear doubtful. Mrs. Glasher\nnaturally wished to exclude other children who would stand between\nGrandcourt and her own: and Gwendolen's comprehension of this feeling\nprompted another way of reconciling claims.\n\n\"Perhaps we shall have no children. I hope we shall not. And he might\nleave the estate to the pretty little boy. My uncle said that Mr.\nGrandcourt could do as he liked with the estates. Only when Sir Hugo\nMallinger dies there will be enough for two.\"\n\nThis made Mrs. Glasher appear quite unreasonable in demanding that her\nboy should be sole heir; and the double property was a security that\nGrandcourt's marriage would do her no wrong, when the wife was\nGwendolen Harleth with all her proud resolution not to be fairly\naccused. This maiden had been accustomed to think herself blameless;\nother persons only were faulty.\n\nIt was striking, that in the hold which this argument of her doing no\nwrong to Mrs. Glasher had taken on her mind, her repugnance to the idea\nof Grandcourt's past had sunk into a subordinate feeling. The terror\nshe had felt in the night-watches at overstepping the border of\nwickedness by doing what she had at first felt to be wrong, had dulled\nany emotions about his conduct. She was thinking of him, whatever he\nmight be, as a man over whom she was going to have indefinite power;\nand her loving him having never been a question with her, any\nagreeableness he had was so much gain. Poor Gwendolen had no awe of\nunmanageable forces in the state of matrimony, but regarded it as\naltogether a matter of management, in which she would know how to act.\nIn relation to Grandcourt's past she encouraged new doubts whether he\nwere likely to have differed much from other men; and she devised\nlittle schemes for learning what was expected of men in general.\n\nBut whatever else might be true in the world, her hair was dressed\nsuitably for riding, and she went down in her riding-habit, to avoid\ndelay before getting on horseback. She wanted to have her blood stirred\nonce more with the intoxication of youth, and to recover the daring\nwith which she had been used to think of her course in life. Already a\nload was lifted off her; for in daylight and activity it was less\noppressive to have doubts about her choice, than to feel that she had\nno choice but to endure insignificance and servitude.\n\n\"Go back and make yourself look like a duchess, mamma,\" she said,\nturning suddenly as she was going down-stairs. \"Put your point-lace\nover your head. I must have you look like a duchess. You must not take\nthings humbly.\"\n\nWhen Grandcourt raised her left hand gently and looked at the ring, she\nsaid gravely, \"It was very good of you to think of everything and send\nme that packet.\"\n\n\"You will tell me if there is anything I forget?\" he said, keeping the\nhand softly within his own. \"I will do anything you wish.\"\n\n\"But I am very unreasonable in my wishes,\" said Gwendolen, smiling.\n\n\"Yes, I expect that. Women always are.\"\n\n\"Then I will not be unreasonable,\" said Gwendolen, taking away her hand\nand tossing her head saucily. \"I will not be told that I am what women\nalways are.\"\n\n\"I did not say that,\" said Grandcourt, looking at her with his usual\ngravity. \"You are what no other woman is.\"\n\n\"And what is that, pray?\" said Gwendolen, moving to a distance with a\nlittle air of menace.\n\nGrandcourt made his pause before he answered. \"You are the woman I\nlove.\"\n\n\"Oh, what nice speeches!\" said Gwendolen, laughing. The sense of that\nlove which he must once have given to another woman under strange\ncircumstances was getting familiar.\n\n\"Give me a nice speech in return. Say when we are to be married.\"\n\n\"Not yet. Not till we have had a gallop over the downs. I am so thirsty\nfor that, I can think of nothing else. I wish the hunting had begun.\nSunday the twentieth, twenty-seventh, Monday, Tuesday.\" Gwendolen was\ncounting on her fingers with the prettiest nod while she looked at\nGrandcourt, and at last swept one palm over the other while she said\ntriumphantly, \"It will begin in ten days!\"\n\n\"Let us be married in ten days, then,\" said Grandcourt, \"and we shall\nnot be bored about the stables.\"\n\n\"What do women always say in answer to that?\" said Gwendolen,\nmischievously.\n\n\"They agree to it,\" said the lover, rather off his guard.\n\n\"Then I will not!\" said Gwendolen, taking up her gauntlets and putting\nthem on, while she kept her eyes on him with gathering fun in them.\n\nThe scene was pleasant on both sides. A cruder lover would have lost\nthe view of her pretty ways and attitudes, and spoiled all by stupid\nattempts at caresses, utterly destructive of drama. Grandcourt\npreferred the drama; and Gwendolen, left at ease, found her spirits\nrising continually as she played at reigning. Perhaps if Klesmer had\nseen more of her in this unconscious kind of acting, instead of when\nshe was trying to be theatrical, he might have rated her chance higher.\n\nWhen they had had a glorious gallop, however, she was in a state of\nexhilaration that disposed her to think well of hastening the marriage\nwhich would make her life all of apiece with this splendid kind of\nenjoyment. She would not debate any more about an act to which she had\ncommitted herself; and she consented to fix the wedding on that day\nthree weeks, notwithstanding the difficulty of fulfilling the customary\nlaws of the _trousseau_.\n\nLush, of course, was made aware of the engagement by abundant signs,\nwithout being formally told. But he expected some communication as a\nconsequence of it, and after a few days he became rather impatient\nunder Grandcourt's silence, feeling sure that the change would affect\nhis personal prospects, and wishing to know exactly how. His tactics no\nlonger included any opposition--which he did not love for its own sake.\nHe might easily cause Grandcourt a great deal of annoyance, but it\nwould be to his own injury, and to create annoyance was not a motive\nwith him. Miss Gwendolen he would certainly not have been sorry to\nfrustrate a little, but--after all there was no knowing what would\ncome. It was nothing new that Grandcourt should show a perverse\nwilfulness; yet in his freak about this girl he struck Lush rather\nnewly as something like a man who was _fey_--led on by an ominous\nfatality; and that one born to his fortune should make a worse business\nof his life than was necessary, seemed really pitiable. Having\nprotested against the marriage, Lush had a second-sight for its evil\nconsequences. Grandcourt had been taking the pains to write letters and\ngive orders himself instead of employing Lush, and appeared to be\nignoring his usefulness, even choosing, against the habit of years, to\nbreakfast alone in his dressing-room. But a _tete-à-tete_ was not to be\navoided in a house empty of guests; and Lush hastened to use an\nopportunity of saying--it was one day after dinner, for there were\ndifficulties in Grandcourt's dining at Offendene--\n\n\"And when is the marriage to take place?\"\n\nGrandcourt, who drank little wine, had left the table and was lounging,\nwhile he smoked, in an easy chair near the hearth, where a fire of oak\nboughs was gaping to its glowing depths, and edging them with a\ndelicate tint of ashes delightful to behold. The chair of red-brown\nvelvet brocade was a becoming back-ground for his pale-tinted, well-cut\nfeatures and exquisite long hands. Omitting the cigar, you might have\nimagined him a portrait by Moroni, who would have rendered wonderfully\nthe impenetrable gaze and air of distinction; and a portrait by that\ngreat master would have been quite as lively a companion as Grandcourt\nwas disposed to be. But he answered without unusual delay.\n\n\"On the tenth.\"\n\n\"I suppose you intend to remain here.\"\n\n\"We shall go to Ryelands for a little while; but we shall return here\nfor the sake of the hunting.\"\n\nAfter this word there was the languid inarticulate sound frequent with\nGrandcourt when he meant to continue speaking, and Lush waited for\nsomething more. Nothing came, and he was going to put another question,\nwhen the inarticulate sound began again and introduced the mildly\nuttered suggestion--\n\n\"You had better make some new arrangement for yourself.\"\n\n\"What! I am to cut and run?\" said Lush, prepared to be good-tempered on\nthe occasion.\n\n\"Something of that kind.\"\n\n\"The bride objects to me. I hope she will make up to you for the want\nof my services.\"\n\n\"I can't help your being so damnably disagreeable to women,\" said\nGrandcourt, in soothing apology.\n\n\"To one woman, if you please.\"\n\n\"It makes no difference since she is the one in question.\"\n\n\"I suppose I am not to be turned adrift after fifteen years without\nsome provision.\"\n\n\"You must have saved something out of me.\"\n\n\"Deuced little. I have often saved something for you.\"\n\n\"You can have three hundred a year. But you must live in town and be\nready to look after things when I want you. I shall be rather hard up.\"\n\n\"If you are not going to be at Ryelands this winter, I might run down\nthere and let you know how Swinton goes on.\"\n\n\"If you like. I don't care a toss where you are, so that you keep out\nof sight.\"\n\n\"Much obliged,\" said Lush, able to take the affair more easily than he\nhad expected. He was supported by the secret belief that he should\nby-and-by be wanted as much as ever.\n\n\"Perhaps you will not object to packing up as soon as possible,\" said\nGrandcourt. \"The Torringtons are coming, and Miss Harleth will be\nriding over here.\"\n\n\"With all my heart. Can't I be of use in going to Gadsmere.\"\n\n\"No. I am going myself.\"\n\n\"About your being rather hard up. Have you thought of that plan--\"\n\n\"Just leave me alone, will you?\" said Grandcourt, in his lowest audible\ntone, tossing his cigar into the fire, and rising to walk away.\n\nHe spent the evening in the solitude of the smaller drawing-room,\nwhere, with various new publications on the table of the kind a\ngentleman may like to have on hand without touching, he employed\nhimself (as a philosopher might have done) in sitting meditatively on\nthe sofa and abstaining from literature--political, comic, cynical, or\nromantic. In this way hours may pass surprisingly soon, without the\narduous invisible chase of philosophy; not from love of thought, but\nfrom hatred of effort--from a state of the inward world, something like\npremature age, where the need for action lapses into a mere image of\nwhat has been, is, and may or might be; where impulse is born and dies\nin a phantasmal world, pausing in rejection of even a shadowy\nfulfillment. That is a condition which often comes with whitening hair;\nand sometimes, too, an intense obstinacy and tenacity of rule, like the\nmain trunk of an exorbitant egoism, conspicuous in proportion as the\nvaried susceptibilities of younger years are stripped away.\n\nBut Grandcourt's hair, though he had not much of it, was of a fine,\nsunny blonde, and his moods were not entirely to be explained as ebbing\nenergy. We mortals have a strange spiritual chemistry going on within\nus, so that a lazy stagnation or even a cottony milkiness may be\npreparing one knows not what biting or explosive material. The navvy\nwaking from sleep and without malice heaving a stone to crush the life\nout of his still sleeping comrade, is understood to lack the trained\nmotive which makes a character fairly calculable in its actions; but by\na roundabout course even a gentleman may make of himself a chancy\npersonage, raising an uncertainty as to what he may do next, that sadly\nspoils companionship.\n\nGrandcourt's thoughts this evening were like the circlets one sees in a\ndark pool, continually dying out and continually started again by some\nimpulse from below the surface. The deeper central impulse came from\nthe image of Gwendolen; but the thoughts it stirred would be\nimperfectly illustrated by a reference to the amatory poets of all\nages. It was characteristic that he got none of his satisfaction from\nthe belief that Gwendolen was in love with him; and that love had\novercome the jealous resentment which had made her run away from him.\nOn the contrary, he believed that this girl was rather exceptional in\nthe fact that, in spite of his assiduous attention to her, she was not\nin love with him; and it seemed to him very likely that if it had not\nbeen for the sudden poverty which had come over her family, she would\nnot have accepted him. From the very first there had been an\nexasperating fascination in the tricksiness with which she had--not met\nhis advances, but--wheeled away from them. She had been brought to\naccept him in spite of everything--brought to kneel down like a horse\nunder training for the arena, though she might have an objection to it\nall the while. On the whole, Grandcourt got more pleasure out of this\nnotion than he could have done out of winning a girl of whom he was\nsure that she had a strong inclination for him personally. And yet this\npleasure in mastering reluctance flourished along with the habitual\npersuasion that no woman whom he favored could be quite indifferent to\nhis personal influence; and it seemed to him not unlikely that\nby-and-by Gwendolen might be more enamored of him than he of her. In\nany case, she would have to submit; and he enjoyed thinking of her as\nhis future wife, whose pride and spirit were suited to command every\none but himself. He had no taste for a woman who was all tenderness to\nhim, full of petitioning solicitude and willing obedience. He meant to\nbe master of a woman who would have liked to master him, and who\nperhaps would have been capable of mastering another man.\n\nLush, having failed in his attempted reminder to Grandcourt, thought it\nwell to communicate with Sir Hugo, in whom, as a man having perhaps\ninterest enough to command the bestowal of some place where the work\nwas light, gentlemanly, and not ill-paid, he was anxious to cultivate a\nsense of friendly obligation, not feeling at all secure against the\nfuture need of such a place. He wrote the following letter, and\naddressed it to Park Lane, whither he knew the family had returned from\nLeubronn:--\n\n    MY DEAR SIR HUGO--Since we came home the marriage has been absolutely\n    decided on, and is to take place in less than three weeks. It is so\n    far the worse for him that her mother has lately lost all her fortune,\n    and he will have to find supplies. Grandcourt, I know, is feeling the\n    want of cash; and unless some other plan is resorted to, he will be\n    raising money in a foolish way. I am going to leave Diplow\n    immediately, and I shall not be able to start the topic. What I should\n    advise is, that Mr. Deronda, who I know has your confidence, should\n    propose to come and pay a short visit here, according to invitation\n    (there are going to be other people in the house), and that you should\n    put him fully in possession of your wishes and the possible extent of\n    your offer. Then, that he should introduce the subject to Grandcourt\n    so as not to imply that you suspect any particular want of money on\n    his part, but only that there is a strong wish on yours, What I have\n    formerly said to him has been in the way of a conjecture that you\n    might be willing to give a good sum for his chance of Diplow; but if\n    Mr. Deronda came armed with a definite offer, that would take another\n    sort of hold. Ten to one he will not close for some time to come; but\n    the proposal will have got a stronger lodgment in his mind; and though\n    at present he has a great notion of the hunting here, I see a\n    likelihood, under the circumstances, that he will get a distaste for\n    the neighborhood, and there will be the notion of the money sticking\n    by him without being urged. I would bet on your ultimate success. As I\n    am not to be exiled to Siberia, but am to be within call, it is\n    possible that, by and by, I may be of more service to you. But at\n    present I can think of no medium so good as Mr. Deronda. Nothing puts\n    Grandcourt in worse humor than having the lawyers thrust their paper\n    under his nose uninvited.\n\n    Trusting that your visit to Leubronn has put you in excellent\n    condition  for the winter, I remain, my dear Sir Hugo,\n\n    Yours very faithfully,\n\n    THOMAS CRANMER LUSH.\n\nSir Hugo, having received this letter at breakfast, handed it to\nDeronda, who, though he had chambers in town, was somehow hardly ever\nin them, Sir Hugo not being contented without him. The chatty baronet\nwould have liked a young companion even if there had been no peculiar\nreasons for attachment between them: one with a fine harmonious\nunspoiled face fitted to keep up a cheerful view of posterity and\ninheritance generally, notwithstanding particular disappointments; and\nhis affection for Deronda was not diminished by the deep-lying though\nnot obtrusive difference in their notions and tastes. Perhaps it was\nall the stronger; acting as the same sort of difference does between a\nman and a woman in giving a piquancy to the attachment which subsists\nin spite of it. Sir Hugo did not think unapprovingly of himself; but he\nlooked at men and society from a liberal-menagerie point of view, and\nhe had a certain pride in Deronda's differing from him, which, if it\nhad found voice, might have said--\"You see this fine young fellow--not\nsuch as you see every day, is he?--he belongs to me in a sort of way. I\nbrought him up from a child; but you would not ticket him off easily,\nhe has notions of his own, and he's as far as the poles asunder from\nwhat I was at his age.\" This state of feeling was kept up by the mental\nbalance in Deronda, who was moved by an affectionateness such as we are\napt to call feminine, disposing him to yield in ordinary details, while\nhe had a certain inflexibility of judgment, and independence of\nopinion, held to be rightfully masculine.\n\nWhen he had read the letter, he returned it without speaking, inwardly\nwincing under Lush's mode of attributing a neutral usefulness to him in\nthe family affairs.\n\n\"What do you say, Dan? It would be pleasant enough for you. You have\nnot seen the place for a good many years now, and you might have a\nfamous run with the harriers if you went down next week,\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"I should not go on that account,\" said Deronda, buttering his bread\nattentively. He had an objection to this transparent kind of\npersuasiveness, which all intelligent animals are seen to treat with\nindifference. If he went to Diplow he should be doing something\ndisagreeable to oblige Sir Hugo.\n\n\"I think Lush's notion is a good one. And it would be a pity to lose\nthe occasion.\"\n\n\"That is a different matter--if you think my going of importance to\nyour object,\" said Deronda, still with that aloofness of manner which\nimplied some suppression. He knew that the baronet had set his heart on\nthe affair.\n\n\"Why, you will see the fair gambler, the Leubronn Diana, I shouldn't\nwonder,\" said Sir Hugo, gaily. \"We shall have to invite her to the\nAbbey, when they are married,\" he added, turning to Lady Mallinger, as\nif she too had read the letter.\n\n\"I cannot conceive whom you mean,\" said Lady Mallinger, who in fact had\nnot been listening, her mind having been taken up with her first sips\nof coffee, the objectionable cuff of her sleeve, and the necessity of\ncarrying Theresa to the dentist--innocent and partly laudable\npreoccupations, as the gentle lady's usually were. Should her\nappearance be inquired after, let it be said that she had reddish\nblonde hair (the hair of the period), a small Roman nose, rather\nprominent blue eyes and delicate eyelids, with a figure which her\nthinner friends called fat, her hands showing curves and dimples like a\nmagnified baby's.\n\n\"I mean that Grandcourt is going to marry the girl you saw at\nLeubronn--don't you remember her--the Miss Harleth who used to play at\nroulette.\"\n\n\"Dear me! Is that a good match for him?\"\n\n\"That depends on the sort of goodness he wants,\" said Sir Hugo,\nsmiling. \"However, she and her friends have nothing, and she will bring\nhim expenses. It's a good match for my purposes, because if I am\nwilling to fork out a sum of money, he may be willing to give up his\nchance of Diplow, so that we shall have it out and out, and when I die\nyou will have the consolation of going to the place you would like to\ngo to--wherever I may go.\"\n\n\"I wish you would not talk of dying in that light way, dear.\"\n\n\"It's rather a heavy way, Lou, for I shall have to pay a heavy\nsum--forty thousand, at least.\"\n\n\"But why are we to invite them to the Abbey?\" said Lady Mallinger. \"I\ndo _not_ like women who gamble, like Lady Cragstone.\"\n\n\"Oh, you will not mind her for a week. Besides, she is not like Lady\nCragstone because she gambled a little, any more than I am like a\nbroker because I'm a Whig. I want to keep Grandcourt in good humor, and\nto let him see plenty of this place, that he may think the less of\nDiplow. I don't know yet whether I shall get him to meet me in this\nmatter. And if Dan were to go over on a visit there, he might hold out\nthe bait to him. It would be doing me a great service.\" This was meant\nfor Deronda.\n\n\"Daniel is not fond of Mr. Grandcourt, I think, is he?\" said Lady\nMallinger, looking at Deronda inquiringly.\n\n\"There is no avoiding everybody one doesn't happen to be fond of,\" said\nDeronda. \"I will go to Diplow--I don't know that I have anything better\nto do--since Sir Hugo wishes it.\"\n\n\"That's a trump!\" said Sir Hugo, well pleased. \"And if you don't find\nit very pleasant, it's so much experience. Nothing used to come amiss\nto me when I was young. You must see men and manners.\"\n\n\"Yes; but I have seen that man, and something of his manners too,\" said\nDeronda.\n\n\"Not nice manners, I think,\" said Lady Mallinger.\n\n\"Well, you see they succeed with your sex,\" said Sir Hugo, provokingly.\n\"And he was an uncommonly good-looking fellow when he was two or three\nand twenty--like his father. He doesn't take after his father in\nmarrying the heiress, though. If he had got Miss Arrowpoint and my land\ntoo, confound him, he would have had a fine principality.\"\n\nDeronda, in anticipating the projected visit, felt less disinclination\nthan when consenting to it. The story of that girl's marriage did\ninterest him: what he had heard through Lush of her having run away\nfrom the suit of the man she was now going to take as a husband, had\nthrown a new sort of light on her gambling; and it was probably the\ntransition from that fevered worldliness into poverty which had urged\nher acceptance where she must in some way have felt repulsion. All this\nimplied a nature liable to difficulty and struggle--elements of life\nwhich had a predominant attraction for his sympathy, due perhaps to his\nearly pain in dwelling on the conjectured story of his own existence.\nPersons attracted him, as Hans Meyrick had done, in proportion to the\npossibility of his defending them, rescuing them, telling upon their\nlives with some sort of redeeming influence; and he had to resist an\ninclination, easily accounted for, to withdraw coldly from the\nfortunate. But in the movement which had led him to repurchase\nGwendolen's necklace for her, and which was at work in him still, there\nwas something beyond his habitual compassionate fervor--something due\nto the fascination of her womanhood. He was very open to that sort of\ncharm, and mingled it with the consciously Utopian pictures of his own\nfuture; yet any one able to trace the folds of his character might have\nconceived that he would be more likely than many less passionate men to\nlove a woman without telling her of it. Sprinkle food before a\ndelicate-eared bird: there is nothing he would more willingly take, yet\nhe keeps aloof, because of his sensibility to checks which to you are\nimperceptible. And one man differs from another, as we all differ from\nthe Bosjesman, in a sensibility to checks, that come from variety of\nneeds, spiritual or other. It seemed to foreshadow that capability of\nreticence in Deronda that his imagination was much occupied with two\nwomen, to neither of whom would he have held it possible that he should\never make love. Hans Meyrick had laughed at him for having something of\nthe knight-errant in his disposition; and he would have found his proof\nif he had known what was just now going on in Deronda's mind about\nMirah and Gwendolen.\n\nDeronda wrote without delay to announce his visit to Diplow, and\nreceived in reply a polite assurance that his coming would give great\npleasure. That was not altogether untrue. Grandcourt thought it\nprobable that the visit was prompted by Sir Hugo's desire to court him\nfor a purpose which he did not make up his mind to resist; and it was\nnot a disagreeable idea to him that this fine fellow, whom he believed\nto be his cousin under the rose, would witness, perhaps with some\njealousy, Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt play the commanding part of\nbetrothed lover to a splendid girl whom the cousin had already looked\nat with admiration.\n\nGrandcourt himself was not jealous of anything unless it threatened his\nmastery--which he did not think himself likely to lose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX.\n\n  \"Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice,\n     him or her I shall follow.\n  As the water follows the moon, silently,\n     with fluid steps anywhere around the globe.\"\n                                    --WALT WHITMAN.\n\n\n\"Now my cousins are at Diplow,\" said Grandcourt, \"will you go\nthere?--to-morrow? The carriage shall come for Mrs. Davilow. You can\ntell me what you would like done in the rooms. Things must be put in\ndecent order while we are away at Ryelands. And to-morrow is the only\nday.\"\n\nHe was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at Offendene, one\nhand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between\nhis crossed knees--in the attitude of a man who is much interested in\nwatching the person next to him. Gwendolen, who had always disliked\nneedlework, had taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement,\nand now held a piece of white embroidery which, on examination, would\nhave shown many false stitches. During the last eight or nine days\ntheir hours had been chiefly spent on horseback, but some margin had\nalways been left for this more difficult sort of companionship, which,\nhowever, Gwendolen had not found disagreeable. She was very well\nsatisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to her lively questions about\nwhat he had seen and done in his life, bore drawling very well. From\nthe first she had noticed that he knew what to say; and she was\nconstantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the fool in his\ncomposition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to her the\nimpression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what he\ndid not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the\nbest, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt's behavior\nas a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage\nwhich was inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its\neffects in a gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her\ncheek but her neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by\nsurprise, had started up with a marked agitation which made him rise\ntoo and say, \"I beg your pardon--did I annoy you?\" \"Oh, it was\nnothing,\" said Gwendolen, rather afraid of herself, \"only I cannot\nbear--to be kissed under my ear.\" She sat down again with a little\nplayful laugh, but all the while she felt her heart beating with a\nvague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him as she had\nflouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and he had\nbeen contented not to transgress again.\n\nTo-day a slight rain hindered riding; but to compensate, a package had\ncome from London, and Mrs. Davilow had just left the room after\nbringing in for admiration the beautiful things (of Grandcourt's\nordering) which lay scattered about on the tables. Gwendolen was just\nthen enjoying the scenery of her life. She let her hands fall on her\nlap, and said with a pretty air of perversity--\n\n\"Why is to-morrow the only day?\"\n\n\"Because the next day is the first with the hounds,\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"And after that?\"\n\n\"After that I must go away for a couple of days--it's a bore--but I\nshall go one day and come back the next.\" Grandcourt noticed a change\nin her face, and releasing his hand from under his knees, he laid it on\nhers, and said, \"You object to my going away?\"\n\n\"It's no use objecting,\" said Gwendolen, coldly. She was resisting to\nthe utmost her temptation to tell him that she suspected to whom he was\ngoing--the temptation to make a clean breast, speaking without\nrestraint.\n\n\"Yes it is,\" said Grandcourt, enfolding her hand. \"I will put off\ngoing. And I will travel at night, so as only to be away one day.\" He\nthought that he knew the reason of what he inwardly called this bit of\ntemper, and she was particularly fascinating to him at this moment.\n\n\"Then don't put off going, but travel at night,\" said Gwendolen,\nfeeling that she could command him, and finding in this peremptoriness\na small outlet for her irritation.\n\n\"Then you will go to Diplow to-morrow?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, if you wish it,\" said Gwendolen, in a high tone of careless\nassent. Her concentration in other feelings had really hindered her\nfrom taking notice that her hand was being held.\n\n\"How you treat us poor devils of men!\" said Grandcourt, lowering his\ntone. \"We are always getting the worst of it.\"\n\n\"_Are_ you?\" said Gwendolen, in a tone of inquiry, looking at him more\nnaïvely than usual. She longed to believe this commonplace _badinage_\nas the serious truth about her lover: in that case, she too was\njustified. If she knew everything, Mrs. Glasher would appear more\nblamable than Grandcourt. \"_Are_ you always getting the worst?\"\n\n\"Yes. Are you as kind to me as I am to you?\" said Grandcourt, looking\ninto her eyes with his narrow gaze.\n\nGwendolen felt herself stricken. She was conscious of having received\nso much, that her sense of command was checked, and sank away in the\nperception that, look around her as she might, she could not turn back:\nit was as if she had consented to mount a chariot where another held\nthe reins; and it was not in her nature to leap out in the eyes of the\nworld. She had not consented in ignorance, and all she could say now\nwould be a confession that she had not been ignorant. Her right to\nexplanation was gone. All she had to do now was to adjust herself, so\nthat the spikes of that unwilling penance which conscience imposed\nshould not gall her. With a sort of mental shiver, she resolutely\nchanged her mental attitude. There had been a little pause, during\nwhich she had not turned away her eyes; and with a sudden break into a\nsmile, she said--\n\n\"If I were as kind to you as you are to me, that would spoil your\ngenerosity: it would no longer be as great as it could be--and it is\nthat now.\"\n\n\"Then I am not to ask for one kiss,\" said Grandcourt, contented to pay\na large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced\nmarriage by the finest contrast.\n\n\"Not one?\" said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly.\n\nHe lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it\nrespectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not\ndisgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it\nwas not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this\none. His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness.\n\n\"Apropos,\" she said, taking up her work again, \"is there any one\nbesides Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?--or do you leave them\n_tete-à-tete_? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with\nher chignon.\"\n\n\"She has a sister with her,\" said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a\nsmile, \"and there are two men besides--one of them you know, I believe.\"\n\n\"Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him,\" said Gwendolen, shaking her\nhead.\n\n\"You saw him at Leubronn--young Deronda--a young fellow with the\nMallingers.\"\n\nGwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her\nfingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work, got cold.\n\n\"I never spoke to him,\" she said, dreading any discernible change in\nherself. \"Is he not disagreeable?\"\n\n\"No, not particularly,\" said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. \"He\nthinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced\nto you.\"\n\n\"No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away. That was\nall. What is he?\"\n\n\"A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger's. Nothing of any consequence.\"\n\n\"Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!\" said Gwendolen,\nspeaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. \"I wonder if it has\nleft off raining!\" she added, rising and going to look out of the\nwindow.\n\nHappily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on\nCriterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her\nmother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in\nher riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked\nas well as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting\nwhich seems formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a\nsuperstitious dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised\nover her thought--lest the first interference of his in her life might\nforeshadow some future influence. It is of such stuff that\nsuperstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourselves\nwhich makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the\nblessing of a beggar encourage us. And superstitions carry consequences\nwhich often verify their hope or their foreboding.\n\nThe time before luncheon was taken up for Gwendolen by going over the\nrooms with Mrs. Torrington and Mrs. Davilow; and she thought it likely\nthat if she saw Deronda, there would hardly be need for more than a bow\nbetween them. She meant to notice him as little as possible.\n\nAnd after all she found herself under an inward compulsion too strong\nfor her pride. From the first moment of their being in the room\ntogether, she seemed to herself to be doing nothing but notice him;\neverything else was automatic performance of an habitual part.\n\nWhen he took his place at lunch, Grandcourt had said, \"Deronda, Miss\nHarleth tells me you were not introduced to her at Leubronn?\"\n\n\"Miss Harleth hardly remembers me, I imagine,\" said Deronda, looking at\nher quite simply, as they bowed. \"She was intensely occupied when I saw\nher.\"\n\nNow, did he suppose that she had not suspected him of being the person\nwho redeemed her necklace?\n\n\"On the contrary. I remember you very well,\" said Gwendolen, feeling\nrather nervous, but governing herself and looking at him in return with\nnew examination. \"You did not approve of my playing at roulette.\"\n\n\"How did you come to that conclusion?\" said Deronda, gravely.\n\n\"Oh, you cast an evil eye on my play,\" said Gwendolen, with a turn of\nher head and a smile. \"I began to lose as soon as you came to look on.\nI had always been winning till then.\"\n\n\"Roulette in such a kennel as Leubronn is a horrid bore,\" said\nGrandcourt.\n\n\"_I_ found it a bore when I began to lose,\" said Gwendolen. Her face\nwas turned toward Grandcourt as she smiled and spoke, but she gave a\nsidelong glance at Deronda, and saw his eyes fixed on her with a look\nso gravely penetrating that it had a keener edge for her than his\nironical smile at her losses--a keener edge than Klesmer's judgment.\nShe wheeled her neck round as if she wanted to listen to what was being\nsaid by the rest, while she was only thinking of Deronda. His face had\nthat disturbing kind of form and expression which threatens to affect\nopinion--as if one's standard was somehow wrong. (Who has not seen men\nwith faces of this corrective power till they frustrated it by speech\nor action?) His voice, heard now for the first time, was to\nGrandcourt's toneless drawl, which had been in her ears every day, as\nthe deep notes of a violoncello to the broken discourse of poultry and\nother lazy gentry in the afternoon sunshine. Grandcourt, she inwardly\nconjectured, was perhaps right in saying that Deronda thought too much\nof himself:--a favorite way of explaining a superiority that\nhumiliates. However the talk turned on the rinderpest and Jamaica, and\nno more was said about roulette. Grandcourt held that the Jamaica negro\nwas a beastly sort of baptist Caliban; Deronda said he had always felt\na little with Caliban, who naturally had his own point of view and\ncould sing a good song; Mrs. Davilow observed that her father had an\nestate in Barbadoes, but that she herself had never been in the West\nIndies; Mrs. Torrington was sure she should never sleep in her bed if\nshe lived among blacks; her husband corrected her by saying that the\nblacks would be manageable enough if it were not for the half-breeds;\nand Deronda remarked that the whites had to thank themselves for the\nhalf-breeds.\n\nWhile this polite pea-shooting was going on, Gwendolen trifled with her\njelly, and looked at every speaker in turn that she might feel at ease\nin looking at Deronda.\n\n\"I wonder what he thinks of me, really? He must have felt interested in\nme, else he would not have sent me my necklace. I wonder what he thinks\nof my marriage? What notions has he to make him so grave about things?\nWhy is he come to Diplow?\"\n\nThese questions ran in her mind as the voice of an uneasy longing to be\njudged by Deronda with unmixed admiration--a longing which had had its\nseed in her first resentment at his critical glance. Why did she care\nso much about the opinion of this man who was \"nothing of any\nconsequence\"? She had no time to find the reason--she was too much\nengaged in caring. In the drawing-room, when something had called\nGrandcourt away, she went quite unpremeditatedly up to Deronda, who was\nstanding at a table apart, turning over some prints, and said to him--\n\n\"Shall you hunt to-morrow, Mr. Deronda?\"\n\n\"Yes, I believe so.\"\n\n\"You don't object to hunting, then?\"\n\n\"I find excuses for it. It is a sin I am inclined to--when I can't get\nboating or cricketing.\"\n\n\"Do you object to my hunting?\" said Gwendolen, with a saucy movement of\nthe chin.\n\n\"I have no right to object to anything you choose to do.\"\n\n\"You thought you had a right to object to my gambling,\" persisted\nGwendolen.\n\n\"I was sorry for it. I am not aware that I told you of my objection,\"\nsaid Deronda, with his usual directness of gaze--a large-eyed gravity,\ninnocent of any intention. His eyes had a peculiarity which has drawn\nmany men into trouble; they were of a dark yet mild intensity which\nseemed to express a special interest in every one on whom he fixed\nthem, and might easily help to bring on him those claims which ardently\nsympathetic people are often creating in the minds of those who need\nhelp. In mendicant fashion we make the goodness of others a reason for\nexorbitant demands on them. That sort of effect was penetrating\nGwendolen.\n\n\"You hindered me from gambling again,\" she answered. But she had no\nsooner spoken than she blushed over face and neck; and Deronda blushed,\ntoo, conscious that in the little affair of the necklace he had taken a\nquestionable freedom.\n\nIt was impossible to speak further; and she turned away to a window,\nfeeling that she had stupidly said what she had not meant to say, and\nyet being rather happy that she had plunged into this mutual\nunderstanding. Deronda also did not like it. Gwendolen seemed more\ndecidedly attractive than before; and certainly there had been changes\ngoing on within her since that time at Leubronn: the struggle of mind\nattending a conscious error had wakened something like a new soul,\nwhich had better, but also worse, possibilities than her former poise\nof crude self-confidence: among the forces she had come to dread was\nsomething within her that troubled satisfaction.\n\nThat evening Mrs. Davilow said, \"Was it really so, or only a joke of\nyours, about Mr. Deronda's spoiling your play, Gwen?\"\n\nHer curiosity had been excited, and she could venture to ask a question\nthat did not concern Mr. Grandcourt.\n\n\"Oh, it merely happened that he was looking on when I began to lose,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, carelessly. \"I noticed him.\"\n\n\"I don't wonder at that: he is a striking young man. He puts me in mind\nof Italian paintings. One would guess, without being told, that there\nwas foreign blood in his veins.\"\n\n\"Is there?\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Mrs. Torrington says so. I asked particularly who he was, and she told\nme that his mother was some foreigner of high rank.\"\n\n\"His mother?\" said Gwendolen, rather sharply. \"Then who was his father?\"\n\n\"Well--every one says he is the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger, who brought\nhim up; though he passes for a ward. She says, if Sir Hugo Mallinger\ncould have done as he liked with his estates, he would have left them\nto this Mr. Deronda, since he has no legitimate son.\"\n\nGwendolen was silent; but her mother observed so marked an effect in\nher face that she was angry with herself for having repeated Mrs.\nTorrington's gossip. It seemed, on reflection, unsuited to the ear of\nher daughter, for whom Mrs. Davilow disliked what is called knowledge\nof the world; and indeed she wished that she herself had not had any of\nit thrust upon her.\n\nAn image which had immediately arisen in Gwendolen's mind was that of\nthe unknown mother--no doubt a dark-eyed woman--probably sad. Hardly\nany face could be less like Deronda's than that represented as Sir\nHugo's in a crayon portrait at Diplow. A dark-eyed woman, no longer\nyoung, had become \"stuff o' the conscience\" to Gwendolen.\n\nThat night when she had got into her little bed, and only a dim light\nwas burning, she said--\n\n\"Mamma, have men generally children before they are married?\"\n\n\"No, dear, no,\" said Mrs. Davilow. \"Why do you ask such a question?\"\n(But she began to think that she saw the why.)\n\n\"If it were so, I ought to know,\" said Gwendolen, with some indignation.\n\n\"You are thinking of what I said about Mr. Deronda and Sir Hugo\nMallinger. That is a very unusual case, dear.\"\n\n\"Does Lady Mallinger know?\"\n\n\"She knows enough to satisfy her. That is quite clear, because Mr.\nDeronda has lived with them.\"\n\n\"And people think no worse of him?\"\n\n\"Well, of course he is under some disadvantage: it is not as if he were\nLady Mallinger's son. He does not inherit the property, and he is not\nof any consequence in the world. But people are not obliged to know\nanything about his birth; you see, he is very well received.\"\n\n\"I wonder whether he knows about it; and whether he is angry with his\nfather?\"\n\n\"My dear child, why should you think of that?\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Gwendolen, impetuously, sitting up in her bed. \"Haven't\nchildren reason to be angry with their parents? How can they help their\nparents marrying or not marrying?\"\n\nBut a consciousness rushed upon her, which made her fall back again on\nher pillow. It was not only what she would have felt months\nbefore--that she might seem to be reproaching her mother for that\nsecond marriage of hers; what she chiefly felt now was, that she had\nbeen led on to a condemnation which seemed to make her own marriage a\nforbidden thing.\n\nThere was no further talk, and till sleep came over her Gwendolen lay\nstruggling with the reasons against that marriage--reasons which\npressed upon her newly now that they were unexpectedly mirrored in the\nstory of a man whose slight relations with her had, by some hidden\naffinity, bitten themselves into the most permanent layers of feeling.\nIt was characteristic that, with all her debating, she was never\ntroubled by the question whether the indefensibleness of her marriage\ndid not include the fact that she had accepted Grandcourt solely as a\nman whom it was convenient for her to marry, not in the least as one to\nwhom she would be binding herself in duty. Gwendolen's ideas were\npitiably crude; but many grand difficulties of life are apt to force\nthemselves on us in our crudity. And to judge wisely, I suppose we must\nknow how things appear to the unwise; that kind of appearance making\nthe larger part of the world's history.\n\nIn the morning there was a double excitement for her. She was going to\nhunt, from which scruples about propriety had threatened to hinder her,\nuntil it was found that Mrs. Torrington was horsewoman enough to\naccompany her--going to hunt for the first time since her escapade with\nRex; and she was going again to see Deronda, in whom, since last night,\nher interest had so gathered that she expected, as people do about\nrevealed celebrities, to see something in his appearance which she had\nmissed before.\n\nWhat was he going to be? What sort of life had he before him--he being\nnothing of any consequence? And with only a little difference in events\nhe might have been as important as Grandcourt, nay--her imagination\ninevitably went into that direction--might have held the very estates\nwhich Grandcourt was to have. But now, Deronda would probably some day\nsee her mistress of the Abbey at Topping, see her bearing the title\nwhich would have been his own wife's. These obvious, futile thoughts of\nwhat might have been, made a new epoch for Gwendolen. She, whose\nunquestionable habit it had been to take the best that came to her for\nless than her own claim, had now to see the position which tempted her\nin a new light, as a hard, unfair exclusion of others. What she had now\nheard about Deronda seemed to her imagination to throw him into one\ngroup with Mrs. Glasher and her children; before whom she felt herself\nin an attitude of apology--she who had hitherto been surrounded by a\ngroup that in her opinion had need be apologetic to her. Perhaps\nDeronda himself was thinking of these things. Could he know of Mrs.\nGlasher? If he knew that she knew, he would despise her; but he could\nhave no such knowledge. Would he, without that, despise her for\nmarrying Grandcourt? His possible judgment of her actions was telling\non her as importunately as Klesmer's judgment of her powers; but she\nfound larger room for resistance to a disapproval of her marriage,\nbecause it is easier to make our conduct seem justifiable to ourselves\nthan to make our ability strike others. \"How can I help it?\" is not our\nfavorite apology for incompetency. But Gwendolen felt some strength in\nsaying--\n\n\"How can I help what other people have done? Things would not come\nright if I were to turn round now and declare that I would not marry\nMr. Grandcourt.\" And such turning round was out of the question. The\nhorses in the chariot she had mounted were going at full speed.\n\nThis mood of youthful, elated desperation had a tidal recurrence. She\ncould dare anything that lay before her sooner than she could choose to\ngo backward, into humiliation; and it was even soothing to think that\nthere would now be as much ill-doing in the one as in the other. But\nthe immediate delightful fact was the hunt, where she would see\nDeronda, and where he would see her; for always lurking ready to\nobtrude before other thoughts about him was the impression that he was\nvery much interested in her. But to-day she was resolved not to repeat\nher folly of yesterday, as if she were anxious to say anything to him.\nIndeed, the hunt would be too absorbing.\n\nAnd so it was for a long while. Deronda was there, and within her sight\nvery often; but this only added to the stimulus of a pleasure which\nGwendolen had only once before tasted, and which seemed likely always\nto give a delight independent of any crosses, except such as took away\nthe chance of riding. No accident happened to throw them together; the\nrun took them within convenient reach of home, and the agreeable\nsombreness of the gray November afternoon, with a long stratum of\nyellow light in the west, Gwendolen was returning with the company from\nDiplow, who were attending her on the way to Offendene. Now the sense\nof glorious excitement was over and gone, she was getting irritably\ndisappointed that she had had no opportunity of speaking to Deronda,\nwhom she would not see again, since he was to go away in a couple of\ndays. What was she going to say? That was not quite certain. She wanted\nto speak to him. Grandcourt was by her side; Mrs. Torrington, her\nhusband, and another gentleman in advance; and Deronda's horse she\ncould hear behind. The wish to speak to him and have him speaking to\nher was becoming imperious; and there was no chance of it unless she\nsimply asserted her will and defied everything. Where the order of\nthings could give way to Miss Gwendolen, it must be made to do so. They\nhad lately emerged from a wood of pines and beeches, where the twilight\nstillness had a repressing effect, which increased her impatience. The\nhorse-hoofs again heard behind at some little distance were a growing\nirritation. She reined in her horse and looked behind her; Grandcourt\nafter a few paces, also paused; but she, waving her whip and nodding\nsideways with playful imperiousness, said, \"Go on! I want to speak to\nMr. Deronda.\"\n\nGrandcourt hesitated; but that he would have done after any\nproposition. It was an awkward situation for him. No gentleman, before\nmarriage; could give the emphasis of refusal to a command delivered in\nthis playful way. He rode on slowly, and she waited till Deronda came\nup. He looked at her with tacit inquiry, and she said at once, letting\nher horse go alongside of his--\n\n\"Mr. Deronda, you must enlighten my ignorance. I want to know why you\nthought it wrong for me to gamble. Is it because I am a woman?\"\n\n\"Not altogether; but I regretted it the more because you were a woman,\"\nsaid Deronda, with an irrepressible smile. Apparently it must be\nunderstood between them now that it was he who sent the necklace. \"I\nthink it would be better for men not to gamble. It is a besotting kind\nof taste, likely to turn into a disease. And, besides, there is\nsomething revolting to me in raking a heap of money together, and\ninternally chuckling over it, when others are feeling the loss of it. I\nshould even call it base, if it were more than an exceptional lapse.\nThere are enough inevitable turns of fortune which force us to see that\nour gain is another's loss:--that is one of the ugly aspects of life.\nOne would like to reduce it as much as one could, not get amusement out\nof exaggerating it.\" Deronda's voice had gathered some indignation\nwhile he was speaking.\n\n\"But you do admit that we can't help things,\" said Gwendolen, with a\ndrop in her tone. The answer had not been anything like what she had\nexpected. \"I mean that things are so in spite of us; we can't always\nhelp it that our gain is another's loss.\"\n\n\"Clearly. Because of that, we should help it where we can.\"\n\nGwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing\nherself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said--\n\n\"But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?\"\n\n\"Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are.\"\n\n\"But suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are,\" said\nGwendolen with a little air of \"check!\"\n\n\"That is rather a difficulty,\" said Deronda, smiling. \"I suppose I\nshould have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other\nto be good.\"\n\n\"You see, I needed you to be better than I was--and you thought so,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward\nand joined Grandcourt, who made no observation.\n\n\"Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?\" said\nGwendolen, whose own pride required her to account for her conduct.\n\n\"A--no,\" said Grandcourt, coldly.\n\n\"Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken--that you don't\nwish to hear what I had to say,\" said Gwendolen, playing at a pout.\n\n\"I wish to hear what you say to me--not to other men,\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he\nobjected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon.\"\n\n\"Yes--but excuse me the sermon.\" If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt\ncared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that\nshe was mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw\nhe was piqued, but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of\nspeaking again to Deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the\nrest toward Diplow, while her lover attended her to Offendene, where he\nwas to bid farewell before a whole day's absence on the unspecified\njourney. Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he\nwas going by train to Gadsmere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX.\n\n  No penitence and no confessional,\n  No priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit\n  Amid deep ashes of their vanished years.\n\n\nImagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone,\nand red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow\ndarkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an\nagreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the\nlow-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with\nspreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some\nScotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a\nrookery: on the other side a pool overhung with bushes, where the\nwater-fowl fluttered and screamed: all around, a vast meadow which\nmight be called a park, bordered by an old plantation and guarded by\nstone ledges which looked like little prisons. Outside the gate the\ncountry, once entirely rural and lovely, now black with coal mines, was\nchiefly peopled by men and brethren with candles stuck in their hats,\nand with a diabolic complexion which laid them peculiarly open to\nsuspicion in the eyes of the children at Gadsmere--Mrs. Glasher's four\nbeautiful children, who had dwelt there for about three years. Now, in\nNovember, when the flower-beds were empty, the trees leafless, and the\npool blackly shivering, one might have said that the place was sombrely\nin keeping with the black roads and black mounds which seemed to put\nthe district in mourning;--except when the children were playing on the\ngravel with the dogs for their companions. But Mrs. Glasher, under her\npresent circumstances, liked Gadsmere as well as she would have liked\nany other abode. The complete seclusion of the place, which the\nunattractiveness of the country secured, was exactly to her taste. When\nshe drove her two ponies with a waggonet full of children, there were\nno gentry in carriages to be met, only men of business in gigs; at\nchurch there were no eyes she cared to avoid, for the curate's wife and\nthe curate himself were either ignorant of anything to her\ndisadvantage, or ignored it: to them she was simply a widow lady, the\ntenant of Gadsmere; and the name of Grandcourt was of little interest\nin that district compared with the names of Fletcher and Gawcome, the\nlessees of the collieries.\n\nIt was full ten years since the elopement of an Irish officer's\nbeautiful wife with young Grandcourt, and a consequent duel where the\nbullets wounded the air only, had made some little noise. Most of those\nwho remembered the affair now wondered what had become of that Mrs.\nGlasher, whose beauty and brilliancy had made her rather conspicuous to\nthem in foreign places, where she was known to be living with young\nGrandcourt.\n\nThat he should have disentangled himself from that connection seemed\nonly natural and desirable. As to her, it was thought that a woman who\nwas understood to have forsaken her child along with her husband had\nprobably sunk lower. Grandcourt had of course got weary of her. He was\nmuch given to the pursuit of women: but a man in his position would by\nthis time desire to make a suitable marriage with the fair young\ndaughter of a noble house. No one talked of Mrs. Glasher now, any more\nthan they talked of the victim in a trial for manslaughter ten years\nbefore: she was a lost vessel after whom nobody would send out an\nexpedition of search; but Grandcourt was seen in harbor with his colors\nflying, registered as seaworthy as ever.\n\nYet, in fact, Grandcourt had never disentangled himself from Mrs.\nGlasher. His passion for her had been the strongest and most lasting he\nhad ever known; and though it was now as dead as the music of a cracked\nflute, it had left a certain dull disposedness, which, on the death of\nher husband three years before, had prompted in him a vacillating\nnotion of marrying her, in accordance with the understanding often\nexpressed between them during the days of his first ardor. At that\nearly time Grandcourt would willingly have paid for the freedom to be\nwon by a divorce; but the husband would not oblige him, not wanting to\nbe married again himself, and not wishing to have his domestic habits\nprinted in evidence.\n\nThe altered poise which the years had brought in Mrs. Glasher was just\nthe reverse. At first she was comparatively careless about the\npossibility of marriage. It was enough that she had escaped from a\ndisagreeable husband and found a sort of bliss with a lover who had\ncompletely fascinated her--young, handsome, amorous, and living in the\nbest style, with equipage and conversation of the kind to be expected\nin young men of fortune who have seen everything. She was an\nimpassioned, vivacious woman, fond of adoration, exasperated by five\nyears of marital rudeness; and the sense of release was so strong upon\nher that it stilled anxiety for more than she actually enjoyed. An\nequivocal position was of no importance to her then; she had no envy\nfor the honors of a dull, disregarded wife: the one spot which spoiled\nher vision of her new pleasant world, was the sense that she left her\nthree-year-old boy, who died two years afterward, and whose first tones\nsaying \"mamma\" retained a difference from those of the children that\ncame after. But now the years had brought many changes besides those in\nthe contour of her cheek and throat; and that Grandcourt should marry\nher had become her dominant desire. The equivocal position which she\nhad not minded about for herself was now telling upon her through her\nchildren, whom she loved with a devotion charged with the added passion\nof atonement. She had no repentance except in this direction. If\nGrandcourt married her, the children would be none the worse off for\nwhat had passed: they would see their mother in a dignified position,\nand they would be at no disadvantage with the world: her son could be\nmade his father's heir. It was the yearning for this result which gave\nthe supreme importance to Grandcourt's feeling for her; her love for\nhim had long resolved itself into anxiety that he should give her the\nunique, permanent claim of a wife, and she expected no other happiness\nin marriage than the satisfaction of her maternal love and\npride--including her pride for herself in the presence of her children.\nFor the sake of that result she was prepared even with a tragic\nfirmness to endure anything quietly in marriage; and she had acuteness\nenough to cherish Grandcourt's flickering purpose negatively, by not\nmolesting him with passionate appeals and with scene-making. In her, as\nin every one else who wanted anything of him, his incalculable turns,\nand his tendency to harden under beseeching, had created a reasonable\ndread:--a slow discovery, of which no presentiment had been given in\nthe bearing of a youthful lover with a fine line of face and the\nsoftest manners. But reticence had necessarily cost something to this\nimpassioned woman, and she was the bitterer for it. There is no\nquailing--even that forced on the helpless and injured--which has not\nan ugly obverse: the withheld sting was gathering venom. She was\nabsolutely dependent on Grandcourt; for though he had been always\nliberal in expenses for her, he had kept everything voluntary on his\npart; and with the goal of marriage before her, she would ask for\nnothing less. He had said that he would never settle anything except by\nwill; and when she was thinking of alternatives for the future it often\noccurred to her that, even if she did not become Grandcourt's wife, he\nmight never have a son who would have a legitimate claim on him, and\nthe end might be that her son would be made heir to the best part of\nhis estates. No son at that early age could promise to have more of his\nfather's physique. But her becoming Grandcourt's wife was so far from\nbeing an extravagant notion of possibility, that even Lush had\nentertained it, and had said that he would as soon bet on it as on any\nother likelihood with regard to his familiar companion. Lush, indeed,\non inferring that Grandcourt had a preconception of using his residence\nat Diplow in order to win Miss Arrowpoint, had thought it well to fan\nthat project, taking it as a tacit renunciation of the marriage with\nMrs. Glasher, which had long been a mark for the hovering and wheeling\nof Grandcourt's caprice. But both prospects had been negatived by\nGwendolen's appearance on the scene; and it was natural enough for Mrs.\nGlasher to enter with eagerness into Lush's plan of hindering that new\ndanger by setting up a barrier in the mind of the girl who was being\nsought as a bride. She entered into it with an eagerness which had\npassion in it as well as purpose, some of the stored-up venom\ndelivering itself in that way.\n\nAfter that, she had heard from Lush of Gwendolen's departure, and the\nprobability that all danger from her was got rid of; but there had been\nno letter to tell her that the danger had returned and had become a\ncertainty. She had since then written to Grandcourt, as she did\nhabitually, and he had been longer than usual in answering. She was\ninferring that he might intend coming to Gadsmere at the time when he\nwas actually on the way; and she was not without hope--what\nconstruction of another's mind is not strong wishing equal to?--that a\ncertain sickening from that frustrated courtship might dispose him to\nslip the more easily into the old track of intention.\n\nGrandcourt had two grave purposes in coming to Gadsmere: to convey the\nnews of his approaching marriage in person, in order to make this first\ndifficulty final; and to get from Lydia his mother's diamonds, which\nlong ago he had confided to her and wished her to wear. Her person\nsuited diamonds, and made them look as if they were worth some of the\nmoney given for them. These particular diamonds were not mountains of\nlight--they were mere peas and haricots for the ears, neck and hair;\nbut they were worth some thousands, and Grandcourt necessarily wished\nto have them for his wife. Formerly when he had asked Lydia to put them\ninto his keeping again, simply on the ground that they would be safer\nand ought to be deposited at the bank, she had quietly but absolutely\nrefused, declaring that they were quite safe; and at last had said, \"If\nyou ever marry another woman I will give them up to her: are you going\nto marry another woman?\" At that time Grandcourt had no motive which\nurged him to persist, and he had this grace in him, that the\ndisposition to exercise power either by cowing or disappointing others\nor exciting in them a rage which they dared not express--a disposition\nwhich was active in him as other propensities became languid--had\nalways been in abeyance before Lydia. A severe interpreter might say\nthat the mere facts of their relation to each other, the melancholy\nposition of this woman who depended on his will, made a standing\nbanquet for his delight in dominating. But there was something else\nthan this in his forbearance toward her: there was the surviving though\nmetamorphosed effect of the power she had had over him; and it was this\neffect, the fitful dull lapse toward solicitations that once had the\nzest now missing from life, which had again and again inclined him to\nespouse a familiar past rather than rouse himself to the expectation of\nnovelty. But now novelty had taken hold of him and urged him to make\nthe most of it.\n\nMrs. Glasher was seated in the pleasant room where she habitually\npassed her mornings with her children round her. It had a square\nprojecting window and looked on broad gravel and grass, sloping toward\na little brook that entered the pool. The top of a low, black cabinet,\nthe old oak table, the chairs in tawny leather, were littered with the\nchildren's toys, books and garden garments, at which a maternal lady in\npastel looked down from the walls with smiling indulgence. The children\nwere all there. The three girls, seated round their mother near the\nwidow, were miniature portraits of her--dark-eyed, delicate-featured\nbrunettes with a rich bloom on their cheeks, their little nostrils and\neyebrows singularly finished as if they were tiny women, the eldest\nbeing barely nine. The boy was seated on the carpet at some distance,\nbending his blonde head over the animals from a Noah's ark, admonishing\nthem separately in a voice of threatening command, and occasionally\nlicking the spotted ones to see if the colors would hold. Josephine,\nthe eldest, was having her French lesson; and the others, with their\ndolls on their laps, sat demurely enough for images of the Madonna.\nMrs. Glasher's toilet had been made very carefully--each day now she\nsaid to herself that Grandcourt might come in. Her head, which, spite\nof emaciation, had an ineffaceable beauty in the fine profile, crisp\ncurves of hair, and clearly-marked eyebrows, rose impressively above\nher bronze-colored silk and velvet, and the gold necklace which\nGrandcourt had first clasped round her neck years ago. Not that she had\nany pleasure in her toilet; her chief thought of herself seen in the\nglass was, \"How changed!\"--but such good in life as remained to her she\nwould keep. If her chief wish were fulfilled, she could imagine herself\ngetting the comeliness of a matron fit for the highest rank. The little\nfaces beside her, almost exact reductions of her own, seemed to tell of\nthe blooming curves which had once been where now was sunken pallor.\nBut the children kissed the pale cheeks and never found them deficient.\nThat love was now the one end of her life.\n\nSuddenly Mrs. Glasher turned away her head from Josephine's book and\nlistened. \"Hush, dear! I think some one is coming.\"\n\nHenleigh the boy jumped up and said, \"Mamma, is it the miller with my\ndonkey?\"\n\nHe got no answer, and going up to his mamma's knee repeated his\nquestion in an insistent tone. But the door opened, and the servant\nannounced Mr. Grandcourt. Mrs. Glasher rose in some agitation. Henleigh\nfrowned at him in disgust at his not being the miller, and the three\nlittle girls lifted up their dark eyes to him timidly. They had none of\nthem any particular liking for this friend of mamma's--in fact, when he\nhad taken Mrs. Glasher's hand and then turned to put his other hand on\nHenleigh's head, that energetic scion began to beat the friend's arm\naway with his fists. The little girls submitted bashfully to be patted\nunder the chin and kissed, but on the whole it seemed better to send\nthem into the garden, where they were presently dancing and chatting\nwith the dogs on the gravel.\n\n\"How far are you come?\" said Mrs. Glasher, as Grandcourt put away his\nhat and overcoat.\n\n\"From Diplow,\" he answered slowly, seating himself opposite her and\nlooking at her with an unnoting gaze which she noted.\n\n\"You are tired, then.\"\n\n\"No, I rested at the Junction--a hideous hole. These railway journeys\nare always a confounded bore. But I had coffee and smoked.\"\n\nGrandcourt drew out his handkerchief, rubbed his face, and in returning\nthe handkerchief to his pocket looked at his crossed knee and blameless\nboot, as if any stranger were opposite to him, instead of a woman\nquivering with a suspense which every word and look of his was to\nincline toward hope or dread. But he was really occupied with their\ninterview and what it was likely to include. Imagine the difference in\nrate of emotion between this woman whom the years had worn to a more\nconscious dependence and sharper eagerness, and this man whom they were\ndulling into a more neutral obstinacy.\n\n\"I expected to see you--it was so long since I had heard from you. I\nsuppose the weeks seem longer at Gadsmere than they do at Diplow,\" said\nMrs. Glasher. She had a quick, incisive way of speaking that seemed to\ngo with her features, as the tone and _timbre_ of a violin go with its\nform.\n\n\"Yes,\" drawled Grandcourt. \"But you found the money paid into the bank.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Mrs. Glasher, curtly, tingling with impatience. Always\nbefore--at least she fancied so--Grandcourt had taken more notice of\nher and the children than he did to-day.\n\n\"Yes,\" he resumed, playing with his whisker, and at first not looking\nat her, \"the time has gone on at rather a rattling pace with me;\ngenerally it is slow enough. But there has been a good deal happening,\nas you know\"--here he turned his eyes upon her.\n\n\"What do I know?\" said she, sharply.\n\nHe left a pause before he said, without change of manner, \"That I was\nthinking of marrying. You saw Miss Harleth?\"\n\n\"_She_ told you that?\"\n\nThe pale cheeks looked even paler, perhaps from the fierce brightness\nin the eyes above them.\n\n\"No. Lush told me,\" was the slow answer. It was as if the thumb-screw\nand the iron boot were being placed by creeping hands within sight of\nthe expectant victim.\n\n\"Good God! say at once that you are going to marry her,\" she burst out,\npassionately, her knees shaking and her hands tightly clasped.\n\n\"Of course, this kind of thing must happen some time or other, Lydia,\"\nsaid he; really, now the thumb-screw was on, not wishing to make the\npain worse.\n\n\"You didn't always see the necessity.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not. I see it now.\"\n\nIn those few under-toned words of Grandcourt's she felt as absolute a\nresistance as if her thin fingers had been pushing at a fast shut iron\ndoor. She knew her helplessness, and shrank from testing it by any\nappeal--shrank from crying in a dead ear and clinging to dead knees,\nonly to see the immovable face and feel the rigid limbs. She did not\nweep nor speak; she was too hard pressed by the sudden certainty which\nhad as much of chill sickness in it as of thought and emotion. The\ndefeated clutch of struggling hope gave her in these first moments a\nhorrible sensation. At last she rose, with a spasmodic effort, and,\nunconscious of every thing but her wretchedness, pressed her forehead\nagainst the hard, cold glass of the window. The children, playing on\nthe gravel, took this as a sign that she wanted them, and, running\nforward, stood in front of her with their sweet faces upturned\nexpectantly. This roused her: she shook her head at them, waved them\noff, and overcome with this painful exertion, sank back in the nearest\nchair.\n\nGrandcourt had risen too. He was doubly annoyed--at the scene itself,\nand at the sense that no imperiousness of his could save him from it;\nbut the task had to be gone through, and there was the administrative\nnecessity of arranging things so that there should be as little\nannoyance as possible in the future. He was leaning against the corner\nof the fire-place. She looked up at him and said, bitterly--\n\n\"All this is of no consequence to you. I and the children are\nimportunate creatures. You wish to get away again and be with Miss\nHarleth.\"\n\n\"Don't make the affair more disagreeable than it need be. Lydia. It is\nof no use to harp on things that can't be altered. Of course, its\ndeucedly disagreeable to me to see you making yourself miserable. I've\ntaken this journey to tell you what you must make up your mind to--you\nand the children will be provided for as usual--and there's an end of\nit.\"\n\nSilence. She dared not answer. This woman with the intense, eager look\nhad had the iron of the mother's anguish in her soul, and it had made\nher sometimes capable of a repression harder than shrieking and\nstruggle. But underneath the silence there was an outlash of hatred and\nvindictiveness: she wished that the marriage might make two others\nwretched, besides herself. Presently he went on--\n\n\"It will be better for you. You may go on living here. But I think of\nby-and-by settling a good sum on you and the children, and you can live\nwhere you like. There will be nothing for you to complain of then.\nWhatever happens, you will feel secure. Nothing could be done\nbeforehand. Every thing has gone on in a hurry.\"\n\nGrandcourt ceased his slow delivery of sentences. He did not expect her\nto thank him, but he considered that she might reasonably be contented;\nif it were possible for Lydia to be contented. She showed no change,\nand after a minute he said--\n\n\"You have never had any reason to fear that I should be illiberal. I\ndon't care a curse about the money.\"\n\n\"If you did care about it, I suppose you would not give it us,\" said\nLydia. The sarcasm was irrepressible.\n\n\"That's a devilishly unfair thing to say,\" Grandcourt replied, in a\nlower tone; \"and I advise you not to say that sort of thing again.\"\n\n\"Should you punish me by leaving the children in beggary?\" In spite of\nherself, the one outlet of venom had brought the other.\n\n\"There is no question about leaving the children in beggary,\" said\nGrandcourt, still in his low voice. \"I advise you not to say things\nthat you will repent of.\"\n\n\"I am used to repenting,\" said she, bitterly. \"Perhaps you will repent.\nYou have already repented of loving me.\"\n\n\"All this will only make it uncommonly difficult for us to meet again.\nWhat friend have you besides me?\"\n\n\"Quite true.\"\n\nThe words came like a low moan. At the same moment there flashed\nthrough her the wish that after promising himself a better happiness\nthan that he had had with her, he might feel a misery and loneliness\nwhich would drive him back to her to find some memory of a time when he\nwas young, glad, and hopeful. But no! he would go scathless; it was she\nthat had to suffer.\n\nWith this the scorching words were ended. Grandcourt had meant to stay\ntill evening; he wished to curtail his visit, but there was no suitable\ntrain earlier than the one he had arranged to go by, and he had still\nto speak to Lydia on the second object of his visit, which like a\nsecond surgical operation seemed to require an interval. The hours had\nto go by; there was eating to be done; the children came in--all this\nmechanism of life had to be gone through with the dreary sense of\nconstraint which is often felt in domestic quarrels of a commoner kind.\nTo Lydia it was some slight relief for her stifled fury to have the\nchildren present: she felt a savage glory in their loveliness, as if it\nwould taunt Grandcourt with his indifference to her and them--a secret\ndarting of venom which was strongly imaginative. He acquitted himself\nwith all the advantage of a man whose grace of bearing has long been\nmoulded on an experience of boredom--nursed the little Antonia, who sat\nwith her hands crossed and eyes upturned to his bald head, which struck\nher as worthy of observation--and propitiated Henleigh by promising him\na beautiful saddle and bridle. It was only the two eldest girls who had\nknown him as a continual presence; and the intervening years had\noverlaid their infantine memories with a bashfulness which Grandcourt's\nbearing was not likely to dissipate. He and Lydia occasionally, in the\npresence of the servants, made a conventional remark; otherwise they\nnever spoke; and the stagnant thought in Grandcourt's mind all the\nwhile was of his own infatuation in having given her those diamonds,\nwhich obliged him to incur the nuisance of speaking about them. He had\nan ingrained care for what he held to belong to his caste, and about\nproperty he liked to be lordly; also he had a consciousness of\nindignity to himself in having to ask for anything in the world. But\nhowever he might assert his independence of Mrs. Glasher's past, he had\nmade a past for himself which was a stronger yoke than any he could\nimpose. He must ask for the diamonds which he had promised to Gwendolen.\n\nAt last they were alone again, with the candles above them, face to\nface with each other. Grandcourt looked at his watch, and then said, in\nan apparently indifferent drawl, \"There is one thing I had to mention,\nLydia. My diamonds--you have them.\"\n\n\"Yes, I have them,\" she answered promptly, rising and standing with her\narms thrust down and her fingers threaded, while Grandcourt sat still.\nShe had expected the topic, and made her resolve about it. But she\nmeant to carry out her resolve, if possible, without exasperating him.\nDuring the hours of silence she had longed to recall the words which\nhad only widened the breach between them.\n\n\"They are in this house, I suppose?\"\n\n\"No; not in this house.\"\n\n\"I thought you said you kept them by you.\"\n\n\"When I said so it was true. They are in the bank at Dudley.\"\n\n\"Get them away, will you? I must make an arrangement for your\ndelivering them to some one.\"\n\n\"Make no arrangement. They shall be delivered to the person you\nintended them for. _I_ will make the arrangement.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\"\n\n\"What I say. I have always told you that I would give them up to your\nwife. I shall keep my word. She is not your wife yet.\"\n\n\"This is foolery,\" said Grandcourt, with undertoned disgust. It was too\nirritating that this indulgence of Lydia had given her a sort of\nmastery over him in spite of dependent condition.\n\nShe did not speak. He also rose now, but stood leaning against the\nmantle-piece with his side-face toward her.\n\n\"The diamonds must be delivered to me before my marriage,\" he began\nagain.\n\n\"What is your wedding-day?\"\n\n\"The tenth. There is no time to be lost.\"\n\n\"And where do you go after the marriage?\"\n\nHe did not reply except by looking more sullen. Presently he said, \"You\nmust appoint a day before then, to get them from the bank and meet\nme--or somebody else I will commission;--it's a great nuisance, Mention\na day.\"\n\n\"No; I shall not do that. They shall be delivered to her safely. I\nshall keep my word.\"\n\n\"Do you mean to say,\" said Grandcourt, just audibly, turning to face\nher, \"that you will not do as I tell you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I mean that,\" was the answer that leaped out, while her eyes\nflashed close to him. The poor creature was immediately conscious that\nif her words had any effect on her own lot, the effect must be\nmischievous, and might nullify all the remaining advantage of her long\npatience. But the word had been spoken.\n\nHe was in a position the most irritating to him. He could not shake her\nnor touch her hostilely; and if he could, the process would not bring\nhis mother's diamonds. He shrank from the only sort of threat that\nwould frighten her--if she believed it. And in general, there was\nnothing he hated more than to be forced into anything like violence\neven in words: his will must impose itself without trouble. After\nlooking at her for a moment, he turned his side-face toward her again,\nleaning as before, and said--\n\n\"Infernal idiots that women are!\"\n\n\"Why will you not tell me where you are going after the marriage? I\ncould be at the wedding if I liked, and learn in that way,\" said Lydia,\nnot shrinking from the one suicidal form of threat within her power.\n\n\"Of course, if you like, you can play the mad woman,\" said Grandcourt,\nwith _sotto voce_ scorn. \"It is not to be supposed that you will wait\nto think what good will come of it--or what you owe to me.\"\n\nHe was in a state of disgust and embitterment quite new in the history\nof their relation to each other. It was undeniable that this woman,\nwhose life he had allowed to send such deep suckers into his, had a\nterrible power of annoyance in her; and the rash hurry of his\nproceedings had left her opportunities open. His pride saw very ugly\npossibilities threatening it, and he stood for several minutes in\nsilence reviewing the situation--considering how he could act upon her.\nUnlike himself she was of a direct nature, with certain simple\nstrongly-colored tendencies, and there was one often-experienced effect\nwhich he thought he could count upon now. As Sir Hugo had said of him,\nGrandcourt knew how to play his cards upon occasion.\n\nHe did not speak again, but looked at his watch, rang the bell, and\nordered the vehicle to be brought round immediately. Then he removed\nfarther from her, walked as if in expectation of a summons, and\nremained silent without turning his eyes upon her.\n\nShe was suffering the horrible conflict of self-reproach and tenacity.\nShe saw beforehand Grandcourt leaving her without even looking at her\nagain--herself left behind in lonely uncertainty--hearing nothing from\nhim--not knowing whether she had done her children harm--feeling that\nshe had perhaps made him hate her;--all the wretchedness of a creature\nwho had defeated her own motives. And yet she could not bear to give up\na purpose which was a sweet morsel to her vindictiveness. If she had\nnot been a mother she would willingly have sacrificed herself to her\nrevenge--to what she felt to be the justice of hindering another from\ngetting happiness by willingly giving her over to misery. The two\ndominant passions were at struggle. She must satisfy them both.\n\n\"Don't let us part in anger, Henleigh,\" she began, without changing her\nvoice or attitude: \"it is a very little thing I ask. If I were refusing\nto give anything up that you call yours it would be different: that\nwould be a reason for treating me as if you hated me. But I ask such a\nlittle thing. If you will tell me where you are going on the\nwedding-day I will take care that the diamonds shall be delivered to\nher without scandal. Without scandal,\" she repeated entreatingly.\n\n\"Such preposterous whims make a woman odious,\" said Grandcourt, not\ngiving way in look or movement. \"What is the use of talking to mad\npeople?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am foolish--loneliness has made me foolish--indulge me.\" Sobs\nrose as she spoke. \"If you will indulge me in this one folly I will be\nvery meek--I will never trouble you.\" She burst into hysterical crying,\nand said again almost with a scream--\"I will be very meek after that.\"\n\nThere was a strange mixture of acting and reality in this passion. She\nkept hold of her purpose as a child might tighten its hand over a small\nstolen thing, crying and denying all the while. Even Grandcourt was\nwrought upon by surprise: this capricious wish, this childish violence,\nwas as unlike Lydia's bearing as it was incongruous with her person.\nBoth had always had a stamp of dignity on them. Yet she seemed more\nmanageable in this state than in her former attitude of defiance. He\ncame close up to her again, and said, in his low imperious tone, \"Be\nquiet, and hear what I tell you, I will never forgive you if you\npresent yourself again and make a scene.\"\n\nShe pressed her handkerchief against her face, and when she could speak\nfirmly said, in the muffled voice that follows sobbing, \"I will not--if\nyou will let me have my way--I promise you not to thrust myself forward\nagain. I have never broken my word to you--how many have you broken to\nme? When you gave me the diamonds to wear you were not thinking of\nhaving another wife. And I now give them up--I don't reproach you--I\nonly ask you to let me give them up in my own way. Have I not borne it\nwell? Everything is to be taken away from me, and when I ask for a\nstraw, a chip--you deny it me.\" She had spoken rapidly, but after a\nlittle pause she said more slowly, her voice freed from its muffled\ntone: \"I will not bear to have it denied me.\"\n\nGrandcourt had a baffling sense that he had to deal with something like\nmadness; he could only govern by giving way. The servant came to say\nthe fly was ready. When the door was shut again Grandcourt said\nsullenly, \"We are going to Ryelands then.\"\n\n\"They shall be delivered to her there,\" said Lydia, with decision.\n\n\"Very well, I am going.\" He felt no inclination even to take her hand:\nshe had annoyed him too sorely. But now that she had gained her point,\nshe was prepared to humble herself that she might propitiate him.\n\n\"Forgive me; I will never vex you again,\" she said, with beseeching\nlooks. Her inward voice said distinctly--\"It is only I who have to\nforgive.\" Yet she was obliged to ask forgiveness.\n\n\"You had better keep that promise. You have made me feel uncommonly ill\nwith your folly,\" said Grandcourt, apparently choosing this statement\nas the strongest possible use of language.\n\n\"Poor thing!\" cried Lydia, with a faint smile;--was he aware of the\nminor fact that he made her feel ill this morning?\n\nBut with the quick transition natural to her, she was now ready to coax\nhim if he would let her, that they might part in some degree\nreconciled. She ventured to lay her hand on his shoulder, and he did\nnot move away from her: she had so far succeeded in alarming him, that\nhe was not sorry for these proofs of returned subjection.\n\n\"Light a cigar,\" she said, soothingly, taking the case from his\nbreast-pocket and opening it.\n\nAmidst such caressing signs of mutual fear they parted. The effect that\nclung and gnawed within Grandcourt was a sense of imperfect mastery.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI.\n\n        \"A wild dedication of yourselves\n  To unpath'd waters, undreamed shores.\"\n                            --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nOn the day when Gwendolen Harleth was married and became Mrs.\nGrandcourt, the morning was clear and bright, and while the sun was low\na slight frost crisped the leaves. The bridal party was worth seeing,\nand half Pennicote turned out to see it, lining the pathway up to the\nchurch. An old friend of the rector's performed the marriage ceremony,\nthe rector himself acting as father, to the great advantage of the\nprocession. Only two faces, it was remarked, showed signs of\nsadness--Mrs. Davilow's and Anna's. The mother's delicate eyelids were\npink, as if she had been crying half the night; and no one was\nsurprised that, splendid as the match was, she should feel the parting\nfrom a daughter who was the flower of her children and of her own life.\nIt was less understood why Anna should be troubled when she was being\nso well set off by the bridesmaid's dress. Every one else seemed to\nreflect the brilliancy of the occasion--the bride most of all. Of her\nit was agreed that as to figure and carriage she was worthy to be a\n\"lady o' title\": as to face, perhaps it might be thought that a title\nrequired something more rosy; but the bridegroom himself not being\nfresh-colored--being indeed, as the miller's wife observed, very much\nof her own husband's complexion--the match was the more complete.\nAnyhow he must be very fond of her; and it was to be hoped that he\nwould never cast it up to her that she had been going out to service as\na governess, and her mother to live at Sawyer's Cottage--vicissitudes\nwhich had been much spoken of in the village. The miller's daughter of\nfourteen could not believe that high gentry behaved badly to their\nwives, but her mother instructed her--\"Oh, child, men's men: gentle or\nsimple, they're much of a muchness. I've heard my mother say Squire\nPelton used to take his dogs and a long whip into his wife's room, and\nflog 'em there to frighten her; and my mother was lady's-maid there at\nthe very time.\"\n\n\"That's unlucky talk for a wedding, Mrs. Girdle,\" said the tailor. \"A\nquarrel may end wi' the whip, but it begins wi' the tongue, and it's\nthe women have got the most o' that.\"\n\n\"The Lord gave it 'em to use, I suppose,\" said Mrs. Girdle. \"_He_ never\nmeant you to have it all your own way.\"\n\n\"By what I can make out from the gentleman as attends to the grooming\nat Offendene,\" said the tailor, \"this Mr. Grandcourt has wonderful\nlittle tongue. Everything must be done dummy-like without his ordering.\"\n\n\"Then he's the more whip, I doubt,\" said Mrs. Girdle. \"_She's_ got\ntongue enough, I warrant her. See, there they come out together!\"\n\n\"What wonderful long corners she's got to her eyes!\" said the tailor.\n\"She makes you feel comical when she looks at you.\"\n\nGwendolen, in fact, never showed more elasticity in her bearing, more\nlustre in her long brown glance: she had the brilliancy of strong\nexcitement, which will sometimes come even from pain. It was not pain,\nhowever, that she was feeling: she had wrought herself up to much the\nsame condition as that in which she stood at the gambling-table when\nDeronda was looking at her, and she began to lose. There was an\nenjoyment in it: whatever uneasiness a growing conscience had created\nwas disregarded as an ailment might have been, amidst the gratification\nof that ambitious vanity and desire for luxury within her which it\nwould take a great deal of slow poisoning to kill. This morning she\ncould not have said truly that she repented her acceptance of\nGrandcourt, or that any fears in hazy perspective could hinder the\nglowing effect of the immediate scene in which she was the central\nobject. That she was doing something wrong--that a punishment might be\nhanging over her--that the woman to whom she had given a promise and\nbroken it, was thinking of her in bitterness and misery with a just\nreproach--that Deronda with his way of looking into things very likely\ndespised her for marrying Grandcourt, as he had despised her for\ngambling--above all, that the cord which united her with this lover and\nwhich she had heretofore held by the hand, was now being flung over her\nneck,--all this yeasty mingling of dimly understood facts with vague\nbut deep impressions, and with images half real, half fantastic, had\nbeen disturbing her during the weeks of her engagement. Was that\nagitating experience nullified this morning? No: it was surmounted and\nthrust down with a sort of exulting defiance as she felt herself\nstanding at the game of life with many eyes upon her, daring everything\nto win much--or if to lose, still with _éclat_ and a sense of\nimportance. But this morning a losing destiny for herself did not press\nupon her as a fear: she thought that she was entering on a fuller power\nof managing circumstances--with all the official strength of marriage,\nwhich some women made so poor a use of. That intoxication of youthful\negoism out of which she had been shaken by trouble, humiliation, and a\nnew sense of culpability, had returned upon her under a newly-fed\nstrength of the old fumes. She did not in the least present the ideal\nof the tearful, tremulous bride. Poor Gwendolen, whom some had judged\nmuch too forward and instructed in the world's ways!--with her erect\nhead and elastic footstep she was walking among illusions; and yet,\ntoo, there was an under-consciousness of her that she was a little\nintoxicated.\n\n\"Thank God you bear it so well, my darling!\" said Mrs. Davilow, when\nshe had helped Gwendolen to doff her bridal white and put on her\ntraveling dress. All the trembling had been done by the poor mother,\nand her agitation urged Gwendolen doubly to take the morning as if it\nwere a triumph.\n\n\"Why, you might have said that, if I had been going to Mrs. Mompert's,\nyou dear, sad, incorrigible mamma!\" said Gwendolen just putting her\nhands to her mother's cheeks with laughing tenderness--then retreating\na little and spreading out her arms as if to exhibit herself: \"Here am\nI--Mrs. Grandcourt! what else would you have me, but what I am sure to\nbe? You know you were ready to die with vexation when you thought that\nI would not be Mrs. Grandcourt.\"\n\n\"Hush, hush, my child, for heaven's sake!\" said Mrs. Davilow, almost in\na whisper. \"How can I help feeling it when I am parting from you. But I\ncan bear anything gladly if you are happy.\"\n\n\"Not gladly, mamma, no!\" said Gwendolen, shaking her head, with a\nbright smile. \"Willingly you would bear it, but always sorrowfully.\nSorrowing is your sauce; you can take nothing without it.\" Then,\nclasping her mother's shoulders and raining kisses first on one cheek\nand then on the other between her words, she said, gaily, \"And you\nshall sorrow over my having everything at my beck---and enjoying\neverything glorious--splendid houses--and horses--and diamonds, I shall\nhave diamonds--and going to court--and being Lady Certainly--and Lady\nPerhaps--and grand here--and tantivy there--and always loving you\nbetter than anybody else in the world.\"\n\n\"My sweet child!--But I shall not be jealous if you love your husband\nbetter; and he will expect to be first.\"\n\nGwendolen thrust out her lips and chin with a pretty grimace, saying,\n\"Rather a ridiculous expectation. However, I don't mean to treat him\nill, unless he deserves it.\"\n\nThen the two fell into a clinging embrace, and Gwendolen could not\nhinder a rising sob when she said, \"I wish you were going with me,\nmamma.\"\n\nBut the slight dew on her long eyelashes only made her the more\ncharming when she gave her hand to Grandcourt to be led to the carriage.\n\nThe rector looked in on her to give a final \"Good-bye; God bless you;\nwe shall see you again before long,\" and then returned to Mrs. Davilow,\nsaying half cheerfully, half solemnly--\n\n\"Let us be thankful, Fanny. She is in a position well suited to her,\nand beyond what I should have dared to hope for. And few women can have\nbeen chosen more entirely for their own sake. You should feel yourself\na happy mother.\"\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nThere was a railway journey of some fifty miles before the new husband\nand wife reached the station near Ryelands. The sky had veiled itself\nsince the morning, and it was hardly more than twilight when they\nentered the park-gates, but still Gwendolen, looking out of the\ncarriage-window as they drove rapidly along, could see the grand\noutlines and the nearer beauties of the scene--the long winding drive\nbordered with evergreens backed by huge gray stems: then the opening of\nwide grassy spaces and undulations studded with dark clumps; till at\nlast came a wide level where the white house could be seen, with a\nhanging wood for a back-ground, and the rising and sinking balustrade\nof a terrace in front.\n\nGwendolen had been at her liveliest during the journey, chatting\nincessantly, ignoring any change in their mutual position since\nyesterday; and Grandcourt had been rather ecstatically quiescent, while\nshe turned his gentle seizure of her hand into a grasp of his hand by\nboth hers, with an increased vivacity as of a kitten that will not sit\nquiet to be petted. She was really getting somewhat febrile in her\nexcitement; and now in this drive through the park her usual\nsusceptibility to changes of light and scenery helped to make her heart\npalpitate newly. Was it at the novelty simply, or the almost incredible\nfulfilment about to be given to her girlish dreams of being\n\"somebody\"--walking through her own furlong of corridor and under her\nown ceilings of an out-of-sight loftiness, where her own painted Spring\nwas shedding painted flowers, and her own fore-shortened Zephyrs were\nblowing their trumpets over her; while her own servants, lackeys in\nclothing but men in bulk and shape, were as nought in her presence, and\nrevered the propriety of her insolence to them:--being in short the\nheroine of an admired play without the pains of art? Was it alone the\ncloseness of this fulfilment which made her heart flutter? or was it\nsome dim forecast, the insistent penetration of suppressed experience,\nmixing the expectation of a triumph with the dread of a crisis? Hers\nwas one of the natures in which exultation inevitably carries an\ninfusion of dread ready to curdle and declare itself.\n\nShe fell silent in spite of herself as they approached the gates, and\nwhen her husband said, \"Here we are at home!\" and for the first time\nkissed her on the lips, she hardly knew of it: it was no more than the\npassive acceptance of a greeting in the midst of an absorbing show. Was\nnot all her hurrying life of the last three months a show, in which her\nconsciousness was a wondering spectator? After the half-willful\nexcitement of the day, a numbness had come over her personality.\n\nBut there was a brilliant light in the hall--warmth, matting, carpets,\nfull-length portraits, Olympian statues, assiduous servants. Not many\nservants, however: only a few from Diplow in addition to those\nconstantly in charge of the house; and Gwendolen's new maid, who had\ncome with her, was taken under guidance by the housekeeper. Gwendolen\nfelt herself being led by Grandcourt along a subtly-scented corridor,\ninto an ante-room where she saw an open doorway sending out a rich glow\nof light and color.\n\n\"These are our dens,\" said Grandcourt. \"You will like to be quiet here\ntill dinner. We shall dine early.\"\n\nHe pressed her hand to his lips and moved away, more in love than he\nhad ever expected to be.\n\nGwendolen, yielded up her hat and mantle, threw herself into a chair by\nthe glowing hearth, and saw herself repeated in glass panels with all\nher faint-green satin surroundings. The housekeeper had passed into\nthis boudoir from the adjoining dressing-room and seemed disposed to\nlinger, Gwendolen thought, in order to look at the new mistress of\nRyelands, who, however, being impatient for solitude said to her, \"Will\nyou tell Hudson when she has put out my dress to leave everything? I\nshall not want her again, unless I ring.\"\n\nThe housekeeper, coming forward, said, \"Here is a packet, madam, which\nI was ordered to give into nobody's hands but yours, when you were\nalone. The person who brought it said it was a present particularly\nordered by Mr. Grandcourt; but he was not to know of its arrival till\nhe saw you wear it. Excuse me, madam; I felt it right to obey orders.\"\n\nGwendolen took the packet and let it lie on her lap till she heard the\ndoors close. It came into her mind that the packet might contain the\ndiamonds which Grandcourt had spoken of as being deposited somewhere\nand to be given to her on her marriage. In this moment of confused\nfeeling and creeping luxurious languor she was glad of this\ndiversion--glad of such an event as having her own diamonds to try on.\n\nWithin all the sealed paper coverings was a box, but within the box\nthere _was_ a jewel-case; and now she felt no doubt that she had the\ndiamonds. But on opening the case, in the same instant that she saw\nthem gleam she saw a letter lying above them. She knew the handwriting\nof the address. It was as if an adder had lain on them. Her heart gave\na leap which seemed to have spent all her strength; and as she opened\nthe bit of thin paper, it shook with the trembling of her hands. But it\nwas legible as print, and thrust its words upon her.\n\n    These diamonds, which were once given with ardent love to Lydia\n    Glasher, she passes on to you. You have broken your word to her, that\n    you might possess what was hers. Perhaps you think of being happy, as\n    she once was, and of having beautiful children such as hers, who will\n    thrust hers aside. God is too just for that. The man you have married\n    has a withered heart. His best young love was mine: you could not take\n    that from me when you took the rest. It is dead: but I am the grave\n    in which your chance of happiness is buried as well as mine. You had\n    your warning. You have chosen to injure me and my children. He had\n    meant to marry me. He would have married me at last, if you had not\n    broken your word. You will have your punishment. I desire it with all\n    my soul.\n\n    Will you give him this letter to set him against me and ruin us\n    more--me and my children? Shall you like to stand before your husband\n    with these diamonds on you, and these words of mine in his thoughts and\n    yours? Will he think you have any right to complain when he has made\n    you miserable? You took him with your eyes open. The willing wrong you\n    have done me will be your curse.\n\nIt seemed at first as if Gwendolen's eyes were spell-bound in reading\nthe horrible words of the letter over and over again as a doom of\npenance; but suddenly a new spasm of terror made her lean forward and\nstretch out the paper toward the fire, lest accusation and proof at\nonce should meet all eyes. It flew like a feather from her trembling\nfingers and was caught up in a great draught of flame. In her movement\nthe casket fell on the floor and the diamonds rolled out. She took no\nnotice, but fell back in her chair again helpless. She could not see\nthe reflections of herself then; they were like so many women petrified\nwhite; but coming near herself you might have seen the tremor in her\nlips and hands. She sat so for a long while, knowing little more than\nthat she was feeling ill, and that those written words kept repeating\nthemselves to her.\n\nTruly here were poisoned gems, and the poison had entered into this\npoor young creature.\n\nAfter that long while, there was a tap at the door and Grandcourt\nentered, dressed for dinner. The sight of him brought a new nervous\nshock, and Gwendolen screamed again and again with hysterical violence.\nHe had expected to see her dressed and smiling, ready to be led down.\nHe saw her pallid, shrieking as it seemed with terror, the jewels\nscattered around her on the floor. Was it a fit of madness?\n\nIn some form or other the furies had crossed his threshold.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII.\n\n    In all ages it hath been a favorite text that a potent love hath the\n    nature of an isolated fatality, whereto the mind's opinions and wonted\n    resolves are altogether alien; as, for example, Daphnis his frenzy,\n    wherein it had little availed him to have been convinced of Heraclitus\n    his doctrine; or the philtre-bred passion of Tristan, who, though he\n    had been as deep as Duns Scotus, would have had his reasoning marred\n    by that cup too much; or Romeo in his sudden taking for Juliet,\n    wherein any objections he might have held against Ptolemy had made\n    little difference to his discourse under the balcony. Yet all love is\n    not such, even though potent; nay, this passion hath as large scope as\n    any for allying itself with every operation of the soul: so that it\n    shall acknowledge an effect from the imagined light of unproven\n    firmaments, and have its scale set to the grander orbits of what hath\n    been and shall be.\n\n\nDeronda, on his return to town, could assure Sir Hugo of his having\nlodged in Grandcourt's mind a distinct understanding that he could get\nfifty thousand pounds by giving up a prospect which was probably\ndistant, and not absolutely certain; but he had no further sign of\nGrandcourt's disposition in the matter than that he was evidently\ninclined to keep up friendly communications.\n\n\"And what did you think of the future bride on a nearer survey?\" said\nSir Hugo.\n\n\"I thought better of her than I did in Leubronn. Roulette was not a\ngood setting for her; it brought out something of the demon. At Diplow\nshe seemed much more womanly and attractive--less hard and\nself-possessed. I thought her mouth and eyes had quite a different\nexpression.\"\n\n\"Don't flirt with her too much, Dan,\" said Sir Hugo, meaning to be\nagreeably playful. \"If you make Grandcourt savage when they come to the\nAbbey at Christmas, it will interfere with my affairs.\"\n\n\"I can stay in town, sir.\"\n\n\"No, no. Lady Mallinger and the children can't do without you at\nChristmas. Only don't make mischief--unless you can get up a duel, and\nmanage to shoot Grandcourt, which might be worth a little\ninconvenience.\"\n\n\"I don't think you ever saw me flirt,\" said Deronda, not amused.\n\n\"Oh, haven't I, though?\" said Sir Hugo, provokingly. \"You are always\nlooking tenderly at the women, and talking to them in a Jesuitical way.\nYou are a dangerous young fellow--a kind of Lovelace who will make the\nClarissas run after you instead of you running after them.\"\n\nWhat was the use of being exasperated at a tasteless joke?--only the\nexasperation comes before the reflection on utility. Few friendly\nremarks are more annoying than the information that we are always\nseeming to do what we never mean to do. Sir Hugo's notion of flirting,\nit was to be hoped, was rather peculiar; for his own part, Deronda was\nsure that he had never flirted. But he was glad that the baronet had no\nknowledge about the repurchase of Gwendolen's necklace to feed his\ntaste for this kind of rallying.\n\nHe would be on his guard in future; for example, in his behavior at\nMrs. Meyrick's, where he was about to pay his first visit since his\narrival from Leubronn. For Mirah was certainly a creature in whom it\nwas difficult not to show a tender kind of interest both by looks and\nspeech.\n\nMrs. Meyrick had not failed to send Deronda a report of Mirah's\nwell-being in her family. \"We are getting fonder of her every day,\" she\nhad written. \"At breakfast-time we all look toward the door with\nexpectation to see her come in; and we watch her and listen to her as\nif she were a native from a new country. I have not heard a word from\nher lips that gives me a doubt about her. She is quite contented and\nfull of gratitude. My daughters are learning from her, and they hope to\nget her other pupils; for she is anxious not to eat the bread of\nidleness, but to work, like my girls. Mab says our life has become like\na fairy tale, and all she is afraid of is that Mirah will turn into a\nnightingale again and fly away from us. Her voice is just perfect: not\nloud and strong, but searching and melting, like the thoughts of what\nhas been. That is the way old people like me feel a beautiful voice.\"\n\nBut Mrs. Meyrick did not enter into particulars which would have\nrequired her to say that Amy and Mab, who had accompanied Mirah to the\nsynagogue, found the Jewish faith less reconcilable with their wishes\nin her case than in that of Scott's Rebecca. They kept silence out of\ndelicacy to Mirah, with whom her religion was too tender a subject to\nbe touched lightly; but after a while Amy, who was much of a practical\nreformer, could not restrain a question.\n\n\"Excuse me, Mirah, but _does_ it seem quite right to you that the women\nshould sit behind rails in a gallery apart?\"\n\n\"Yes, I never thought of anything else,\" said Mirah, with mild surprise.\n\n\"And you like better to see the men with their hats on?\" said Mab,\ncautiously proposing the smallest item of difference.\n\n\"Oh, yes. I like what I have always seen there, because it brings back\nto me the same feelings--the feelings I would not part with for\nanything else in the world.\"\n\nAfter this, any criticism, whether of doctrine or practice, would have\nseemed to these generous little people an inhospitable cruelty. Mirah's\nreligion was of one fibre with her affections, and had never presented\nitself to her as a set of propositions.\n\n\"She says herself she is a very bad Jewess, and does not half know her\npeople's religion,\" said Amy, when Mirah was gone to bed. \"Perhaps it\nwould gradually melt away from her, and she would pass into\nChristianity like the rest of the world, if she got to love us very\nmuch, and never found her mother. It is so strange to be of the Jews'\nreligion now.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh!\" cried Mab. \"I wish I were not such a hideous Christian.\nHow can an ugly Christian, who is always dropping her work, convert a\nbeautiful Jewess, who has not a fault?\"\n\n\"It may be wicked of me,\" said shrewd Kate, \"but I cannot help wishing\nthat her mother may not be found. There might be something unpleasant.\"\n\n\"I don't think it, my dear,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"I believe Mirah is cut\nout after the pattern of her mother. And what a joy it would be to her\nto have such a daughter brought back again! But a mother's feelings are\nnot worth reckoning, I suppose\" (she shot a mischievous glance at her\nown daughters), \"and a dead mother is worth more that a living one?\"\n\n\"Well, and so she may be, little mother,\" said Kate; \"but we would\nrather hold you cheaper, and have you alive.\"\n\nNot only the Meyricks, whose various knowledge had been acquired by the\nirregular foraging to which clever girls have usually been reduced, but\nDeronda himself, with all his masculine instruction, had been roused by\nthis apparition of Mirah to the consciousness of knowing hardly\nanything about modern Judaism or the inner Jewish history. The Chosen\nPeople have been commonly treated as a people chosen for the sake of\nsomebody else; and their thinking as something (no matter exactly what)\nthat ought to have been entirely otherwise; and Deronda, like his\nneighbors, had regarded Judaism as a sort of eccentric fossilized form\nwhich an accomplished man might dispense with studying, and leave to\nspecialists. But Mirah, with her terrified flight from one parent, and\nher yearning after the other, had flashed on him the hitherto neglected\nreality that Judaism was something still throbbing in human lives,\nstill making for them the only conceivable vesture of the world; and in\nthe idling excursion on which he immediately afterward set out with Sir\nHugo he began to look for the outsides of synagogues, and the title of\nbooks about the Jews. This awakening of a new interest--this passing\nfrom the supposition that we hold the right opinions on a subject we\nare careless about, to a sudden care for it, and a sense that our\nopinions were ignorance--is an effectual remedy for _ennui_, which,\nunhappily, cannot be secured on a physician's prescription; but Deronda\nhad carried it with him, and endured his weeks of lounging all the\nbetter. It was on this journey that he first entered a Jewish\nsynagogue--at Frankfort--where his party rested on a Friday. In\nexploring the Juden-gasse, which he had seen long before, he remembered\nwell enough its picturesque old houses; what his eyes chiefly dwelt on\nnow were the human types there; and his thought, busily connecting them\nwith the past phases of their race, stirred that fibre of historic\nsympathy which had helped to determine in him certain traits worth\nmentioning for those who are interested in his future. True, when a\nyoung man has a fine person, no eccentricity of manners, the education\nof a gentleman, and a present income, it is not customary to feel a\nprying curiosity about his way of thinking, or his peculiar tastes. He\nmay very well be settled in life as an agreeable clever young fellow\nwithout passing a special examination on those heads. Later, when he is\ngetting rather slovenly and portly, his peculiarities are more\ndistinctly discerned, and it is taken as a mercy if they are not highly\nobjectionable. But any one wishing to understand the effect of\nafter-events on Deronda should know a little more of what he was at\nfive-and-twenty than was evident in ordinary intercourse.\n\nIt happened that the very vividness of his impressions had often made\nhim the more enigmatic to his friends, and had contributed to an\napparent indefiniteness in his sentiments. His early-wakened\nsensibility and reflectiveness had developed into a many-sided\nsympathy, which threatened to hinder any persistent course of action:\nas soon as he took up any antagonism, though only in thought, he seemed\nto himself like the Sabine warriors in the memorable story--with\nnothing to meet his spear but flesh of his flesh, and objects that he\nloved. His imagination had so wrought itself to the habit of seeing\nthings as they probably appeared to others, that a strong partisanship,\nunless it were against an immediate oppression, had become an\ninsincerity for him. His plenteous, flexible sympathy had ended by\nfalling into one current with that reflective analysis which tends to\nneutralize sympathy. Few men were able to keep themselves clearer of\nvices than he; yet he hated vices mildly, being used to think of them\nless in the abstract than as a part of mixed human natures having an\nindividual history, which it was the bent of his mind to trace with\nunderstanding and pity. With the same innate balance he was fervidly\ndemocratic in his feeling for the multitude, and yet, through his\naffections and imagination, intensely conservative; voracious of\nspeculations on government and religion, yet loth to part with\nlong-sanctioned forms which, for him, were quick with memories and\nsentiments that no argument could lay dead. We fall on the leaning\nside; and Deronda suspected himself of loving too well the losing\ncauses of the world. Martyrdom changes sides, and he was in danger of\nchanging with it, having a strong repugnance to taking up that clue of\nsuccess which the order of the world often forces upon us and makes it\ntreason against the common weal to reject. And yet his fear of falling\ninto an unreasoning narrow hatred made a check for him: he apologized\nfor the heirs of privilege; he shrank with dislike from the loser's\nbitterness and the denunciatory tone of the unaccepted innovator. A too\nreflective and diffusive sympathy was in danger of paralyzing in him\nthat indignation against wrong and that selectness of fellowship which\nare the conditions of moral force; and in the last few years of\nconfirmed manhood he had become so keenly aware of this that what he\nmost longed for was either some external event, or some inward light,\nthat would urge him into a definite line of action, and compress his\nwandering energy. He was ceasing to care for knowledge--he had no\nambition for practice--unless they could both be gathered up into one\ncurrent with his emotions; and he dreaded, as if it were a\ndwelling-place of lost souls, that dead anatomy of culture which turns\nthe universe into a mere ceaseless answer to queries, and knows, not\neverything, but everything else about everything--as if one should be\nignorant of nothing concerning the scent of violets except the scent\nitself for which one had no nostril. But how and whence was the needed\nevent to come?--the influence that would justify partiality, and make\nhim what he longed to be, yet was unable to make himself--an organic\npart of social life, instead of roaming in it like a yearning\ndisembodied spirit, stirred with a vague social passion, but without\nfixed local habitation to render fellowship real? To make a little\ndifference for the better was what he was not contented to live\nwithout; but how to make it? It is one thing to see your road, another\nto cut it. He found some of the fault in his birth and the way he had\nbeen brought up, which had laid no special demands on him and had given\nhim no fixed relationship except one of a doubtful kind; but he did not\nattempt to hide from himself that he had fallen into a meditative\nnumbness, and was gliding farther and farther from that life of\npractically energetic sentiment which he would have proclaimed (if he\nhad been inclined to proclaim anything) to be the best of all life, and\nfor himself the only way worth living. He wanted some way of keeping\nemotion and its progeny of sentiments--which make the savors of\nlife--substantial and strong in the face of a reflectiveness that\nthreatened to nullify all differences. To pound the objects of\nsentiment into small dust, yet keep sentiment alive and active, was\nsomething like the famous recipe for making cannon--to first take a\nround hole and then enclose it with iron; whatever you do keeping fast\nhold of your round hole. Yet how distinguish what our will may wisely\nsave in its completeness, from the heaping of cat-mummies and the\nexpensive cult of enshrined putrefactions?\n\nSomething like this was the common under-current in Deronda's mind\nwhile he was reading law or imperfectly attending to polite\nconversation. Meanwhile he had not set about one function in particular\nwith zeal and steadiness. Not an admirable experience, to be proposed\nas an ideal; but a form of struggle before break of day which some\nyoung men since the patriarch have had to pass through, with more or\nless of bruising if not laming.\n\nI have said that under his calm exterior he had a fervor which made him\neasily feel the presence of poetry in everyday events; and the forms of\nthe Juden-gasse, rousing the sense of union with what is remote, set\nhim musing on two elements of our historic life which that sense raises\ninto the same region of poetry;--the faint beginnings of faiths and\ninstitutions, and their obscure lingering decay; the dust and withered\nremnants with which they are apt to be covered, only enhancing for the\nawakened perception the impressiveness either of a sublimely\npenetrating life, as in the twin green leaves that will become the\nsheltering tree, or of a pathetic inheritance in which all the grandeur\nand the glory have become a sorrowing memory.\n\nThis imaginative stirring, as he turned out of the Juden-gasse, and\ncontinued to saunter in the warm evening air, meaning to find his way\nto the synagogue, neutralized the repellent effect of certain ugly\nlittle incidents on his way. Turning into an old book-shop to ask the\nexact time of service at the synagogue, he was affectionately directed\nby a precocious Jewish youth, who entered cordially into his wanting,\nnot the fine new building of the Reformed but the old Rabbinical school\nof the orthodox; and then cheated him like a pure Teuton, only with\nmore amenity, in his charge for a book quite out of request as one\n\"nicht so leicht zu bekommen.\" Meanwhile at the opposite counter a deaf\nand grisly tradesman was casting a flinty look at certain cards,\napparently combining advantages of business with religion, and\nshoutingly proposed to him in Jew-dialect by a dingy man in a tall coat\nhanging from neck to heel, a bag in hand, and a broad low hat\nsurmounting his chosen nose--who had no sooner disappeared than another\ndingy man of the same pattern issued from the background glooms of the\nshop and also shouted in the same dialect. In fact, Deronda saw various\nqueer-looking Israelites not altogether without guile, and just\ndistinguishable from queer-looking Christians of the same mixed\n_morale_. In his anxiety about Mirah's relatives, he had lately been\nthinking of vulgar Jews with a sort of personal alarm. But a little\ncomparison will often diminish our surprise and disgust at the\naberrations of Jews and other dissidents whose lives do not offer a\nconsistent or lovely pattern of their creed; and this evening Deronda,\nbecoming more conscious that he was falling into unfairness and\nridiculous exaggeration, began to use that corrective comparison: he\npaid his thaler too much, without prejudice to his interests in the\nHebrew destiny, or his wish to find the _Rabbinische Schule_, which he\narrived at by sunset, and entered with a good congregation of men.\n\nHe happened to take his seat in a line with an elderly man from whom he\nwas distant enough to glance at him more than once as rather a\nnoticeable figure--his ample white beard and felt hat framing a profile\nof that fine contour which may as easily be Italian as Hebrew. He\nreturned Deronda's notice till at last their eyes met; an undesirable\nchance with unknown persons, and a reason to Deronda for not looking\nagain; but he immediately found an open prayer-book pushed toward him\nand had to bow his thanks. However, the congregation had mustered, the\nreader had mounted to the _almemor_ or platform, and the service began.\nDeronda, having looked enough at the German translation of the Hebrew\nin the book before him to know that he was chiefly hearing Psalms and\nOld Testament passages or phrases, gave himself up to that strongest\neffect of chanted liturgies which is independent of detailed verbal\nmeaning--like the effect of an Allegri's _Miserere_ or a Palestrina's\n_Magnificat_. The most powerful movement of feeling with a liturgy is\nthe prayer which seeks for nothing special, but is a yearning to escape\nfrom the limitations of our own weakness and an invocation of all Good\nto enter and abide with us; or else a self-oblivious lifting up of\nGladness, a _Gloria in excelsis_ that such Good exists; both the\nyearning and the exaltation gathering their utmost force from the sense\nof communion in a form which has expressed them both, for long\ngenerations of struggling fellow-men. The Hebrew liturgy, like others,\nhas its transitions of litany, lyric, proclamation, dry statement and\nblessing; but this evening, all were one for Deronda: the chant of the\n_Chazaris_ or Reader's grand wide-ranging voice with its passage from\nmonotony to sudden cries, the outburst of sweet boys' voices from the\nlittle choir, the devotional swaying of men's bodies backward and\nforward, the very commonness of the building and shabbiness of the\nscene where a national faith, which had penetrated the thinking of half\nthe world, and moulded the splendid forms of that world's religion, was\nfinding a remote, obscure echo--all were blent for him as one\nexpression of a binding history, tragic and yet glorious. He wondered\nat the strength of his own feeling; it seemed beyond the occasion--what\none might imagine to be a divine influx in the darkness, before there\nwas any vision to interpret. The whole scene was a coherent strain, its\nburden a passionate regret, which, if he had known the liturgy for the\nDay of Reconciliation, he might have clad in its authentic burden;\n\"Happy the eye which saw all these things; but verily to hear only of\nthem afflicts our soul. Happy the eye that saw our temple and the joy\nof our congregation; but verily to hear only of them afflicts our soul.\nHappy the eye that saw the fingers when tuning every kind of song; but\nverily to hear only of them afflicts our soul.\"\n\nBut with the cessation of the devotional sounds and the movement of\nmany indifferent faces and vulgar figures before him there darted into\nhis mind the frigid idea that he had probably been alone in his\nfeeling, and perhaps the only person in the congregation for whom the\nservice was more than a dull routine. There was just time for this\nchilling thought before he had bowed to his civil neighbor and was\nmoving away with the rest--when he felt a hand on his arm, and turning\nwith the rather unpleasant sensation which this abrupt sort of claim is\napt to bring, he saw close to him the white-bearded face of that\nneighbor, who said to him in German, \"Excuse me, young gentleman--allow\nme--what is your parentage--your mother's family--her maiden name?\"\n\nDeronda had a strongly resistant feeling: he was inclined to shake off\nhastily the touch on his arm; but he managed to slip it away and said\ncoldly, \"I am an Englishman.\"\n\nThe questioner looked at him dubiously still for an instant, then just\nlifted his hat and turned away; whether under a sense of having made a\nmistake or of having been repulsed, Deronda was uncertain. In his walk\nback to the hotel he tried to still any uneasiness on the subject by\nreflecting that he could not have acted differently. How could he say\nthat he did not know the name of his mother's family to that total\nstranger?--who indeed had taken an unwarrantable liberty in the\nabruptness of his question, dictated probably by some fancy of likeness\nsuch as often occurs without real significance. The incident, he said\nto himself, was trivial; but whatever import it might have, his inward\nshrinking on the occasion was too strong for him to be sorry that he\nhad cut it short. It was a reason, however, for his not mentioning the\nsynagogue to the Mallingers--in addition to his usual inclination to\nreticence on anything that the baronet would have been likely to call\nQuixotic enthusiasm. Hardly any man could be more good-natured than Sir\nHugo; indeed in his kindliness especially to women, he did actions\nwhich others would have called romantic; but he never took a romantic\nview of them, and in general smiled at the introduction of motives on a\ngrand scale, or of reasons that lay very far off. This was the point of\nstrongest difference between him and Deronda, who rarely ate at\nbreakfast without some silent discursive flight after grounds for\nfilling up his day according to the practice of his contemporaries.\n\nThis halt at Frankfort was taken on their way home, and its impressions\nwere kept the more actively vibrating in him by the duty of caring for\nMirah's welfare. That question about his parentage, which if he had not\nboth inwardly and outwardly shaken it off as trivial, would have seemed\na threat rather than a promise of revelation, and reinforced his\nanxiety as to the effect of finding Mirah's relatives and his resolve\nto proceed with caution. If he made any unpleasant discovery, was he\nbound to a disclosure that might cast a new net of trouble around her?\nHe had written to Mrs. Meyrick to announce his visit at four o'clock,\nand he found Mirah seated at work with only Mrs. Meyrick and Mab, the\nopen piano, and all the glorious company of engravings. The dainty\nneatness of her hair and dress, the glow of tranquil happiness in a\nface where a painter need have changed nothing if he had wanted to put\nit in front of the host singing \"peace on earth and good will to men,\"\nmade a contrast to his first vision of her that was delightful to\nDeronda's eyes. Mirah herself was thinking of it, and immediately on\ntheir greeting said--\n\n\"See how different I am from the miserable creature by the river! all\nbecause you found me and brought me to the very best.\"\n\n\"It was my good chance to find you,\" said Deronda. \"Any other man would\nhave been glad to do what I did.\"\n\n\"That is not the right way to be thinking about it,\" said Mirah,\nshaking her head with decisive gravity, \"I think of what really was. It\nwas you, and not another, who found me and were good to me.\"\n\n\"I agree with Mirah,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"Saint Anybody is a bad saint\nto pray to.\"\n\n\"Besides, Anybody could not have brought me to you,\" said Mirah,\nsmiling at Mrs. Meyrick. \"And I would rather be with you than with any\none else in the world except my mother. I wonder if ever a poor little\nbird, that was lost and could not fly, was taken and put into a warm\nnest where was a mother and sisters who took to it so that everything\ncame naturally, as if it had been always there. I hardly thought before\nthat the world could ever be as happy and without fear as it is to me\nnow.\" She looked meditative a moment, and then said, \"sometimes I am a\n_little_ afraid.\"\n\n\"What is it you are afraid of?\" said Deronda with anxiety.\n\n\"That when I am turning at the corner of a street I may meet my father.\nIt seems dreadful that I should be afraid of meeting him. That is my\nonly sorrow,\" said Mirah, plaintively.\n\n\"It is surely not very probable,\" said Deronda, wishing that it were\nless so; then, not to let the opportunity escape--\"Would it be a great\ngrief to you now if you were never to meet your mother?\"\n\nShe did not answer immediately, but meditated again, with her eyes\nfixed on the opposite wall. Then she turned them on Deronda and said\nfirmly, as if she had arrived at the exact truth, \"I want her to know\nthat I have always loved her, and if she is alive I want to comfort\nher. She may be dead. If she were I should long to know where she was\nburied; and to know whether my brother lives, so that we can remember\nher together. But I will try not to grieve. I have thought much for so\nmany years of her being dead. And I shall have her with me in my mind,\nas I have always had. We can never be really parted. I think I have\nnever sinned against her. I have always tried not to do what would hurt\nher. Only, she might be sorry that I was not a good Jewess.\"\n\n\"In what way are you not a good Jewess?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"I am ignorant, and we never observed the laws, but lived among\nChristians just as they did. But I have heard my father laugh at the\nstrictness of the Jews about their food and all customs, and their not\nliking Christians. I think my mother was strict; but she could never\nwant me not to like those who are better to me than any of my own\npeople I have ever known. I think I could obey in other things that she\nwished but not in that. It is so much easier to me to share in love\nthan in hatred. I remember a play I read in German--since I have been\nhere it has come into my mind--where the heroine says something like\nthat.\"\n\n\"Antigone,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"Ah, you know it. But I do not believe that my mother would wish me not\nto love my best friends. She would be grateful to them.\" Here Mirah had\nturned to Mrs. Meyrick, and with a sudden lighting up of her whole\ncountenance, she said, \"Oh, if we ever do meet and know each other as\nwe are now, so that I could tell what would comfort her--I should be so\nfull of blessedness my soul would know no want but to love her!\"\n\n\"God bless you, child!\" said Mrs. Meyrick, the words escaping\ninvoluntarily from her motherly heart. But to relieve the strain of\nfeeling she looked at Deronda and said, \"It is curious that Mirah, who\nremembers her mother so well it is as if she saw her, cannot recall her\nbrother the least bit--except the feeling of having been carried by him\nwhen she was tired, and of his being near her when she was in her\nmother's lap. It must be that he was rarely at home. He was already\ngrown up. It is a pity her brother should be quite a stranger to her.\"\n\n\"He is good; I feel sure Ezra is good,\" said Mirah, eagerly. \"He loved\nmy mother--he would take care of her. I remember more of him than that.\nI remember my mother's voice once calling, 'Ezra!' and then his\nanswering from a distance 'Mother!'\"--Mirah had changed her voice a\nlittle in each of these words and had given them a loving\nintonation--\"and then he came close to us. I feel sure he is good. I\nhave always taken comfort from that.\"\n\nIt was impossible to answer this either with agreement or doubt. Mrs.\nMeyrick and Deronda exchanged a quick glance: about this brother she\nfelt as painfully dubious as he did. But Mirah went on, absorbed in her\nmemories--\n\n\"Is it not wonderful how I remember the voices better than anything\nelse? I think they must go deeper into us than other things. I have\noften fancied heaven might be made of voices.\"\n\n\"Like your singing--yes,\" said Mab, who had hitherto kept a modest\nsilence, and now spoke bashfully, as was her wont in the presence of\nPrince Camaralzaman--\"Ma, do ask Mirah to sing. Mr. Deronda has not\nheard her.\"\n\n\"Would it be disagreeable to you to sing now?\" said Deronda, with a\nmore deferential gentleness than he had ever been conscious of before.\n\n\"Oh, I shall like it,\" said Mirah. \"My voice has come back a little\nwith rest.\"\n\nPerhaps her ease of manner was due to something more than the\nsimplicity of her nature. The circumstances of her life made her think\nof everything she did as work demanded from her, in which affectation\nhad nothing to do; and she had begun her work before self-consciousness\nwas born.\n\nShe immediately rose and went to the piano--a somewhat worn instrument\nthat seemed to get the better of its infirmities under the firm touch\nof her small fingers as she preluded. Deronda placed himself where he\ncould see her while she sang; and she took everything as quietly as if\nshe had been a child going to breakfast.\n\nImagine her--it is always good to imagine a human creature in whom\nbodily loveliness seems as properly one with the entire being as the\nbodily loveliness of those wondrous transparent orbs of life that we\nfind in the sea--imagine her with her dark hair brushed from her\ntemples, but yet showing certain tiny rings there which had cunningly\nfound their own way back, the mass of it hanging behind just to the\nnape of the little neck in curly fibres, such as renew themselves at\ntheir own will after being bathed into straightness like that of\nwater-grasses. Then see the perfect cameo her profile makes, cut in a\nduskish shell, where by some happy fortune there pierced a gem-like\ndarkness for the eye and eyebrow; the delicate nostrils defined enough\nto be ready for sensitive movements, the finished ear, the firm curves\nof the chin and neck, entering into the expression of a refinement\nwhich was not feebleness.\n\nShe sang Beethoven's \"Per pietà non dirmi addio\" with a subdued but\nsearching pathos which had that essential of perfect singing, the\nmaking one oblivious of art or manner, and only possessing one with the\nsong. It was the sort of voice that gives the impression of being meant\nlike a bird's wooing for an audience near and beloved. Deronda began by\nlooking at her, but felt himself presently covering his eyes with his\nhand, wanting to seclude the melody in darkness; then he refrained from\nwhat might seem oddity, and was ready to meet the look of mute appeal\nwhich she turned toward him at the end.\n\n\"I think I never enjoyed a song more than that,\" he said, gratefully.\n\n\"You like my singing? I am so glad,\" she said, with a smile of delight.\n\"It has been a great pain to me, because it failed in what it was\nwanted for. But now we think I can use it to get my bread. I have\nreally been taught well. And now I have two pupils, that Miss Meyrick\nfound for me. They pay me nearly two crowns for their two lessons.\"\n\n\"I think I know some ladies who would find you many pupils after\nChristmas,\" said Deronda. \"You would not mind singing before any one\nwho wished to hear you?\"\n\n\"Oh no, I want to do something to get money. I could teach reading and\nspeaking, Mrs. Meyrick thinks. But if no one would learn of me, that is\ndifficult.\" Mirah smiled with a touch of merriment he had not seen in\nher before. \"I dare say I should find her poor--I mean my mother. I\nshould want to get money for her. And I can not always live on charity;\nthough\"--here she turned so as to take all three of her companions in\none glance--\"it is the sweetest charity in all the world.\"\n\n\"I should think you can get rich,\" said Deronda, smiling. \"Great ladies\nwill perhaps like you to teach their daughters, We shall see. But now\ndo sing again to us.\"\n\nShe went on willingly, singing with ready memory various things by\nGordigiani and Schubert; then, when she had left the piano, Mab said,\nentreatingly, \"Oh, Mirah, if you would not mind singing the little\nhymn.\"\n\n\"It is too childish,\" said Mirah. \"It is like lisping.\"\n\n\"What is the hymn?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"It is the Hebrew hymn she remembers her mother singing over her when\nshe lay in her cot,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\n\"I should like very much to hear it,\" said Deronda, \"if you think I am\nworthy to hear what is so sacred.\"\n\n\"I will sing it if you like,\" said Mirah, \"but I don't sing real\nwords--only here and there a syllable like hers--the rest is lisping.\nDo you know Hebrew? because if you do, my singing will seem childish\nnonsense.\"\n\nDeronda shook his head. \"It will be quite good Hebrew to me.\"\n\nMirah crossed her little feet and hands in her easiest attitude, and\nthen lifted up her head at an angle which seemed to be directed to some\ninvisible face bent over her, while she sang a little hymn of quaint\nmelancholy intervals, with syllables that really seemed childish\nlisping to her audience; the voice in which she gave it forth had\ngathered even a sweeter, more cooing tenderness than was heard in her\nother songs.\n\n\"If I were ever to know the real words, I should still go on in my old\nway with them,\" said Mirah, when she had repeated the hymn several\ntimes.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Deronda. \"The lisped syllables are very full of\nmeaning.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"A mother hears something of a lisp\nin her children's talk to the very last. Their words are not just what\neverybody else says, though they may be spelled the same. If I were to\nlive till my Hans got old, I should still see the boy in him. A\nmother's love, I often say, is like a tree that has got all the wood in\nit, from the very first it made.\"\n\n\"Is not that the way with friendship, too?\" said Deronda, smiling. \"We\nmust not let the mothers be too arrogant.\"\n\nThe little woman shook her head over her darning.\n\n\"It is easier to find an old mother than an old friend. Friendships\nbegin with liking or gratitude--roots that can be pulled up. Mother's\nlove begins deeper down.\"\n\n\"Like what you were saying about the influence of voices,\" said\nDeronda, looking at Mirah. \"I don't think your hymn would have had more\nexpression for me if I had known the words. I went to the synagogue at\nFrankfort before I came home, and the service impressed me just as much\nas if I had followed the words--perhaps more.\"\n\n\"Oh, was it great to you? Did it go to your heart?\" said Mirah,\neagerly. \"I thought none but our people would feel that. I thought it\nwas all shut away like a river in a deep valley, where only heaven\nsaw--I mean---\" she hesitated feeling that she could not disentangle\nher thought from its imagery.\n\n\"I understand,\" said Deronda. \"But there is not really such a\nseparation--deeper down, as Mrs. Meyrick says. Our religion is chiefly\na Hebrew religion; and since Jews are men, their religious feelings\nmust have much in common with those of other men--just as their poetry,\nthough in one sense peculiar, has a great deal in common with the\npoetry of other nations. Still it is to be expected that a Jew would\nfeel the forms of his people's religion more than one of another\nrace--and yet\"--here Deronda hesitated in his turn--\"that is perhaps\nnot always so.\"\n\n\"Ah no,\" said Mirah, sadly. \"I have seen that. I have seen them mock.\nIs it not like mocking your parents?--like rejoicing in your parents'\nshame?\"\n\n\"Some minds naturally rebel against whatever they were brought up in,\nand like the opposite; they see the faults in what is nearest to them,\"\nsaid Deronda apologetically.\n\n\"But you are not like that,\" said Mirah, looking at him with\nunconscious fixedness.\n\n\"No, I think not,\" said Deronda; \"but you know I was not brought up as\na Jew.\"\n\n\"Ah, I am always forgetting,\" said Mirah, with a look of disappointed\nrecollection, and slightly blushing.\n\nDeronda also felt rather embarrassed, and there was an awkward pause,\nwhich he put an end to by saying playfully--\n\n\"Whichever way we take it, we have to tolerate each other; for if we\nall went in opposition to our teaching, we must end in difference, just\nthe same.\"\n\n\"To be sure. We should go on forever in zig-zags,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\"I think it is very weak-minded to make your creed up by the rule of\nthe contrary. Still one may honor one's parents, without following\ntheir notions exactly, any more than the exact cut of their clothing.\nMy father was a Scotch Calvinist and my mother was a French Calvinist;\nI am neither quite Scotch, nor quite French, nor two Calvinists rolled\ninto one, yet I honor my parents' memory.\"\n\n\"But I could not make myself not a Jewess,\" said Mirah, insistently,\n\"even if I changed my belief.\"\n\n\"No, my dear. But if Jews and Jewesses went on changing their religion,\nand making no difference between themselves and Christians, there would\ncome a time when there would be no Jews to be seen,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\ntaking that consummation very cheerfully.\n\n\"Oh, please not to say that,\" said Mirah, the tears gathering. \"It is\nthe first unkind thing you ever said. I will not begin that. I will\nnever separate myself from my mother's people. I was forced to fly from\nmy father; but if he came back in age and weakness and want, and needed\nme, should I say, 'This is not my father'? If he had shame, I must\nshare it. It was he who was given to me for my father, and not another.\nAnd so it is with my people. I will always be a Jewess. I will love\nChristians when they are good, like you. But I will always cling to my\npeople. I will always worship with them.\"\n\nAs Mirah had gone on speaking she had become possessed with a sorrowful\npassion--fervent, not violent. Holding her little hands tightly clasped\nand looking at Mrs. Meyrick with beseeching, she seemed to Deronda a\npersonification of that spirit which impelled men after a long\ninheritance of professed Catholicism to leave wealth and high place and\nrisk their lives in flight, that they might join their own people and\nsay, \"I am a Jew.\"\n\n\"Mirah, Mirah, my dear child, you mistake me!\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nalarmed. \"God forbid I should want you to do anything against your\nconscience. I was only saying what might be if the world went on. But I\nhad better have left the world alone, and not wanted to be over-wise.\nForgive me, come! we will not try to take you from anybody you feel has\nmore right to you.\"\n\n\"I would do anything else for you. I owe you my life,\" said Mirah, not\nyet quite calm.\n\n\"Hush, hush, now,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"I have been punished enough for\nwagging my tongue foolishly--making an almanac for the Millennium, as\nmy husband used to say.\"\n\n\"But everything in the world must come to an end some time. We must\nbear to think of that,\" said Mab, unable to hold her peace on this\npoint. She had already suffered from a bondage of tongue which\nthreatened to become severe if Mirah were to be too much indulged in\nthis inconvenient susceptibility to innocent remarks.\n\nDeronda smiled at the irregular, blonde face, brought into strange\ncontrast by the side of Mirah's--smiled, Mab thought, rather\nsarcastically as he said, \"That 'prospect of everything coming to an\nend will not guide us far in practice. Mirah's feelings, she tells us,\nare concerned with what is.\"\n\nMab was confused and wished she had not spoken, since Mr. Deronda\nseemed to think that she had found fault with Mirah; but to have spoken\nonce is a tyrannous reason for speaking again, and she said--\n\n\"I only meant that we must have courage to hear things, else there is\nhardly anything we can talk about.\" Mab felt herself unanswerable here,\ninclining to the opinion of Socrates: \"What motive has a man to live,\nif not for the pleasure of discourse?\"\n\nDeronda took his leave soon after, and when Mrs. Meyrick went outside\nwith him to exchange a few words about Mirah, he said, \"Hans is to\nshare my chambers when he comes at Christmas.\"\n\n\"You have written to Rome about that?\" said Mrs. Meyrick, her face\nlighting up. \"How very good and thoughtful of you! You mentioned Mirah,\nthen?\"\n\n\"Yes, I referred to her. I concluded he knew everything from you.\"\n\n\"I must confess my folly. I have not yet written a word about her. I\nhave always been meaning to do it, and yet have ended my letter without\nsaying a word. And I told the girls to leave it to me. However!--Thank\nyou a thousand times.\"\n\nDeronda divined something of what was in the mother's mind, and his\ndivination reinforced a certain anxiety already present in him. His\ninward colloquy was not soothing. He said to himself that no man could\nsee this exquisite creature without feeling it possible to fall in love\nwith her; but all the fervor of his nature was engaged on the side of\nprecaution. There are personages who feel themselves tragic because\nthey march into a palpable morass, dragging another with them, and then\ncry out against all the gods. Deronda's mind was strongly set against\nimitating them.\n\n\"I have my hands on the reins now,\" he thought, \"and I will not drop\nthem. I shall go there as little as possible.\"\n\nHe saw the reasons acting themselves out before him. How could he be\nMirah's guardian and claim to unite with Mrs. Meyrick, to whose charge\nhe had committed her, if he showed himself as a lover--whom she did not\nlove--whom she would not marry? And if he encouraged any germ of\nlover's feeling in himself it would lead up to that issue. Mirah's was\nnot a nature that would bear dividing against itself; and even if love\nwon her consent to marry a man who was not of her race and religion,\nshe would never be happy in acting against that strong native bias\nwhich would still reign in her conscience as remorse.\n\nDeronda saw these consequences as we see any danger of marring our own\nwork well begun. It was a delight to have rescued this child acquainted\nwith sorrow, and to think of having placed her little feet in protected\npaths. The creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet,\nbruised and lost by the wayside--how we watch and fence it, and dote on\nits signs of recovery! Our pride becomes loving, our self is a not-self\nfor whose sake we become virtuous, when we set to some hidden work of\nreclaiming a life from misery and look for our triumph in the secret\njoy--\"This one is the better for me.\"\n\n\"I would as soon hold out my finger to be bitten off as set about\nspoiling her peace,\" said Deronda. \"It was one of the rarest bits of\nfortune that I should have had friends like the Meyricks to place her\nwith--generous, delicate friends without any loftiness in their ways,\nso that her dependence on them is not only safety but happiness. There\ncould be no refuge to replace that, if it were broken up. But what is\nthe use of my taking the vows and settling everything as it should be,\nif that marplot Hans comes and upsets it all?\"\n\nFew things were more likely. Hans was made for mishaps: his very limbs\nseemed more breakable than other people's--his eyes more of a resort\nfor uninvited flies and other irritating guests. But it was impossible\nto forbid Hans's coming to London. He was intending to get a studio\nthere and make it his chief home; and to propose that he should defer\ncoming on some ostensible ground, concealing the real motive of winning\ntime for Mirah's position to become more confirmed and independent, was\nimpracticable. Having no other resource Deronda tried to believe that\nboth he and Mrs. Meyrick were foolishly troubling themselves about one\nof those endless things called probabilities, which never occur; but he\ndid not quite succeed in his trying; on the contrary, he found himself\ngoing inwardly through a scene where on the first discovery of Han's\ninclination he gave him a very energetic warning--suddenly checked,\nhowever, by the suspicion of personal feeling that his warmth might be\ncreating in Hans. He could come to no result, but that the position was\npeculiar, and that he could make no further provision against dangers\nuntil they came nearer. To save an unhappy Jewess from drowning\nherself, would not have seemed a startling variation among police\nreports; but to discover in her so rare a creature as Mirah, was an\nexceptional event which might well bring exceptional consequences.\nDeronda would not let himself for a moment dwell on any supposition\nthat the consequences might enter deeply into his own life. The image\nof Mirah had never yet had that penetrating radiation which would have\nbeen given to it by the idea of her loving him. When this sort of\neffluence is absent from the fancy (whether from the fact or not) a man\nmay go far in devotedness without perturbation.\n\nAs to the search for Mirah's mother and brother, Deronda took what she\nhad said to-day as a warrant for deferring any immediate measures. His\nconscience was not quite easy in this desire for delay, any more than\nit was quite easy in his not attempting to learn the truth about his\nown mother: in both cases he felt that there might be an unfulfilled\nduty to a parent, but in both cases there was an overpowering\nrepugnance to the possible truth, which threw a turning weight into the\nscale of argument.\n\n\"At least, I will look about,\" was his final determination. \"I may find\nsome special Jewish machinery. I will wait till after Christmas.\"\n\nWhat should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a\ndisagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by\nwhich our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which\nit is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII.\n\n    \"No man,\" says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, \"may turn the\n    bones of his father and mother into spoons\"--sure that his hearers\n    felt the checks against that form of economy. The market for spoons\n    has never expanded enough for any one to say, \"Why not?\" and to argue\n    that human progress lies in such an application of material. The only\n    check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not\n    hold that sentiments are the better part of the world's wealth.\n\n\nDeronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than\nriding in Rotten Row. He went often rambling in those parts of London\nwhich are most inhabited by common Jews. He walked to the synagogues at\ntimes of service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:--a process\nnot very promising of particular discovery. Why did he not address\nhimself to an influential Rabbi or other member of a Jewish community,\nto consult on the chances of finding a mother named Cohen, with a son\nnamed Ezra, and a lost daughter named Mirah? He thought of doing\nso--after Christmas. The fact was, notwithstanding all his sense of\npoetry in common things, Deronda, where a keen personal interest was\naroused, could not, more than the rest of us, continuously escape\nsuffering from the pressure of that hard unaccommodating Actual, which\nhas never consulted our taste and is entirely unselect. Enthusiasm, we\nknow, dwells at ease among ideas, tolerates garlic breathed in the\nmiddle ages, and sees no shabbiness in the official trappings of\nclassic processions: it gets squeamish when ideals press upon it as\nsomething warmly incarnate, and can hardly face them without fainting.\nLying dreamily in a boat, imagining one's self in quest of a beautiful\nmaiden's relatives in Cordova elbowed by Jews in the time of\nIbn-Gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without shock. Or\nif the scenery of St. Mary Axe and Whitechapel were imaginatively\ntransported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the eleventh\ncentury, when in the ears listening for the signals of the Messiah, the\nHep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-hounds; and\nin the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and firebrand\nthe crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect, heroic,\nflashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death--what\nwould the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of\ncontemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy with which we\ncontemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the\nenthusiasm that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no\nchallenge--nothing but impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps\nhalf-repulsive, objects which are really the beloved ideas made flesh.\nHere undoubtedly lies the chief poetic energy:--in the force of\nimagination that pierces or exalts the solid fact, instead of floating\namong cloud-pictures. To glory in a prophetic vision of knowledge\ncovering the earth, is an easier exercise of believing imagination than\nto see its beginning in newspaper placards, staring at you from the\nbridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well happen to most of us\ndainty people that we were in the thick of the battle of Armageddon\nwithout being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a little\nexplosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us.\n\nIt lay in Deronda's nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious\nsympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with\nMirah before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care\nfor, he saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison\nwith her, and had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of\nthe unknown mother and brother and the discovered fact--a presentiment\nall the keener in him because of a suppressed consciousness that a not\nunlike possibility of collision might lie hidden in his own lot. Not\nthat he would have looked with more complacency of expectation at\nwealthy Jews, outdoing the lords of the Philistines in their sports;\nbut since there was no likelihood of Mirah's friends being found among\nthat class, their habits did not immediately affect him. In this mood\nhe rambled, without expectation of a more pregnant result than a little\npreparation of his own mind, perhaps for future theorizing as well as\npractice--very much as if, Mirah being related to Welsh miners, he had\ngone to look more closely at the ways of those people, not without\nwishing at the same time to get a little light of detail on the history\nof Strikes.\n\nHe really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his\nhabit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content\nthat it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that\nEzra Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous;\naccording to which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if\nyou have an impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more\nlikely to be born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a\nsquint you would not get it. This desponding view of probability the\nhopeful entirely reject, taking their wishes as good and sufficient\nsecurity for all kinds of fulfilment. Who is absolutely neutral?\nDeronda happening one morning to turn into a little side street out of\nthe noise and obstructions of Holborn, felt the scale dip on the\ndesponding side.\n\nHe was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab\nwhich he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old\nclasps in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. His\nfirst thought was that Lady Mallinger, who had a strictly Protestant\ntaste for such Catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps\nturned into a bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents\nof the window, and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker's\nwhere the lead is given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects\nintroduced as _bric-à-brac_. A placard in one corner\nannounced--_Watches and Jewelry exchanged and repaired_. But his survey\nhad been noticed from within, and a figure appeared at the door,\nlooking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial encouragement,\n\"Good day, sir.\" The instant was enough for Deronda to see the face,\nunmistakably Jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and wincing\nfrom the shopkeeper's persuasiveness that would probably follow, he had\nno sooner returned the \"good day,\" than he passed to the other side of\nthe street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. From that\nstation he saw the name over the shop window--Ezra Cohen.\n\nThere might be a hundred Ezra Cohens lettered above shop windows, but\nDeronda had not seen them. Probably the young man interested in a\npossible customer was Ezra himself; and he was about the age to be\nexpected in Mirah's brother, who was grown up while she was still a\nlittle child. But Deronda's first endeavor as he drove homeward was to\nconvince himself that there was not the slightest warrantable\npresumption of this Ezra being Mirah's brother; and next, that even if,\nin spite of good reasoning, he turned out to be that brother, while on\ninquiry the mother was found to be dead, it was not\nhis--Deronda's--duty to make known the discovery to Mirah. In\ninconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his\nlately-acquired knowledge that Mirah would have a religious desire to\nknow of her mother's death, and also to learn whether her brother were\nliving. How far was he justified in determining another life by his own\nnotions? Was it not his secret complaint against the way in which\nothers had ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all\nits relations, so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of\nprimary duties?\n\nThe immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he\nhad not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts\nmore closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for\nany decision whatever. He intended to return to that shop as soon as he\ncould conveniently, and buy the clasps for Lady Mallinger. But he was\nhindered for several days by Sir Hugo, who, about to make an\nafter-dinner speech on a burning topic, wanted Deronda to forage for\nhim on the legal part of the question, besides wasting time every day\non argument which always ended in a drawn battle. As on many other\nquestions, they held different sides, but Sir Hugo did not mind this,\nand when Deronda put his point well, said, with a mixture of\nsatisfaction and regret--\n\n\"Confound it, Dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these\nthings in public? You're wrong, you know. You won't succeed. You've got\nthe massive sentiment--the heavy artillery of the country against you.\nBut it's all the better ground for a young man to display himself on.\nWhen I was your age, I should have taken it. And it would be quite as\nwell for you to be in opposition to me here and there. It would throw\nyou more into relief. If you would seize an occasion of this sort to\nmake an impression, you might be in Parliament in no time. And you know\nthat would gratify me.\"\n\n\"I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir,\" said Deronda. \"But\nI cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession.\"\n\n\"Why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the\ncountry, there's no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts.\nThe business of the country must be done--her Majesty's Government\ncarried on, as the old Duke said. And it never could be, my boy, if\neverybody looked at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an\ninspired vocation. If you are to get into Parliament, it won't do to\nsit still and wait for a call either from heaven or constituents.\"\n\n\"I don't want to make a living out of opinions,\" said Deronda;\n\"especially out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other\nmen. I dare say many better fellows than I don't mind getting on to a\nplatform to praise themselves, and giving their word of honor for a\nparty.\"\n\n\"I'll tell you what, Dan,\" said Sir Hugo, \"a man who sets his face\nagainst every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable\nfellow. There's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good\nstyle--one that oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are\nto rule men, you must rule them through their own ideas; and I agree\nwith the Archbishop at Naples who had a St. Januarius procession\nagainst the plague. It's no use having an Order in Council against\npopular shallowness. There is no action possible without a little\nacting.\"\n\n\"One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity,\" said\nDeronda. \"But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am\nforced to put on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket\nfoolscap and practice myself in grinning. I can't see any real public\nexpediency that does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of\ndeviation from the direct path. But if I were to set up for a public\nman I might mistake my success for public expediency.\"\n\nIt was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that\nDeronda set out on his meditated second visit to Ezra Cohen's. He\nentered the street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance, and an\ninward reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were\ntransferring what he had just been saying about public expediency to\nthe entirely private difficulty which brought him back again into this\nunattractive thoroughfare. It might soon become an immediate practical\nquestion with him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal\nthe fact of close kindred. Such questions turning up constantly in life\nare often decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear\nan over-refinement in Deronda that he should make any great point of a\nmatter confined to his own knowledge. But we have seen the reasons why\nhe had come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity\nof concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided.\nThe prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was\nnaturally grating. He even paused here and there before the most\nplausible shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to\ndecide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra,\nwho was certainly not a leader among his people--a hesitation which\nproved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may\nweigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for Deronda's reasoning had\ndecided that all likelihood was against this man's being Mirah's\nbrother.\n\nOne of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand\nbook-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages\nwas represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer\nto the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was\njudicious was apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he\nwanted--namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the\nPolish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his\npocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for,\nexpecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that\n_nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the\nsecond-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men\nwho are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even\na Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you with an affectionate\nassurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes\nhe had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led\nto fear that a secondhand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class\nof men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by,\nyet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their\nvocation.\n\nBut instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background\nof books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling\nin its unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was\ndifficult to guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh,\nsomething like an old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some\nbookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more\nremarkable than reading yesterday's _Times_; but when he let the paper\nrest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought\nglanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might\npossibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New\nHebrew poet of the mediæval time. It was a fine typical Jewish face,\nwrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager\nexperience in which all the satisfaction had been indirect and far off,\nand perhaps by some bodily suffering also, which involved that absence\nof ease in the present. The features were clear-cut, not large; the\nbrow not high but broad, and fully defined by the crisp black hair. It\nmight never have been a particularly handsome face, but it must always\nhave been forcible; and now with its dark, far-off gaze, and yellow\npallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop, one might have\nimagined one's self coming upon it in some past prison of the\nInquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed\non an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have\nbeen turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery\nor of death. The figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to\nthe inhabitants of this street; but to Deronda's mind it brought so\nstrange a blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a\nperceptible interval of mutual observation before he asked his\nquestion; \"What is the price of this book?\"\n\nAfter taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the\nsupposed bookseller said, \"There is no mark, and Mr. Ram is not in now.\nI am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. What are you disposed\nto give for it?\" He held the book close on his lap with his hand on it\nand looked examiningly at Deronda, over whom there came the\ndisagreeable idea, that possibly this striking personage wanted to see\nhow much could be got out of a customer's ignorance of prices. But\nwithout further reflection he said, \"Don't you know how much it is\nworth?\"\n\n\"Not its market-price. May I ask have you read it?\"\n\n\"No. I have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it.\"\n\n\"You are a man of learning--you are interested in Jewish history?\" This\nwas said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry.\n\n\"I am certainly interested in Jewish history,\" said Deronda, quietly,\ncuriosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as\nquestioning he was under.\n\nBut immediately the strange Jew rose from his sitting posture, and\nDeronda felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse,\nexcited voice, not much above a loud whisper, said--\n\n\"You are perhaps of our race?\"\n\nDeronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a\nslight shake of the head, \"No.\" The grasp was relaxed, the hand\nwithdrawn, the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested\nmelancholy, as if some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eyes\nand gestures had sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame;\nand moving further off as he held out the little book, the stranger\nsaid in a tone of distant civility, \"I believe Mr. Ram will be\nsatisfied with half-a-crown, sir.\"\n\nThe effect of this change on Deronda--he afterward smiled when he\nrecalled it--was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high\ndignitary had found him deficient and given him his _congé_. There was\nnothing further to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried\noff his _Salomon Maimon's Lebensgeschichte_ with a mere \"good-morning.\"\n\nHe felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the\napparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was\ncertainly something out of the common way--as different probably as a\nJew could well be from Ezra Cohen, through whose door Deronda was\npresently entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to\nfatness was hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on\nthe other side of the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and\nthree teaspoons, which lay spread before him. Seeing Deronda enter, he\ncalled out \"Mother! Mother!\" and then with a familiar nod and smile,\nsaid, \"Coming, sir--coming directly.\"\n\nDeronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some\nanxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond\nfifty enter and approach to serve him. Not that there was anything very\nrepulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that\nlook of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight,\nwhich is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having\npresumably slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and\nnecklace. In fact, what caused a sinking of heart in Deronda was, her\nnot being so coarse and ugly as to exclude the idea of her being\nMirah's mother. Any one who has looked at a face to try and discern\nsigns of known kinship in it will understand his process of\nconjecture--how he tried to think away the fat which had gradually\ndisguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what one may call the\nelementary expressions of the face. He was sorry to see no absolute\nnegative to his fears. Just as it was conceivable that this Ezra,\nbrought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in everything\nbut his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that this mother\nmight have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature and\nexpression was like Mirah's. The eyebrows had a vexatious similarity of\nline; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the\nuncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession\nof youth and age? The good-humor of the glance remained and shone out\nin a motherly way at Deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone--\n\n\"How can I serve you, sir?\"\n\n\"I should like to look at the silver clasps in the window,\" said\nDeronda; \"the larger ones, please, in the corner there.\"\n\nThey were not quite easy to get at from the mother's station, and the\nson seeing this called out, \"I'll reach 'em, mother; I'll reach 'em,\"\nrunning forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to Deronda\nwith the smiling remark--\n\n\"Mother's too proud: she wants to do everything herself. That's why I\ncalled her to wait on you, sir. When there's a particular gentleman\ncustomer, sir, I daren't do any other than call her. But I can't let\nher do herself mischief with stretching.\"\n\nHere Mr. Cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little\nguttural, amiable laugh while she looked at Deronda, as much as to say,\n\"This boy will be at his jokes, but you see he's the best son in the\nworld,\" and evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also\nwished to convey an apology to his distinguished customer for not\ngiving him the advantage of his own exclusive attention.\n\nDeronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe\nbefore he could come to a decision.\n\n\"They are only three guineas, sir,\" said the mother, encouragingly.\n\n\"First-rate workmanship, sir--worth twice the money; only I get 'em a\nbargain from Cologne,\" said the son, parenthetically, from a distance.\n\nMeanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, \"Addy!\"\nbrought from the back of the shop a group that Deronda turned frankly\nto stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary.\nThe group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a\nblack-eyed little one, its head already covered with black curls, and\ndeposited it on the counter, from which station it looked round with\neven more than the usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of\nsix and a younger girl, both with black eyes and black-ringed\nhair--looking more Semitic than their parents, as the puppy lions show\nthe spots of far-off progenitors. The young woman answering to\n\"Addy\"--a sort of paroquet in a bright blue dress, with coral necklace\nand earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush--looked as complacently\nlively and unrefined as her husband; and by a certain difference from\nthe mother deepened in Deronda the unwelcome impression that the latter\nwas not so utterly common a Jewess as to exclude her being the mother\nof Mirah. While that thought was glancing through his mind, the boy had\nrun forward into the shop with an energetic stamp, and setting himself\nabout four feet from Deronda, with his hands in the pockets of his\nminiature knickerbockers, looked at him with a precocious air of\nsurvey. Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design to linger and\ningratiate himself that Deronda patted the boy's head, saying--\n\n\"What is your name, sirrah?\"\n\n\"Jacob Alexander Cohen,\" said the small man, with much ease and\ndistinctness.\n\n\"You are not named after your father, then?\"\n\n\"No, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors--my\ngrandfather does,\" said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with\nthat high connection. \"He gave me this knife.\" Here a pocket-knife was\ndrawn forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially\ndark, opened two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness.\n\n\"Is not that a dangerous plaything?\" said Deronda, turning to the\ngrandmother.\n\n\"_He_'ll never hurt himself, bless you!\" said she, contemplating her\ngrandson with placid rapture.\n\n\"Have _you_ got a knife?\" says Jacob, coming closer. His small voice\nwas hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial\nsoul, fatigued with bargaining through many generations.\n\n\"Yes. Do you want to see it?\" said Deronda, taking a small penknife\nfrom his waistcoat-pocket.\n\nJacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two\nknives in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. By\nthis time the other clients were gone, and the whole family had\ngathered to the spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob:\nthe father, mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held\nstaggering thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her\nbrother's elbow to assist him in looking at the knives.\n\n\"Mine's the best,\" said Jacob, at last, returning Deronda's knife as if\nhe had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it.\n\nFather and mother laughed aloud with delight. \"You won't find Jacob\nchoosing the worst,\" said Mr. Cohen, winking, with much confidence in\nthe customer's admiration. Deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had\nonly an inward silent laugh, said--\n\n\"Are these the only grandchildren you have?\"\n\n\"All. This is my only son,\" she answered in a communicative tone,\nDeronda's glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of\nsympathetic interest--which on this occasion answered his purpose well.\nIt seemed to come naturally enough that he should say--\n\n\"And you have no daughter?\"\n\nThere was an instantaneous change in the mother's face. Her lips closed\nmore firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter,\nand finally turned her back on Deronda to examine some Indian\nhandkerchiefs that hung in pawn behind her. Her son gave a significant\nglance, set up his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his\nlips,--then said quickly, \"I think you're a first-rate gentleman in the\ncity, sir, if I may be allowed to guess.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Deronda, with a preoccupied air, \"I have nothing to do with\nthe city.\"\n\n\"That's a bad job. I thought you might be the young principal of a\nfirst-rate firm,\" said Mr. Cohen, wishing to make amends for the check\non his customer's natural desire to know more of him and his. \"But you\nunderstand silver-work, I see.\"\n\n\"A little,\" said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them\ndown again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his\nmind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than\nanything he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare\npossibility that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now\noverpowered the inclination to rest in uncertainty.\n\n\"To tell you the truth,\" he went on, \"my errand is not so much to buy\nas to borrow. I dare say you go into rather heavy transactions\noccasionally.\"\n\n\"Well, sir, I've accommodated gentlemen of distinction--I'm proud to\nsay it. I wouldn't exchange my business with any in the world. There's\nnone more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all\nclasses, from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the\nbaker, to a gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for\namusement. I like my business, I like my street, and I like my shop. I\nwouldn't have it a door further down. And I wouldn't be without a\npawn-shop, sir, to be the Lord Mayor. It puts you in connection with\nthe world at large. I say it's like the government revenue--it embraces\nthe brass as well as the gold of the country. And a man who doesn't get\nmoney, sir, can't accommodate. Now, what can I do for _you_, sir?\"\n\nIf an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, Solomon\nin all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with Mr. Cohen--clearly\none of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves,\nare willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. While he was\ndelivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife\nand holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its\nsmall fists. Deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing\nthis Ezra Cohen to be the most unpoetic Jew he had ever met with in\nbooks or life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of\nthe Old Testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his\nvulgarity of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of\nthe purest English lineage. It is naturally a Christian feeling that a\nJew ought not to be conceited. However, this was no reason for not\npersevering in his project, and he answered at once in adventurous\nignorance of technicalities--\n\n\"I have a fine diamond ring to offer as security--not with me at this\nmoment, unfortunately, for I am not in the habit of wearing it. But I\nwill come again this evening and bring it with me. Fifty pounds at once\nwould be a convenience to me.\"\n\n\"Well, you know, this evening is the Sabbath, young gentleman,\" said\nCohen, \"and I go to the _Shool_. The shop will be closed. But\naccommodation is a work of charity; if you can't get here before, and\nare any ways pressed--why, I'll look at your diamond. You're perhaps\nfrom the West End--a longish drive?\"\n\n\"Yes; and your Sabbath begins early at this season. I could be here by\nfive--will that do?\" Deronda had not been without hope that by asking\nto come on a Friday evening he might get a better opportunity of\nobserving points in the family character, and might even be able to put\nsome decisive question.\n\nCohen assented; but here the marvelous Jacob, whose _physique_\nsupported a precocity that would have shattered a Gentile of his years,\nshowed that he had been listening with much comprehension by saying,\n\"You are coming again. Have you got any more knives at home?\"\n\n\"I think I have one,\" said Deronda, smiling down at him.\n\n\"Has it two blades and a hook--and a white handle like that?\" said\nJacob, pointing to the waistcoat-pocket.\n\n\"I dare say it has?\"\n\n\"Do you like a cork-screw?\" said Jacob, exhibiting that article in his\nown knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Deronda, experimentally.\n\n\"Bring your knife, then, and we'll shwop,\" said Jacob, returning the\nknife to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had\nconcluded a good transaction.\n\nThe grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole\nfamily watched Deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little\ngirl, to whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on\nthe counter, asked for her name also. She looked at him in silence, and\nput her fingers to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have\nnoticed.\n\n\"Adelaide Rebekah is her name,\" said her mother, proudly. \"Speak to the\ngentleman, lovey.\"\n\n\"Shlav'm Shabbes fyock on,\" said Adelaide Rebekah.\n\n\"Her Sabbath frock, she means,\" said the father, in explanation.\n\"She'll have her Sabbath frock on this evening.\"\n\n\"And will you let me see you in it, Adelaide?\" said Deronda, with that\ngentle intonation which came very easily to him.\n\n\"Say yes, lovey--yes, if you please, sir,\" said her mother, enchanted\nwith this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children.\n\n\"And will you give me a kiss this evening?\" said Deronda with a hand on\neach of her little brown shoulders.\n\nAdelaide Rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features\ncorresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her\nlips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still\nmore glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his\ncircumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said\ncordially--\n\n\"You see there's somebody will be disappointed if you don't come this\nevening, sir. You won't mind sitting down in our family place and\nwaiting a bit for me, if I'm not in when you come, sir? I'll stretch a\npoint to accommodate a gent of your sort. Bring the diamond, and I'll\nsee what I can do for you.\"\n\nDeronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a\npreparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those\namenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were\nreally Mirah's relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid\nfilial piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such\nas could be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. What did\nthis vaunting brother need? And with the most favorable supposition\nabout the hypothetic mother, Deronda shrank from the image of a first\nmeeting between her and Mirah, and still more from the idea of Mirah's\ndomestication with this family. He took refuge in disbelief. To find an\nEzra Cohen when the name was running in your head was no more\nextraordinary than to find a Josiah Smith under like circumstances; and\nas to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to\nbe a difference. If, however, further knowledge confirmed the more\nundesirable conclusion, what would be wise expediency?--to try and\ndetermine the best consequences by concealment, or to brave other\nconsequences for the sake of that openness which is the sweet fresh air\nof our moral life.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV.\n\n        \"Er ist geheissen\n  Israel. Ihn hat verwandelt\n  Hexenspruch in elnen Hund.\n       *       *       *       *       *\n  Aber jeden Freitag Abend,\n  In der Dämmrungstunde, plötzlich\n  Weicht der Zauber, und der Hund\n  Wird aufs Neu' ein menschlich Wesen.\"\n                    --HEINE: _Prinzessin Sabbaz_.\n\n\nWhen Deronda arrived at five o'clock, the shop was closed and the door\nwas opened for him by the Christian servant. When she showed him into\nthe room behind the shop he was surprised at the prettiness of the\nscene. The house was old, and rather extensive at the back: probably\nthe large room he how entered was gloomy by daylight, but now it was\nagreeably lit by a fine old brass lamp with seven oil-lights hanging\nabove the snow-white cloth spread on the central table, The ceiling and\nwalls were smoky, and all the surroundings were dark enough to throw\ninto relief the human figures, which had a Venetian glow of coloring.\nThe grandmother was arrayed in yellowish brown with a large gold chain\nin lieu of the necklace, and by this light her yellow face with its\ndarkly-marked eyebrows and framing roll of gray hair looked as handsome\nas was necessary for picturesque effect. Young Mrs. Cohen was clad in\nred and black, with a string of large artificial pearls wound round and\nround her neck: the baby lay asleep in the cradle under a scarlet\ncounterpane; Adelaide Rebekah was in braided amber, and Jacob Alexander\nwas in black velveteen with scarlet stockings. As the four pairs of\nblack eyes all glistened a welcome at Deronda, he was almost ashamed of\nthe supercilious dislike these happy-looking creatures had raised in\nhim by daylight. Nothing could be more cordial than the greeting he\nreceived, and both mother and grandmother seemed to gather more dignity\nfrom being seen on the private hearth, showing hospitality. He looked\nround with some wonder at the old furniture: the oaken bureau and high\nside-table must surely be mere matters of chance and economy, and not\ndue to the family taste. A large dish of blue and yellow ware was set\nup on the side-table, and flanking it were two old silver vessels; in\nfront of them a large volume in darkened vellum with a deep-ribbed\nback. In the corner at the farther end was an open door into an inner\nroom, where there was also a light.\n\nDeronda took in these details by parenthetic glances while he met\nJacob's pressing solicitude about the knife. He had taken the pains to\nbuy one with the requisites of the hook and white handle, and produced\nit on demand, saying,--\n\n\"Is that the sort of thing you want, Jacob?\"\n\nIt was subjected to a severe scrutiny, the hook and blades were opened,\nand the article of barter with the cork-screw was drawn forth for\ncomparison.\n\n\"Why do you like a hook better than a cork-screw?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"'Caush I can get hold of things with a hook. A corkscrew won't go into\nanything but corks. But it's better for you, you can draw corks.\"\n\n\"You agree to change, then?\" said Deronda, observing that the\ngrandmother was listening with delight.\n\n\"What else have you got in your pockets?\" said Jacob, with deliberative\nseriousness.\n\n\"Hush, hush, Jacob, love,\" said the grandmother. And Deronda, mindful\nof discipline, answered--\n\n\"I think I must not tell you that. Our business was with the knives.\"\n\nJacob looked up into his face scanningly for a moment or two, and\napparently arriving at his conclusions, said gravely--\n\n\"I'll shwop,\" handing the cork-screw knife to Deronda, who pocketed it\nwith corresponding gravity.\n\nImmediately the small son of Shem ran off into the next room, whence\nhis voice was heard in rapid chat; and then ran back again--when,\nseeing his father enter, he seized a little velveteen hat which lay on\na chair and put it on to approach him. Cohen kept on his own hat, and\ntook no notice of the visitor, but stood still while the two children\nwent up to him and clasped his knees: then he laid his hands on each in\nturn and uttered his Hebrew benediction; whereupon the wife, who had\nlately taken baby from the cradle, brought it up to her husband and\nheld it under his outstretched hands, to be blessed in its sleep. For\nthe moment, Deronda thought that this pawnbroker, proud of his\nvocation, was not utterly prosaic.\n\n\"Well, sir, you found your welcome in my family, I think,\" said Cohen,\nputting down his hat and becoming his former self. \"And you've been\npunctual. Nothing like a little stress here,\" he added, tapping his\nside pocket as he sat down. \"It's good for us all in our turn. I've\nfelt it when I've had to make up payments. I began to fit every sort of\nbox. It's bracing to the mind. Now then! let us see, let us see.\"\n\n\"That is the ring I spoke of,\" said Deronda, taking it from his finger.\n\"I believe it cost a hundred pounds. It will be a sufficient pledge to\nyou for fifty, I think. I shall probably redeem it in a month or so.\"\n\nCohen's glistening eyes seemed to get a little nearer together as he\nmet the ingenuous look of this crude young gentleman, who apparently\nsupposed that redemption was a satisfaction to pawnbrokers. He took the\nring, examined and returned it, saying with indifference, \"Good, good.\nWe'll talk of it after our meal. Perhaps you'll join us, if you've no\nobjection. Me and my wife'll feel honored, and so will mother; won't\nyou, mother?\"\n\nThe invitation was doubly echoed, and Deronda gladly accepted it. All\nnow turned and stood round the table. No dish was at present seen\nexcept one covered with a napkin; and Mrs. Cohen had placed a china\nbowl near her husband that he might wash his hands in it. But after\nputting on his hat again, he paused, and called in a loud voice,\n\"Mordecai!\"\n\nCan this be part of the religious ceremony? thought Deronda, not\nknowing what might be expected of the ancient hero. But he heard a\n\"Yes\" from the next room, which made him look toward the open door; and\nthere, to his astonishment, he saw the figure of the enigmatic Jew whom\nhe had this morning met with in the book-shop. Their eyes met, and\nMordecai looked as much surprised as Deronda--neither in his surprise\nmaking any sign of recognition. But when Mordecai was seating himself\nat the end of the table, he just bent his head to the guest in a cold\nand distant manner, as if the disappointment of the morning remained a\ndisagreeable association with this new acquaintance.\n\nCohen now washed his hands, pronouncing Hebrew words the while:\nafterward, he took off the napkin covering the dish and disclosed the\ntwo long flat loaves besprinkled with seed--the memorial of the manna\nthat fed the wandering forefathers--and breaking off small pieces gave\none to each of the family, including Adelaide Rebekah, who stood on the\nchair with her whole length exhibited in her amber-colored garment, her\nlittle Jewish nose lengthened by compression of the lip in the effort\nto make a suitable appearance. Cohen then uttered another Hebrew\nblessing, and after that, the male heads were uncovered, all seated\nthemselves, and the meal went on without any peculiarity that\ninterested Deronda. He was not very conscious of what dishes he ate\nfrom; being preoccupied with a desire to turn the conversation in a way\nthat would enable him to ask some leading question; and also thinking\nof Mordecai, between whom and himself there was an exchange of\nfascinated, half furtive glances. Mordecai had no handsome Sabbath\ngarment, but instead of the threadbare rusty black coat of the morning\nhe wore one of light drab, which looked as if it had once been a\nhandsome loose paletot now shrunk with washing; and this change of\nclothing gave a still stronger accentuation to his dark-haired, eager\nface which might have belonged to the prophet Ezekiel--also probably\nnot modish in the eyes of contemporaries. It was noticeable that the\nthin tails of the fried fish were given to Mordecai; and in general the\nsort of share assigned to a poor relation--no doubt a \"survival\" of\nprehistoric practice, not yet generally admitted to be superstitious.\n\nMr. Cohen kept up the conversation with much liveliness, introducing as\nsubjects always in taste (the Jew is proud of his loyalty) the Queen\nand the Royal Family, the Emperor and Empress of the French--into which\nboth grandmother and wife entered with zest. Mrs. Cohen the younger\nshowed an accurate memory of distinguished birthdays; and the elder\nassisted her son in informing the guest of what occurred when the\nEmperor and Empress were in England and visited the city ten years\nbefore.\n\n\"I dare say you know all about it better than we do, sir,\" said Cohen,\nrepeatedly, by way of preface to full information; and the interesting\nstatements were kept up in a trio.\n\n\"Our baby is named _Eu_genie Esther,\" said young Mrs. Cohen,\nvivaciously.\n\n\"It's wonderful how the Emperor's like a cousin of mine in the face,\"\nsaid the grandmother; \"it struck me like lightning when I caught sight\nof him. I couldn't have thought it.\"\n\n\"Mother, and me went to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal\nPalace,\" said Mr. Cohen. \"I had a fine piece of work to take care of,\nmother; she might have been squeezed flat--though she was pretty near\nas lusty then as she is now. I said if I had a hundred mothers I'd\nnever take one of 'em to see the Emperor and Empress at the Crystal\nPalace again; and you may think a man can't afford it when he's got but\none mother--not if he'd ever so big an insurance on her.\" He stroked\nhis mother's shoulder affectionately, and chuckled a little at his own\nhumor.\n\n\"Your mother has been a widow a long while, perhaps,\" said Deronda,\nseizing his opportunity. \"That has made your care for her the more\nneedful.\"\n\n\"Ay, ay, it's a good many _yore-zeit_ since I had to manage for her and\nmyself,\" said Cohen quickly. \"I went early to it. It's that makes you a\nsharp knife.\"\n\n\"What does--what makes a sharp knife, father?\" said Jacob, his cheek\nvery much swollen with sweet-cake.\n\nThe father winked at his guest and said, \"Having your nose put on the\ngrindstone.\"\n\nJacob slipped from his chair with the piece of sweet-cake in his hand,\nand going close up to Mordecai, who had been totally silent hitherto,\nsaid, \"What does that mean--putting my nose to the grindstone?\"\n\n\"It means that you are to bear being hurt without making a noise,\" said\nMordecai, turning his eyes benignantly on the small face close to his.\nJacob put the corner of the cake into Mordecai's mouth as an invitation\nto bite, saying meanwhile, \"I shan't though,\" and keeping his eyes on\nthe cake to observe how much of it went in this act of generosity.\nMordecai took a bite and smiled, evidently meaning to please the lad,\nand the little incident made them both look more lovable. Deronda,\nhowever, felt with some vexation that he had taken little by his\nquestion.\n\n\"I fancy that is the right quarter for learning,\" said he, carrying on\nthe subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to\nwhom he turned and said, \"You have been a great student, I imagine?\"\n\n\"I have studied,\" was the quiet answer. \"And you?--You know German by\nthe book you were buying.\"\n\n\"Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in\nbookselling?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"No; I only go to Mr. Ram's shop every day to keep it while he goes to\nmeals,\" said Mordecai, who was now looking at Deronda with what seemed\na revival of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some\nattractive indication for him which now neutralized the former\ndisappointment. After a slight pause, he said, \"Perhaps you know\nHebrew?\"\n\n\"I am sorry to say, not at all.\"\n\nMordecai's countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his\nhands, which lay crossed before him, and said no more. Deronda had now\nnoticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty in\nbreathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption.\n\n\"I've had something else to do than to get book-learning.\" said Mr.\nCohen,--\"I've had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know\nstones well,\"--here he pointed to Deronda's ring. \"I'm not afraid of\ntaking that ring of yours at my own valuation. But now,\" he added, with\na certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, \"what do\nyou want for it?\"\n\n\"Fifty or sixty pounds,\" Deronda answered, rather too carelessly.\n\nCohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on\nDeronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous\nguinea-pig, and said, \"Couldn't do you that. Happy to oblige, but\ncouldn't go that lengths. Forty pound--say forty--I'll let you have\nforty on it.\"\n\nDeronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words\nimplying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he\nsaid, \"Very well, I shall redeem it in a month or so.\"\n\n\"Good. I'll make you out the ticket by-and-by,\" said Cohen,\nindifferently. Then he held up his finger as a sign that conversation\nmust be deferred. He, Mordecai and Jacob put on their hats, and Cohen\nopened a thanksgiving, which was carried on by responses, till Mordecai\ndelivered himself alone at some length, in a solemn chanting tone, with\nhis chin slightly uplifted and his thin hands clasped easily before\nhim. Not only in his accent and tone, but in his freedom from the\nself-consciousness which has reference to others' approbation, there\ncould hardly have been a stronger contrast to the Jew at the other end\nof the table. It was an unaccountable conjunction--the presence among\nthese common, prosperous, shopkeeping types, of a man who, in an\nemaciated threadbare condition, imposed a certain awe on Deronda, and\nan embarrassment at not meeting his expectations.\n\nNo sooner had Mordecai finished his devotional strain, than rising,\nwith a slight bend of his head to the stranger, he walked back into his\nroom, and shut the door behind him.\n\n\"That seems to be rather a remarkable man,\" said Deronda, turning to\nCohen, who immediately set up his shoulders, put out his tongue\nslightly, and tapped his own brow. It was clearly to be understood that\nMordecai did not come up to the standard of sanity which was set by Mr.\nCohen's view of men and things.\n\n\"Does he belong to your family?\" said Deronda.\n\nThis idea appeared to be rather ludicrous to the ladies as well as to\nCohen, and the family interchanged looks of amusement.\n\n\"No, no,\" said Cohen. \"Charity! charity! he worked for me, and when he\ngot weaker and weaker I took him in. He's an incumbrance; but he brings\na blessing down, and he teaches the boy. Besides, he does the repairing\nat the watches and jewelry.\"\n\nDeronda hardly abstained from smiling at this mixture of kindliness and\nthe desire to justify it in the light of a calculation; but his\nwillingness to speak further of Mordecai, whose character was made the\nmore enigmatically striking by these new details, was baffled. Mr.\nCohen immediately dismissed the subject by reverting to the\n\"accommodation,\" which was also an act of charity, and proceeded to\nmake out the ticket, get the forty pounds, and present them both in\nexchange for the diamond ring. Deronda, feeling that it would be hardly\ndelicate to protract his visit beyond the settlement of the business\nwhich was its pretext, had to take his leave, with no more decided\nresult than the advance of forty pounds and the pawn-ticket in his\nbreast-pocket, to make a reason for returning when he came up to town\nafter Christmas. He was resolved that he would then endeavor to gain a\nlittle more insight into the character and history of Mordecai; from\nwhom also he might gather something decisive about the Cohens--for\nexample, the reason why it was forbidden to ask Mrs. Cohen the elder\nwhether she had a daughter.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK V.--MORDECAI.\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV.\n\n    Were uneasiness of conscience measured by extent of crime, human\n    history had been different, and one should look to see the contrivers\n    of greedy wars and the mighty marauders of the money-market in one\n    troop of self-lacerating penitents with the meaner robber and\n    cut-purse and the murderer that doth his butchery in small with his own\n    hand. No doubt wickedness hath its rewards to distribute; but who so\n    wins in this devil's game must needs be baser, more cruel, more brutal\n    than the order of this planet will allow for the multitude born of\n    woman, the most of these carrying a form of conscience--a fear which\n    is the shadow of justice, a pity which is the shadow of love--that\n    hindereth from the prize of serene wickedness, itself difficult of\n    maintenance in our composite flesh.\n\n\nOn the twenty-ninth of December Deronda knew that the Grandcourts had\narrived at the Abbey, but he had had no glimpse of them before he went\nto dress for dinner. There had been a splendid fall of snow, allowing\nthe party of children the rare pleasures of snow-balling and\nsnow-building, and in the Christmas holidays the Mallinger girls were\ncontent with no amusement unless it were joined in and managed by\n\"cousin,\" as they had always called Deronda. After that outdoor\nexertion he had been playing billiards, and thus the hours had passed\nwithout his dwelling at all on the prospect of meeting Gwendolen at\ndinner. Nevertheless that prospect was interesting to him; and when, a\nlittle tired and heated with working at amusement, he went to his room\nbefore the half-hour bell had rung, he began to think of it with some\nspeculation on the sort of influence her marriage with Grandcourt would\nhave on her, and on the probability that there would be some\ndiscernible shades of change in her manner since he saw her at Diplow,\njust as there had been since his first vision of her at Leubronn.\n\n\"I fancy there are some natures one could see growing or degenerating\nevery day, if one watched them,\" was his thought. \"I suppose some of us\ngo on faster than others: and I am sure she is a creature who keeps\nstrong traces of anything that has once impressed her. That little\naffair of the necklace, and the idea that somebody thought her gambling\nwrong, had evidently bitten into her. But such impressibility leads\nboth ways: it may drive one to desperation as soon as to anything\nbetter. And whatever fascinations Grandcourt may have for capricious\ntastes--good heavens! who can believe that he would call out the tender\naffections in daily companionship? One might be tempted to horsewhip\nhim for the sake of getting some show of passion into his face and\nspeech. I'm afraid she married him out of ambition--to escape poverty.\nBut why did she run out of his way at first? The poverty came after,\nthough. Poor thing! she may have been urged into it. How can one feel\nanything else than pity for a young creature like that--full of unused\nlife--ignorantly rash--hanging all her blind expectations on that\nremnant of a human being.\"\n\nDoubtless the phrases which Deronda's meditation applied to the\nbridegroom were the less complimentary for the excuses and pity in\nwhich it clad the bride. His notion of Grandcourt as a \"remnant\" was\nfounded on no particular knowledge, but simply on the impression which\nordinary polite intercourse had given him that Grandcourt had worn out\nall his natural healthy interest in things.\n\nIn general, one may be sure that whenever a marriage of any mark takes\nplace, male acquaintances are likely to pity the bride, female\nacquaintances the bridegroom: each, it is thought, might have done\nbetter; and especially where the bride is charming, young gentlemen on\nthe scene are apt to conclude that she can have no real attachment to a\nfellow so uninteresting to themselves as her husband, but has married\nhim on other grounds. Who, under such circumstances, pities the\nhusband? Even his female friends are apt to think his position\nretributive: he should have chosen some one else. But perhaps Deronda\nmay be excused that he did not prepare any pity for Grandcourt, who had\nnever struck acquaintances as likely to come out of his experiences\nwith more suffering than he inflicted; whereas, for Gwendolen, young,\nheadlong, eager for pleasure, fed with the flattery which makes a\nlovely girl believe in her divine right to rule--how quickly might life\nturn from expectancy to a bitter sense of the irremediable! After what\nhe had seen of her he must have had rather dull feelings not to have\nlooked forward with some interest to her entrance into the room. Still,\nsince the honeymoon was already three weeks in the distance, and\nGwendolen had been enthroned, not only at Ryelands, but at Diplow, she\nwas likely to have composed her countenance with suitable manifestation\nor concealment, not being one who would indulge the curious by a\nhelpless exposure of her feelings.\n\nA various party had been invited to meet the new couple; the old\naristocracy was represented by Lord and Lady Pentreath; the old gentry\nby young Mr. and Mrs. Fitzadam of the Worcestershire branch of the\nFitzadams; politics and the public good, as specialized in the cider\ninterest, by Mr. Fenn, member for West Orchards, accompanied by his two\ndaughters; Lady Mallinger's family, by her brother, Mr. Raymond, and\nhis wife; the useful bachelor element by Mr. Sinker, the eminent\ncounsel, and by Mr. Vandernoodt, whose acquaintance Sir Hugo had found\npleasant enough at Leubronn to be adopted in England.\n\nAll had assembled in the drawing-room before the new couple appeared.\nMeanwhile, the time was being passed chiefly in noticing the\nchildren--various little Raymonds, nephews and nieces of Lady\nMallinger's with her own three girls, who were always allowed to appear\nat this hour. The scene was really delightful--enlarged by full-length\nportraits with deep backgrounds, inserted in the cedar\npaneling--surmounted by a ceiling that glowed with the rich colors of\nthe coats of arms ranged between the sockets--illuminated almost as\nmuch by the red fire of oak-boughs as by the pale wax-lights--stilled\nby the deep-piled carpet and by the high English breeding that subdues\nall voices; while the mixture of ages, from the white-haired Lord and\nLady Pentreath to the four-year-old Edgar Raymond, gave a varied charm\nto the living groups. Lady Mallinger, with fair matronly roundness and\nmildly prominent blue eyes, moved about in her black velvet, carrying a\ntiny white dog on her arm as a sort of finish to her costume; the\nchildren were scattered among the ladies, while most of the gentlemen\nwere standing rather aloof, conversing with that very moderate vivacity\nobservable during the long minutes before dinner. Deronda was a little\nout of the circle in a dialogue fixed upon him by Mr. Vandernoodt, a\nman of the best Dutch blood imported at the revolution: for the rest,\none of those commodious persons in society who are nothing particular\nthemselves, but are understood to be acquainted with the best in every\ndepartment; close-clipped, pale-eyed, _nonchalant_, as good a foil as\ncould well be found to the intense coloring and vivid gravity of\nDeronda.\n\nHe was talking of the bride and bridegroom, whose appearance was being\nwaited for. Mr. Vandernoodt was an industrious gleaner of personal\ndetails, and could probably tell everything about a great philosopher\nor physicist except his theories or discoveries; he was now implying\nthat he had learned many facts about Grandcourt since meeting him at\nLeubronn.\n\n\"Men who have seen a good deal of life don't always end by choosing\ntheir wives so well. He has had rather an anecdotic history--gone\nrather deep into pleasures, I fancy, lazy as he is. But, of course, you\nknow all about him.\"\n\n\"No, really,\" said Deronda, in an indifferent tone. \"I know little more\nof him than that he is Sir Hugo's nephew.\"\n\nBut now the door opened and deferred any satisfaction of Mr.\nVandernoodt's communicativeness.\n\nThe scene was one to set off any figure of distinction that entered on\nit, and certainly when Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt entered, no beholder\ncould deny that their figures had distinction. The bridegroom had\nneither more nor less easy perfection of costume, neither more nor less\nwell-cut impassibility of face, than before his marriage. It was to be\nsupposed of him that he would put up with nothing less than the best in\noutward equipment, wife included; and the bride was what he might have\nbeen expected to choose. \"By George, I think she's handsomer, if\nanything!\" said Mr. Vandernoodt. And Deronda was of the same opinion,\nbut he said nothing. The white silk and diamonds--it may seem strange,\nbut she did wear diamonds on her neck, in her ears, in her hair--might\nhave something to do with the new imposingness of her beauty, which\nflashed on him as more unquestionable if not more thoroughly\nsatisfactory than when he had first seen her at the gaming-table. Some\nfaces which are peculiar in their beauty are like original works of\nart: for the first time they are almost always met with question. But\nin seeing Gwendolen at Diplow, Deronda had discerned in her more than\nhe had expected of that tender appealing charm which we call womanly.\nWas there any new change since then? He distrusted his impressions; but\nas he saw her receiving greetings with what seemed a proud cold\nquietude and a superficial smile, there seemed to be at work within her\nthe same demonic force that had possessed her when she took him in her\nresolute glance and turned away a loser from the gaming-table. There\nwas no time for more of a conclusion--no time even for him to give his\ngreeting before the summons to dinner.\n\nHe sat not far from opposite to her at table, and could sometimes hear\nwhat she said in answer to Sir Hugo, who was at his liveliest in\nconversation with her; but though he looked toward her with the\nintention of bowing, she gave him no opportunity of doing so for some\ntime. At last Sir Hugo, who might have imagined that they had already\nspoken to each other, said, \"Deronda, you will like to hear what Mrs.\nGrandcourt tells me about your favorite Klesmer.\"\n\nGwendolen's eyelids had been lowered, and Deronda, already looking at\nher, thought he discovered a quivering reluctance as she was obliged to\nraise them and return his unembarrassed bow and smile, her own smile\nbeing one of the lip merely. It was but an instant, and Sir Hugo\ncontinued without pause--\n\n\"The Arrowpoints have condoned the marriage, and he is spending the\nChristmas with his bride at Quetcham.\"\n\n\"I suppose he will be glad of it for the sake of his wife, else I dare\nsay he would not have minded keeping at a distance,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"It's a sort of troubadour story,\" said Lady Pentreath, an easy,\ndeep-voiced old lady; \"I'm glad to find a little romance left among us.\nI think our young people now are getting too worldly wise.\"\n\n\"It shows the Arrowpoints' good sense, however, to have adopted the\naffair, after the fuss in the paper,\" said Sir Hugo. \"And disowning\nyour own child because of a _mésalliance_ is something like disowning\nyour one eye: everybody knows it's yours, and you have no other to make\nan appearance with.\"\n\n\"As to _mésalliance_, there's no blood on any side,\" said Lady\nPentreath. \"Old Admiral Arrowpoint was one of Nelson's men, you know--a\ndoctor's son. And we all know how the mother's money came.\"\n\n\"If they were any _mésalliance_ in the case, I should say it was on\nKlesmer's side,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"Ah, you think it is a case of the immortal marrying the mortal. What\nis your opinion?\" said Sir Hugo, looking at Gwendolen.\n\n\"I have no doubt that Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal. But I dare\nsay his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires,\" said\nGwendolen. She had recovered any composure that she might have lost.\n\n\"Don't you approve of a wife burning incense before her husband?\" said\nSir Hugo, with an air of jocoseness.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Gwendolen, \"if it were only to make others believe in\nhim.\" She paused a moment and then said with more gayety, \"When Herr\nKlesmer admires his own genius, it will take off some of the absurdity\nif his wife says Amen.\"\n\n\"Klesmer is no favorite of yours, I see,\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"I think very highly of him, I assure you,\" said Gwendolen. \"His genius\nis quite above my judgment, and I know him to be exceedingly generous.\"\n\nShe spoke with the sudden seriousness which is often meant to correct\nan unfair or indiscreet sally, having a bitterness against Klesmer in\nher secret soul which she knew herself unable to justify. Deronda was\nwondering what he should have thought of her if he had never heard of\nher before: probably that she put on a little hardness and defiance by\nway of concealing some painful consciousness--if, indeed, he could\nimagine her manners otherwise than in the light of his suspicion. But\nwhy did she not recognize him with more friendliness?\n\nSir Hugo, by way of changing the subject, said to her, \"Is not this a\nbeautiful room? It was part of the refectory of the Abbey. There was a\ndivision made by those pillars and the three arches, and afterward they\nwere built up. Else it was half as large again originally. There used\nto be rows of Benedictines sitting where we are sitting. Suppose we\nwere suddenly to see the lights burning low and the ghosts of the old\nmonks rising behind all our chairs!\"\n\n\"Please don't!\" said Gwendolen, with a playful shudder. \"It is very\nnice to come after ancestors and monks, but they should know their\nplaces and keep underground. I should be rather frightened to go about\nthis house all alone. I suppose the old generations must be angry with\nus because we have altered things so much.\"\n\n\"Oh, the ghosts must be of all political parties,\" said Sir Hugo. \"And\nthose fellows who wanted to change things while they lived and couldn't\ndo it must be on our side. But if you would not like to go over the\nhouse alone, you will like to go in company, I hope. You and Grandcourt\nought to see it all. And we will ask Deronda to go round with us. He is\nmore learned about it than I am.\" The baronet was in the most\ncomplaisant of humors.\n\nGwendolen stole a glance at Deronda, who must have heard what Sir Hugo\nsaid, for he had his face turned toward them helping himself to an\n_entrée_; but he looked as impassive as a picture. At the notion of\nDeronda's showing her and Grandcourt the place which was to be theirs,\nand which she with painful emphasis remembered might have been his\n(perhaps, if others had acted differently), certain thoughts had rushed\nin--thoughts repeated within her, but now returning on an occasion\nembarrassingly new; and was conscious of something furtive and awkward\nin her glance which Sir Hugo must have noticed. With her usual\nreadiness of resource against betrayal, she said, playfully, \"You don't\nknow how much I am afraid of Mr. Deronda.\"\n\n\"How's that? Because you think him too learned?\" said Sir Hugo, whom\nthe peculiarity of her glance had not escaped.\n\n\"No. It is ever since I first saw him at Leubronn. Because when he came\nto look on at the roulette-table, I began to lose. He cast an evil eye\non my play. He didn't approve it. He has told me so. And now whatever I\ndo before him, I am afraid he will cast an evil eye upon it.\"\n\n\"Gad! I'm rather afraid of him myself when he doesn't approve,\" said\nSir Hugo, glancing at Deronda; and then turning his face toward\nGwendolen, he said less audibly, \"I don't think ladies generally object\nto have his eyes upon them.\" The baronet's small chronic complaint of\nfacetiousness was at this moment almost as annoying to Gwendolen as it\noften was to Deronda.\n\n\"I object to any eyes that are critical,\" she said, in a cool, high\nvoice, with a turn of her neck. \"Are there many of these old rooms left\nin the Abbey?\"\n\n\"Not many. There is a fine cloistered court with a long gallery above\nit. But the finest bit of all is turned into stables. It is part of the\nold church. When I improved the place I made the most of every other\nbit; but it was out of my reach to change the stables, so the horses\nhave the benefit of the fine old choir. You must go and see it.\"\n\n\"I shall like to see the horses as well as the building,\" said\nGwendolen.\n\n\"Oh, I have no stud to speak of. Grandcourt will look with contempt at\nmy horses,\" said Sir Hugo. \"I've given up hunting, and go on in a\njog-trot way, as becomes an old gentlemen with daughters. The fact is,\nI went in for doing too much at this place. We all lived at Diplow for\ntwo years while the alterations were going on: Do you like Diplow?\"\n\n\"Not particularly,\" said Gwendolen, with indifference. One would have\nthought that the young lady had all her life had more family seats than\nshe cared to go to.\n\n\"Ah! it will not do after Ryelands,\" said Sir Hugo, well pleased.\n\"Grandcourt, I know, took it for the sake of the hunting. But he found\nsomething so much better there,\" added the baronet, lowering his voice,\n\"that he might well prefer it to any other place in the world.\"\n\n\"It has one attraction for me,\" said Gwendolen, passing over this\ncompliment with a chill smile, \"that it is within reach of Offendene.\"\n\n\"I understand that,\" said Sir Hugo, and then let the subject drop.\n\nWhat amiable baronet can escape the effect of a strong desire for a\nparticular possession? Sir Hugo would have been glad that Grandcourt,\nwith or without reason, should prefer any other place to Diplow; but\ninasmuch as in the pure process of wishing we can always make the\nconditions of our gratification benevolent, he did wish that\nGrandcourt's convenient disgust for Diplow should not be associated\nwith his marriage with this very charming bride. Gwendolen was much to\nthe baronet's taste, but, as he observed afterward to Lady Mallinger,\nhe should never have taken her for a young girl who had married beyond\nher expectations.\n\nDeronda had not heard much of this conversation, having given his\nattention elsewhere, but the glimpses he had of Gwendolen's manner\ndeepened the impression that it had something newly artificial.\n\nLater, in the drawing-room, Deronda, at somebody's request, sat down to\nthe piano and sang. Afterward, Mrs. Raymond took his place; and on\nrising he observed that Gwendolen had left her seat, and had come to\nthis end of the room, as if to listen more fully, but was now standing\nwith her back to every one, apparently contemplating a fine cowled head\ncarved in ivory which hung over a small table. He longed to go to her\nand speak. Why should he not obey such an impulse, as he would have\ndone toward any other lady in the room? Yet he hesitated some moments,\nobserving the graceful lines of her back, but not moving.\n\nIf you have any reason for not indulging a wish to speak to a fair\nwoman, it is a bad plan to look long at her back: the wish to see what\nit screens becomes the stronger. There may be a very sweet smile on the\nother side. Deronda ended by going to the end of the small table, at\nright angles to Gwendolen's position, but before he could speak she had\nturned on him no smile, but such an appealing look of sadness, so\nutterly different from the chill effort of her recognition at table,\nthat his speech was checked. For what was an appreciative space of time\nto both, though the observation of others could not have measured it,\nthey looked at each other--she seeming to take the deep rest of\nconfession, he with an answering depth of sympathy that neutralized all\nother feelings.\n\n\"Will you not join in the music?\" he said by way of meeting the\nnecessity for speech.\n\nThat her look of confession had been involuntary was shown by that just\nperceptible shake and change of countenance with which she roused\nherself to reply calmly, \"I join in it by listening. I am fond of\nmusic.\"\n\n\"Are you not a musician?\"\n\n\"I have given a great deal of time to music. But I have not talent\nenough to make it worth while. I shall never sing again.\"\n\n\"But if you are fond of music, it will always be worth while in\nprivate, for your own delight. I make it a virtue to be content with my\nmiddlingness,\" said Deronda, smiling; \"it is always pardonable, so that\none does not ask others to take it for superiority.\"\n\n\"I cannot imitate you,\" said Gwendolen, recovering her tone of\nartificial vivacity. \"To be middling with me is another phrase for\nbeing dull. And the worst fault I have to find with the world is, that\nit is dull. Do you know, I am going to justify gambling in spite of\nyou. It is a refuge from dullness.\"\n\n\"I don't admit the justification,\" said Deronda. \"I think what we call\nthe dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how can any one\nfind an intense interest in life? And many do.\"\n\n\"Ah, I see! The fault I find in the world is my own fault,\" said\nGwendolen, smiling at him. Then after a moment, looking up at the ivory\nagain, she said, \"Do _you_ never find fault with the world or with\nothers?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes. When I am in a grumbling mood.\"\n\n\"And hate people? Confess you hate them when they stand in your\nway--when their gain is your loss? That is your own phrase, you know.\"\n\n\"We are often standing in each other's way when we can't help it. I\nthink it is stupid to hate people on that ground.\"\n\n\"But if they injure you and could have helped it?\" said Gwendolen with\na hard intensity unaccountable in incidental talk like this.\n\nDeronda wondered at her choice of subjects. A painful impression\narrested his answer a moment, but at last he said, with a graver,\ndeeper intonation, \"Why, then, after all, I prefer my place to theirs.\"\n\n\"There I believe you are right,\" said Gwendolen, with a sudden little\nlaugh, and turned to join the group at the piano.\n\nDeronda looked around for Grandcourt, wondering whether he followed his\nbride's movements with any attention; but it was rather undiscerning to\nhim to suppose that he could find out the fact. Grandcourt had a\ndelusive mood of observing whatever had an interest for him, which\ncould be surpassed by no sleepy-eyed animal on the watch for prey. At\nthat moment he was plunged in the depth of an easy chair, being talked\nto by Mr. Vandernoodt, who apparently thought the acquaintance of such\na bridegroom worth cultivating; and an incautious person might have\nsupposed it safe to telegraph secrets in front of him, the common\nprejudice being that your quick observer is one whose eyes have quick\nmovements. Not at all. If you want a respectable witness who will see\nnothing inconvenient, choose a vivacious gentleman, very much on the\nalert, with two eyes wide open, a glass in one of them, and an entire\nimpartiality as to the purpose of looking. If Grandcourt cared to keep\nany one under his power he saw them out of the corners of his long\nnarrow eyes, and if they went behind him he had a constructive process\nby which he knew what they were doing there. He knew perfectly well\nwhere his wife was, and how she was behaving. Was he going to be a\njealous husband? Deronda imagined that to be likely; but his\nimagination was as much astray about Grandcourt as it would have been\nabout an unexplored continent where all the species were peculiar. He\ndid not conceive that he himself was a likely subject of jealousy, or\nthat he should give any pretext for it; but the suspicion that a wife\nis not happy naturally leads one to speculate on the husband's private\ndeportment; and Deronda found himself after one o'clock in the morning\nin the rather ludicrous position of sitting up severely holding a\nHebrew grammar in his hands (for somehow, in deference to Mordecai, he\nhad begun to study Hebrew), with the consciousness that he had been in\nthat attitude nearly an hour, and had thought of nothing but Gwendolen\nand her husband. To be an unusual young man means for the most part to\nget a difficult mastery over the usual, which is often like the sprite\nof ill-luck you pack up your goods to escape from, and see grinning at\nyou from the top of your luggage van. The peculiarities of Deronda's\nnature had been acutely touched by the brief incident and words which\nmade the history of his intercourse with Gwendolen; and this evening's\nslight addition had given them an importunate recurrence. It was not\nvanity--it was ready sympathy that had made him alive to a certain\nappealingness in her behavior toward him; and the difficulty with which\nshe had seemed to raise her eyes to bow to him, in the first instance,\nwas to be interpreted now by that unmistakable look of involuntary\nconfidence which she had afterward turned on him under the\nconsciousness of his approach.\n\n\"What is the use of it all?\" thought Deronda, as he threw down his\ngrammar, and began to undress. \"I can't do anything to help her--nobody\ncan, if she has found out her mistake already. And it seems to me that\nshe has a dreary lack of the ideas that might help her. Strange and\npiteous to human flesh like that might be, wrapped round with fine\nraiment, her ears pierced for gems, her head held loftily, her mouth\nall smiling pretence, the poor soul within her sitting in sick distaste\nof all things! But what do I know of her? There may be a demon in her\nto match the worst husband, for what I can tell. She was clearly an\nill-educated, worldly girl: perhaps she is a coquette.\"\n\nThis last reflection, not much believed in, was a self-administered\ndose of caution, prompted partly by Sir Hugo's much-contemned joking on\nthe subject of flirtation. Deronda resolved not to volunteer any\n_tete-à-tete_ with Gwendolen during the days of her stay at the Abbey;\nand he was capable of keeping a resolve in spite of much inclination to\nthe contrary.\n\nBut a man cannot resolve about a woman's actions, least of all about\nthose of a woman like Gwendolen, in whose nature there was a\ncombination of proud reserve with rashness, of perilously poised terror\nwith defiance, which might alternately flatter and disappoint control.\nFew words could less represent her than \"coquette.\" She had native love\nof homage, and belief in her own power; but no cold artifice for the\nsake of enslaving. And the poor thing's belief in her power, with her\nother dreams before marriage, had often to be thrust aside now like the\ntoys of a sick child, which it looks at with dull eyes, and has no\nheart to play with, however it may try.\n\nThe next day at lunch Sir Hugo said to her, \"The thaw has gone on like\nmagic, and it's so pleasant out of doors just now--shall we go and see\nthe stables and the other odd bits about the place?\"\n\n\"Yes, pray,\" said Gwendolen. \"You will like to see the stables,\nHenleigh?\" she added, looking at her husband.\n\n\"Uncommonly,\" said Grandcourt, with an indifference which seemed to\ngive irony to the word, as he returned her look. It was the first time\nDeronda had seen them speak to each other since their arrival, and he\nthought their exchange of looks as cold or official as if it had been a\nceremony to keep up a charter. Still, the English fondness for reserve\nwill account for much negation; and Grandcourt's manners with an extra\nveil of reserve over them might be expected to present the extreme type\nof the national taste.\n\n\"Who else is inclined to make the tour of the house and premises?\" said\nSir Hugo. \"The ladies must muffle themselves; there is only just about\ntime to do it well before sunset. You will go, Dan, won't you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Deronda, carelessly, knowing that Sir Hugo would think\nany excuse disobliging.\n\n\"All meet in the library, then, when they are ready--say in half an\nhour,\" said the baronet. Gwendolen made herself ready with wonderful\nquickness, and in ten minutes came down into the library in her sables,\nplume, and little thick boots. As soon as she entered the room she was\naware that some one else was there: it was precisely what she had hoped\nfor. Deronda was standing with his back toward her at the far end of\nthe room, and was looking over a newspaper. How could little thick\nboots make any noise on an Axminster carpet? And to cough would have\nseemed an intended signaling which her pride could not condescend to;\nalso, she felt bashful about walking up to him and letting him know\nthat she was there, though it was her hunger to speak to him which had\nset her imagination on constructing this chance of finding him, and had\nmade her hurry down, as birds hover near the water which they dare not\ndrink. Always uneasily dubious about his opinion of her, she felt a\npeculiar anxiety to-day, lest he might think of her with contempt, as\none triumphantly conscious of being Grandcourt's wife, the future lady\nof this domain. It was her habitual effort now to magnify the\nsatisfactions of her pride, on which she nourished her strength; but\nsomehow Deronda's being there disturbed them all. There was not the\nfaintest touch of coquetry in the attitude of her mind toward him: he\nwas unique to her among men, because he had impressed her as being not\nher admirer but her superior: in some mysterious way he was becoming a\npart of her conscience, as one woman whose nature is an object of\nreverential belief may become a new conscience to a man.\n\nAnd now he would not look round and find out that she was there! The\npaper crackled in his hand, his head rose and sank, exploring those\nstupid columns, and he was evidently stroking his beard; as if this\nworld were a very easy affair to her. Of course all the rest of the\ncompany would soon be down, and the opportunity of her saying something\nto efface her flippancy of the evening before, would be quite gone. She\nfelt sick with irritation--so fast do young creatures like her absorb\nmisery through invisible suckers of their own fancies--and her face had\ngathered that peculiar expression which comes with a mortification to\nwhich tears are forbidden.\n\nAt last he threw down the paper and turned round.\n\n\"Oh, you are there already,\" he said, coming forward a step or two: \"I\nmust go and put on my coat.\"\n\nHe turned aside and walked out of the room. This was behaving quite\nbadly. Mere politeness would have made him stay to exchange some words\nbefore leaving her alone. It was true that Grandcourt came in with Sir\nHugo immediately after, so that the words must have been too few to be\nworth anything. As it was, they saw him walking from the library door.\n\n\"A--you look rather ill,\" said Grandcourt, going straight up to her,\nstanding in front of her, and looking into her eyes. \"Do you feel equal\nto the walk?\"\n\n\"Yes, I shall like it,\" said Gwendolen, without the slightest movement\nexcept this of the lips.\n\n\"We could put off going over the house, you know, and only go out of\ndoors,\" said Sir Hugo, kindly, while Grandcourt turned aside.\n\n\"Oh, dear no!\" said Gwendolen, speaking with determination; \"let us put\noff nothing. I want a long walk.\"\n\nThe rest of the walking party--two ladies and two gentlemen besides\nDeronda--had now assembled; and Gwendolen rallying, went with due\ncheerfulness by the side of Sir Hugo, paying apparently an equal\nattention to the commentaries Deronda was called upon to give on the\nvarious architectural fragments, to Sir Hugo's reasons for not\nattempting to remedy the mixture of the undisguised modern with the\nantique--which in his opinion only made the place the more truly\nhistorical. On their way to the buttery and kitchen they took the\noutside of the house and paused before a beautiful pointed doorway,\nwhich was the only old remnant in the east front.\n\n\"Well, now, to my mind,\" said Sir Hugo, \"that is more interesting\nstanding as it is in the middle of what is frankly four centuries\nlater, than if the whole front had been dressed up in a pretense of the\nthirteenth century. Additions ought to smack of the time when they are\nmade and carry the stamp of their period. I wouldn't destroy any old\nbits, but that notion of reproducing the old is a mistake, I think. At\nleast, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. Besides,\nwhere are you to stop along that road--making loopholes where you don't\nwant to peep, and so on? You may as well ask me to wear out the stones\nwith kneeling; eh, Grandcourt?\"\n\n\"A confounded nuisance,\" drawled Grandcourt. \"I hate fellows wanting to\nhowl litanies--acting the greatest bores that have ever existed.\"\n\n\"Well, yes, that's what their romanticism must come to,\" said Sir Hugo,\nin a tone of confidential assent--\"that is if they carry it out\nlogically.\"\n\n\"I think that way of arguing against a course because it may be ridden\ndown to an absurdity would soon bring life to a standstill,\" said\nDeronda. \"It is not the logic of human action, but of a roasting-jack,\nthat must go on to the last turn when it has been once wound up. We can\ndo nothing safely without some judgment as to where we are to stop.\"\n\n\"I find the rule of the pocket the best guide,\" said Sir Hugo,\nlaughingly. \"And as for most of your new-old building, you had need to\nhire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an\nelderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor would not\nanswer.\"\n\n\"Do you want to keep up the old fashions, then, Mr. Deronda?\" said\nGwendolen, taking advantage of the freedom of grouping to fall back a\nlittle, while Sir Hugo and Grandcourt went on.\n\n\"Some of them. I don't see why we should not use our choice there as we\ndo elsewhere--or why either age or novelty by itself is an argument for\nor against. To delight in doing things because our fathers did them is\ngood if it shuts out nothing better; it enlarges the range of\naffection--and affection is the broadest basis of good in life.\"\n\n\"Do you think so?\" said Gwendolen with a little surprise. \"I should\nhave thought you cared most about ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and all\nthat.\"\n\n\"But to care about _them_ is a sort of affection,\" said Deronda,\nsmiling at her sudden _naïveté_. \"Call it attachment; interest, willing\nto bear a great deal for the sake of being with them and saving them\nfrom injury. Of course, it makes a difference if the objects of\ninterest are human beings; but generally in all deep affections the\nobjects are a mixture--half persons and half ideas--sentiments and\naffections flow in together.\"\n\n\"I wonder whether I understand that,\" said Gwendolen, putting up her\nchin in her old saucy manner. \"I believe I am not very affectionate;\nperhaps you mean to tell me, that is the reason why I don't see much\ngood in life.\"\n\n\"No, I did _not_ mean to tell you that; but I admit that I should think\nit true if I believed what you say of yourself,\" said Deronda, gravely.\n\nHere Sir Hugo and Grandcourt turned round and paused.\n\n\"I never can get Mr. Deronda to pay me a compliment,\" said Gwendolen.\n\"I have quite a curiosity to see whether a little flattery can be\nextracted from him.\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Sir Hugo, glancing at Deronda, \"the fact is, it is useless\nto flatter a bride. We give it up in despair. She has been so fed on\nsweet speeches that every thing we say seems tasteless.\"\n\n\"Quite true,\" said Gwendolen, bending her head and smiling. \"Mr.\nGrandcourt won me by neatly-turned compliments. If there had been one\nword out of place it would have been fatal.\"\n\n\"Do you hear that?\" said Sir Hugo, looking at the husband.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Grandcourt, without change of countenance. \"It's a deucedly\nhard thing to keep up, though.\"\n\nAll this seemed to Sir Hugo a natural playfulness between such a\nhusband and wife; but Deronda wondered at the misleading alternations\nin Gwendolen's manner, which at one moment seemed to excite sympathy by\nchildlike indiscretion, at another to repel it by proud concealment. He\ntried to keep out of her way by devoting himself to Miss Juliet Fenn, a\nyoung lady whose profile had been so unfavorably decided by\ncircumstances over which she had no control, that Gwendolen some months\nago had felt it impossible to be jealous of her. Nevertheless, when\nthey were seeing the kitchen--a part of the original building in\nperfect preservation--the depth of shadow in the niches of the\nstone-walls and groined vault, the play of light from the huge glowing\nfire on polished tin, brass, and copper, the fine resonance that came\nwith every sound of voice or metal, were all spoiled for Gwendolen, and\nSir Hugo's speech about them was made rather importunate, because\nDeronda was discoursing to the other ladies and kept at a distance from\nher. It did not signify that the other gentlemen took the opportunity\nof being near her: of what use in the world was their admiration while\nshe had an uneasy sense that there was some standard in Deronda's mind\nwhich measured her into littleness? Mr. Vandernoodt, who had the mania\nof always describing one thing while you were looking at another, was\nquite intolerable with his insistence on Lord Blough's kitchen, which\nhe had seen in the north.\n\n\"Pray don't ask us to see two kitchens at once. It makes the heat\ndouble. I must really go out of it,\" she cried at last, marching\nresolutely into the open air, and leaving the others in the rear.\nGrandcourt was already out, and as she joined him, he said--\n\n\"I wondered how long you meant to stay in that damned place\"--one of\nthe freedoms he had assumed as a husband being the use of his strongest\nepithets. Gwendolen, turning to see the rest of the party approach,\nsaid--\n\n\"It was certainly rather too warm in one's wraps.\"\n\nThey walked on the gravel across a green court, where the snow still\nlay in islets on the grass, and in masses on the boughs of the great\ncedar and the crenelated coping of the stone walls, and then into a\nlarger court, where there was another cedar, to find the beautiful\nchoir long ago turned into stables, in the first instance perhaps after\nan impromptu fashion by troopers, who had a pious satisfaction in\ninsulting the priests of Baal and the images of Ashtoreth, the queen of\nheaven. The exterior--its west end, save for the stable door, walled in\nwith brick and covered with ivy--was much defaced, maimed of finial and\ngurgoyle, the friable limestone broken and fretted, and lending its\nsoft gray to a powdery dark lichen; the long windows, too, were filled\nin with brick as far as the springing of the arches, the broad\nclerestory windows with wire or ventilating blinds. With the low wintry\nafternoon sun upon it, sending shadows from the cedar boughs, and\nlighting up the touches of snow remaining on every ledge, it had still\na scarcely disturbed aspect of antique solemnity, which gave the scene\nin the interior rather a startling effect; though, ecclesiastical or\nreverential indignation apart, the eyes could hardly help dwelling with\npleasure on its piquant picturesqueness. Each finely-arched chapel was\nturned into a stall, where in the dusty glazing of the windows there\nstill gleamed patches of crimson, orange, blue, and palest violet; for\nthe rest, the choir had been gutted, the floor leveled, paved, and\ndrained according to the most approved fashion, and a line of loose\nboxes erected in the middle: a soft light fell from the upper windows\non sleek brown or gray flanks and haunches; on mild equine faces\nlooking out with active nostrils over the varnished brown boarding; on\nthe hay hanging from racks where the saints once looked down from the\naltar-pieces, and on the pale golden straw scattered or in heaps; on a\nlittle white-and-liver-colored spaniel making his bed on the back of an\nelderly hackney, and on four ancient angels, still showing signs of\ndevotion like mutilated martyrs--while over all, the grand pointed\nroof, untouched by reforming wash, showed its lines and colors\nmysteriously through veiling shadow and cobweb, and a hoof now and then\nstriking against the boards seemed to fill the vault with thunder,\nwhile outside there was the answering bay of the blood-hounds.\n\n\"Oh, this is glorious!\" Gwendolen burst forth, in forgetfulness of\neverything but the immediate impression: there had been a little\nintoxication for her in the grand spaces of courts and building, and\nthe fact of her being an important person among them. \"This _is_\nglorious! Only I wish there were a horse in every one of the boxes. I\nwould ten times rather have these stables than those at Diplow.\"\n\nBut she had no sooner said this than some consciousness arrested her,\nand involuntarily she turned her eyes toward Deronda, who oddly enough\nhad taken off his felt hat and stood holding it before him as if they\nhad entered a room or an actual church. He, like others, happened to be\nlooking at her, and their eyes met--to her intense vexation, for it\nseemed to her that by looking at him she had betrayed the reference of\nher thoughts, and she felt herself blushing: she exaggerated the\nimpression that even Sir Hugo as well as Deronda would have of her bad\ntaste in referring to the possession of anything at the Abbey: as for\nDeronda, she had probably made him despise her. Her annoyance at what\nshe imagined to be the obviousness of her confusion robbed her of her\nusual facility in carrying it off by playful speech, and turning up her\nface to look at the roof, she wheeled away in that attitude. If any had\nnoticed her blush as significant, they had certainly not interpreted it\nby the secret windings and recesses of her feeling. A blush is no\nlanguage: only a dubious flag-signal which may mean either of two\ncontradictories. Deronda alone had a faint guess at some part of her\nfeeling; but while he was observing her he was himself under\nobservation.\n\n\"Do you take off your hat to horses?\" said Grandcourt, with a slight\nsneer.\n\n\"Why not?\" said Deronda, covering himself. He had really taken off the\nhat automatically, and if he had been an ugly man might doubtless have\ndone so with impunity; ugliness having naturally the air of involuntary\nexposure, and beauty, of display.\n\nGwendolen's confusion was soon merged in the survey of the horses,\nwhich Grandcourt politely abstained from appraising, languidly\nassenting to Sir Hugo's alternate depreciation and eulogy of the same\nanimal, as one that he should not have bought when he was younger, and\npiqued himself on his horses, but yet one that had better qualities\nthan many more expensive brutes.\n\n\"The fact is, stables dive deeper and deeper into the pocket nowadays,\nand I am very glad to have got rid of that _démangeaison_,\" said Sir\nHugo, as they were coming out.\n\n\"What is a man to do, though?\" said Grandcourt. \"He must ride. I don't\nsee what else there is to do. And I don't call it riding to sit astride\na set of brutes with every deformity under the sun.\"\n\nThis delicate diplomatic way of characterizing Sir Hugo's stud did not\nrequire direct notice; and the baronet, feeling that the conversation\nhad worn rather thin, said to the party generally, \"Now we are going to\nsee the cloister--the finest bit of all--in perfect preservation; the\nmonks might have been walking there yesterday.\"\n\nBut Gwendolen had lingered behind to look at the kenneled blood-hounds,\nperhaps because she felt a little dispirited; and Grandcourt waited for\nher.\n\n\"You had better take my arm,\" he said, in his low tone of command; and\nshe took it.\n\n\"It's a great bore being dragged about in this way, and no cigar,\" said\nGrandcourt.\n\n\"I thought you would like it.\"\n\n\"Like it!--one eternal chatter. And encouraging those ugly\ngirls--inviting one to meet such monsters. How that _fat_ Deronda can\nbear looking at her----\"\n\n\"Why do you call him _fat_? Do you object to him so much?\"\n\n\"Object? no. What do I care about his being a _fat_? It's of no\nconsequence to me. I'll invite him to Diplow again if you like.\"\n\n\"I don't think he would come. He is too clever and learned to care\nabout _us_,\" said Gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be\ntold (privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon.\n\n\"I never saw that make much difference in a man. Either he is a\ngentleman, or he is not,\" said Grandcourt.\n\nThat a new husband and wife should snatch, a moment's _tete-à-tete_ was\nwhat could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left\nthem in the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in that\ncloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen years\nbefore, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. This\ncloister was built of a harder stone than the church, and had been in\ngreater safety from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of a\nnorthern cloister with arched and pillard openings not intended for\nglazing, and the delicately-wrought foliage of the capitals seemed\nstill to carry the very touches of the chisel. Gwendolen had dropped\nher husband's arm and joined the other ladies, to whom Deronda was\nnoticing the delicate sense which had combined freedom with accuracy in\nthe imitation of natural forms.\n\n\"I wonder whether one oftener learns to love real objects through their\nrepresentations, or the representations through the real objects,\" he\nsaid, after pointing out a lovely capital made by the curled leaves of\ngreens, showing their reticulated under-side with the firm gradual\nswell of its central rib. \"When I was a little fellow these capitals\ntaught me to observe and delight in the structure of leaves.\"\n\n\"I suppose you can see every line of them with your eyes shut,\" said\nJuliet Fenn.\n\n\"Yes. I was always repeating them, because for a good many years this\ncourt stood for me as my only image of a convent, and whenever I read\nof monks and monasteries, this was my scenery for them.\"\n\n\"You must love this place very much,\" said Miss Fenn, innocently, not\nthinking of inheritance. \"So many homes are like twenty others. But\nthis is unique, and you seem to know every cranny of it. I dare say you\ncould never love another home so well.\"\n\n\"Oh, I carry it with me,\" said Deronda, quietly, being used to all\npossible thoughts of this kind. \"To most men their early home is no\nmore than a memory of their early years, and I'm not sure but they have\nthe best of it. The image is never marred. There's no disappointment in\nmemory, and one's exaggerations are always on the good side.\"\n\nGwendolen felt sure that he spoke in that way out of delicacy to her\nand Grandcourt--because he knew they must hear him; and that he\nprobably thought of her as a selfish creature who only cared about\npossessing things in her own person. But whatever he might say, it must\nhave been a secret hardship to him that any circumstances of his birth\nhad shut him out from the inheritance of his father's position; and if\nhe supposed that she exulted in her husband's taking it, what could he\nfeel for her but scornful pity? Indeed it seemed clear to her that he\nwas avoiding her, and preferred talking to others--which nevertheless\nwas not kind in him.\n\nWith these thoughts in her mind she was prevented by a mixture of pride\nand timidity from addressing him again, and when they were looking at\nthe rows of quaint portraits in the gallery above the cloisters, she\nkept up her air of interest and made her vivacious remarks without any\ndirect appeal to Deronda. But at the end she was very weary of her\nassumed spirits, and Grandcourt turned into the billiard-room, she went\nto the pretty boudoir which had been assigned to her, and shut herself\nup to look melancholy at her ease. No chemical process shows a more\nwonderful activity than the transforming influence of the thoughts we\nimagine to be going on in another. Changes in theory, religion,\nadmirations, may begin with a suspicion of dissent or disapproval, even\nwhen the grounds of disapproval are but matter of searching conjecture.\n\nPoor Gwendolen was conscious of an uneasy, transforming process--all\nthe old nature shaken to its depths, its hopes spoiled, its pleasures\nperturbed, but still showing wholeness and strength in the will to\nreassert itself. After every new shock of humiliation she tried to\nadjust herself and seize her old supports--proud concealment, trust in\nnew excitements that would make life go by without much thinking; trust\nin some deed of reparation to nullify her self-blame and shield her\nfrom a vague, ever-visiting dread of some horrible calamity; trust in\nthe hardening effect of use and wont that would make her indifferent to\nher miseries.\n\nYes--miseries. This beautiful, healthy young creature, with her\ntwo-and-twenty years and her gratified ambition, no longer felt\ninclined to kiss her fortunate image in the glass. She looked at it\nwith wonder that she could be so miserable. One belief which had\naccompanied her through her unmarried life as a self-cajoling\nsuperstition, encouraged by the subordination of every one about\nher--the belief in her own power of dominating--was utterly gone.\nAlready, in seven short weeks, which seemed half her life, her husband\nhad gained a mastery which she could no more resist than she could have\nresisted the benumbing effect from the touch of a torpedo. Gwendolen's\nwill had seemed imperious in its small girlish sway; but it was the\nwill of a creature with a large discourse of imaginative fears: a\nshadow would have been enough to relax its hold. And she had found a\nwill like that of a crab or a boa-constrictor, which goes on pinching\nor crushing without alarm at thunder. Not that Grandcourt was without\ncalculation of the intangible effects which were the chief means of\nmastery; indeed, he had a surprising acuteness in detecting that\nsituation of feeling in Gwendolen which made her proud and rebellious\nspirit dumb and helpless before him.\n\nShe had burned Lydia Glasher's letter with an instantaneous terror lest\nother eyes should see it, and had tenaciously concealed from Grandcourt\nthat there was any other cause of her violent hysterics than the\nexcitement and fatigue of the day: she had been urged into an implied\nfalsehood. \"Don't ask me--it was my feeling about everything--it was\nthe sudden change from home.\" The words of that letter kept repeating\nthemselves, and hung on her consciousness with the weight of a\nprophetic doom. \"I am the grave in which your chance of happiness is\nburied as well as mine. You had your warning. You have chosen to injure\nme and my children. He had meant to marry me. He would have married me\nat last, if you had not broken your word. You will have your\npunishment. I desire it with all my soul. Will you give him this letter\nto set him against me and ruin us more--me and my children? Shall you\nlike to stand before your husband with these diamonds on you, and these\nwords of mine in his thoughts and yours? Will he think you have any\nright to complain when he has made you miserable? You took him with\nyour eyes open. The willing wrong you have done me will be your curse.\"\n\nThe words had nestled their venomous life within her, and stirred\ncontinually the vision of the scene at the Whispering Stones. That\nscene was now like an accusing apparition: she dreaded that Grandcourt\nshould know of it--so far out of her sight now was that possibility she\nhad once satisfied herself with, of speaking to him about Mrs. Glasher\nand her children, and making them rich amends. Any endurance seemed\neasier than the mortal humiliation of confessing that she knew all\nbefore she married him, and in marrying him had broken her word. For\nthe reasons by which she had justified herself when the marriage\ntempted her, and all her easy arrangement of her future power over her\nhusband to make him do better than he might be inclined to do, were now\nas futile as the burned-out lights which set off a child's pageant. Her\nsense of being blameworthy was exaggerated by a dread both definite and\nvague. The definite dread was lest the veil of secrecy should fall\nbetween her and Grandcourt, and give him the right to taunt her. With\nthe reading of that letter had begun her husband's empire of fear.\n\nAnd her husband all the while knew it. He had not, indeed, any distinct\nknowledge of her broken promise, and would not have rated highly the\neffect of that breach on her conscience; but he was aware not only of\nwhat Lush had told him about the meeting at the Whispering Stones, but\nalso of Gwendolen's concealment as to the cause of her sudden illness.\nHe felt sure that Lydia had enclosed something with the diamonds, and\nthat this something, whatever it was, had at once created in Gwendolen\na new repulsion for him and a reason for not daring to manifest it. He\ndid not greatly mind, or feel as many men might have felt, that his\nhopes in marriage were blighted: he had wanted to marry Gwendolen, and\nhe was not a man to repent. Why should a gentleman whose other\nrelations in life are carried on without the luxury of sympathetic\nfeeling, be supposed to require that kind of condiment in domestic\nlife? What he chiefly felt was that a change had come over the\nconditions of his mastery, which, far from shaking it, might establish\nit the more thoroughly. And it was established. He judged that he had\nnot married a simpleton unable to perceive the impossibility of escape,\nor to see alternative evils: he had married a girl who had spirit and\npride enough not to make a fool of herself by forfeiting all the\nadvantages of a position which had attracted her; and if she wanted\npregnant hints to help her in making up her mind properly he would take\ncare not to withhold them.\n\nGwendolen, indeed, with all that gnawing trouble in her consciousness,\nhad hardly for a moment dropped the sense that it was her part to bear\nherself with dignity, and appear what is called happy. In disclosure of\ndisappointment or sorrow she saw nothing but a humiliation which would\nhave been vinegar to her wounds. Whatever her husband might have come\nat last to be to her, she meant to wear the yoke so as not to be\npitied. For she did think of the coming years with presentiment: she\nwas frightened at Grandcourt. The poor thing had passed from her\ngirlish sauciness of superiority over this inert specimen of personal\ndistinction into an amazed perception of her former ignorance about the\npossible mental attitude of a man toward the woman he sought in\nmarriage--of her present ignorance as to what their life with each\nother might turn into. For novelty gives immeasurableness to fear, and\nfills the early time of all sad changes with phantoms of the future.\nHer little coquetries, voluntary or involuntary, had told on Grandcourt\nduring courtship, and formed a medium of communication between them,\nshowing him in the light of a creature such as she could understand and\nmanage: But marriage had nulified all such interchange, and Grandcourt\nhad become a blank uncertainty to her in everything but this, that he\nwould do just what he willed, and that she had neither devices at her\ncommand to determine his will, nor any rational means of escaping it.\n\nWhat had occurred between them and her wearing the diamonds was\ntypical. One evening, shortly before they came to the Abbey, they were\ngoing to dine at Brackenshaw Castle. Gwendolen had said to herself that\nshe would never wear those diamonds: they had horrible words clinging\nand crawling about them, as from some bad dream, whose images lingered\non the perturbed sense. She came down dressed in her white, with only a\nstreak of gold and a pendant of emeralds, which Grandcourt had given\nher, round her neck, and the little emerald stars in her ears.\n\nGrandcourt stood with his back to the fire and looked at her as she\nentered.\n\n\"Am I altogether as you like?\" she said, speaking rather gaily. She was\nnot without enjoyment in this occasion of going to Brackenshaw Castle\nwith her new dignities upon her, as men whose affairs are sadly\ninvolved will enjoy dining out among persons likely to be under a\npleasant mistake about them.\n\n\"No,\" said Grandcourt.\n\nGwendolen felt suddenly uncomfortable, wondering what was to come. She\nwas not unprepared for some struggle about the diamonds; but suppose he\nwere going to say, in low, contemptuous tones, \"You are not in any way\nwhat I like.\" It was very bad for her to be secretly hating him; but it\nwould be much worse when he gave the first sign of hating her.\n\n\"Oh, mercy!\" she exclaimed, the pause lasting till she could bear it no\nlonger. \"How am I to alter myself?\"\n\n\"Put on the diamonds,\" said Grandcourt, looking straight at her with\nhis narrow glance.\n\nGwendolen paused in her turn, afraid of showing any emotion, and\nfeeling that nevertheless there was some change in her eyes as they met\nhis. But she was obliged to answer, and said as indifferently as she\ncould, \"Oh, please not. I don't think diamonds suit me.\"\n\n\"What you think has nothing to do with it,\" said Grandcourt, his _sotto\nvoce_ imperiousness seeming to have an evening quietude and finish,\nlike his toilet. \"I wish you to wear the diamonds.\"\n\n\"Pray excuse me; I like these emeralds,\" said Gwendolen, frightened in\nspite of her preparation. That white hand of his which was touching his\nwhisker was capable, she fancied, of clinging round her neck and\nthreatening to throttle her; for her fear of him, mingling with the\nvague foreboding of some retributive calamity which hung about her\nlife, had reached a superstitious point.\n\n\"Oblige me by telling me your reason for not wearing the diamonds when\nI desire it,\" said Grandcourt. His eyes were still fixed upon her, and\nshe felt her own eyes narrowing under them as if to shut out an\nentering pain.\n\nOf what use was the rebellion within her? She could say nothing that\nwould not hurt her worse than submission. Turning slowing and covering\nherself again, she went to her dressing-room. As she reached out the\ndiamonds it occurred to her that her unwillingness to wear them might\nhave already raised a suspicion in Grandcourt that she had some\nknowledge about them which he had not given her. She fancied that his\neyes showed a delight in torturing her. How could she be defiant? She\nhad nothing to say that would touch him--nothing but what would give\nhim a more painful grasp on her consciousness.\n\n\"He delights in making the dogs and horses quail: that is half his\npleasure in calling them his,\" she said to herself, as she opened the\njewel-case with a shivering sensation.\n\n\"It will come to be so with me; and I shall quail. What else is there\nfor me? I will not say to the world, 'Pity me.'\"\n\nShe was about to ring for her maid when she heard the door open behind\nher. It was Grandcourt who came in.\n\n\"You want some one to fasten them,\" he said, coming toward her.\n\nShe did not answer, but simply stood still, leaving him to take out the\nornaments and fasten them as he would. Doubtless he had been used to\nfasten them on some one else. With a bitter sort of sarcasm against\nherself, Gwendolen thought, \"What a privilege this is, to have robbed\nanother woman of!\"\n\n\"What makes you so cold?\" said Grandcourt, when he had fastened the\nlast ear-ring. \"Pray put plenty of furs on. I hate to see a woman come\ninto a room looking frozen. If you are to appear as a bride at all,\nappear decently.\"\n\nThis martial speech was not exactly persuasive, but it touched the\nquick of Gwendolen's pride and forced her to rally. The words of the\nbad dream crawled about the diamonds still, but only for her: to others\nthey were brilliants that suited her perfectly, and Grandcourt inwardly\nobserved that she answered to the rein.\n\n\"Oh, yes, mamma, quite happy,\" Gwendolen had said on her return to\nDiplow. \"Not at all disappointed in Ryelands. It is a much finer place\nthan this--larger in every way. But don't you want some more money?\"\n\n\"Did you not know that Mr. Grandcourt left me a letter on your\nwedding-day? I am to have eight hundred a year. He wishes me to keep\nOffendene for the present, while you are at Diplow. But if there were\nsome pretty cottage near the park at Ryelands we might live there\nwithout much expense, and I should have you most of the year, perhaps.\"\n\n\"We must leave that to Mr. Grandcourt, mamma.\"\n\n\"Oh, certainly. It is exceedingly handsome of him to say that he will\npay the rent for Offendene till June. And we can go on very\nwell--without any man-servant except Crane, just for out-of-doors. Our\ngood Merry will stay with us and help me to manage everything. It is\nnatural that Mr. Grandcourt should wish me to live in a good style of\nhouse in your neighborhood, and I cannot decline. So he said nothing\nabout it to you?\"\n\n\"No; he wished me to hear it from you, I suppose.\"\n\nGwendolen in fact had been very anxious to have some definite knowledge\nof what would be done for her mother, but at no moment since her\nmarriage had she been able to overcome the difficulty of mentioning the\nsubject to Grandcourt. Now, however, she had a sense of obligation\nwhich would not let her rest without saying to him, \"It is very good of\nyou to provide for mamma. You took a great deal on yourself in marrying\na girl who had nothing but relations belonging to her.\"\n\nGrandcourt was smoking, and only said carelessly, \"Of course I was not\ngoing to let her live like a gamekeeper's mother.\"\n\n\"At least he is not mean about money,\" thought Gwendolen, \"and mamma is\nthe better off for my marriage.\"\n\nShe often pursued the comparison between what might have been, if she\nhad not married Grandcourt, and what actually was, trying to persuade\nherself that life generally was barren of satisfaction, and that if she\nhad chosen differently she might now have been looking back with a\nregret as bitter as the feeling she was trying to argue away. Her\nmother's dullness, which used to irritate her, she was at present\ninclined to explain as the ordinary result of woman's experience. True,\nshe still saw that she would \"manage differently from mamma;\" but her\nmanagement now only meant that she would carry her troubles with\nspirit, and let none suspect them. By and by she promised herself that\nshe should get used to her heart-sores, and find excitements that would\ncarry her through life, as a hard gallop carried her through some of\nthe morning hours. There was gambling: she had heard stories at\nLeubronn of fashionable women who gambled in all sorts of ways. It\nseemed very flat to her at this distance, but perhaps if she began to\ngamble again, the passion might awake. Then there was the pleasure of\nproducing an effect by her appearance in society: what did celebrated\nbeauties do in town when their husbands could afford display? All men\nwere fascinated by them: they had a perfect equipage and toilet, walked\ninto public places, and bowed, and made the usual answers, and walked\nout again, perhaps they bought china, and practiced accomplishments. If\nshe could only feel a keen appetite for those pleasures--could only\nbelieve in pleasure as she used to do! Accomplishments had ceased to\nhave the exciting quality of promising any pre-eminence to her; and as\nfor fascinated gentlemen--adorers who might hover round her with\nlanguishment, and diversify married life with the romantic stir of\nmystery, passion, and danger, which her French reading had given her\nsome girlish notion of--they presented themselves to her imagination\nwith the fatal circumstance that, instead of fascinating her in return,\nthey were clad in her own weariness and disgust. The admiring male,\nrashly adjusting the expression of his features and the turn of his\nconversation to her supposed tastes, had always been an absurd object\nto her, and at present seemed rather detestable. Many courses are\nactually pursued--follies and sins both convenient and\ninconvenient--without pleasure or hope of pleasure; but to solace\nourselves with imagining any course beforehand, there must be some\nforetaste of pleasure in the shape of appetite; and Gwendolen's\nappetite had sickened. Let her wander over the possibilities of her\nlife as she would, an uncertain shadow dogged her. Her confidence in\nherself and her destiny had turned into remorse and dread; she trusted\nneither herself nor her future.\n\nThis hidden helplessness gave fresh force to the hold Deronda had from\nthe first taken on her mind, as one who had an unknown standard by\nwhich he judged her. Had he some way of looking at things which might\nbe a new footing for her--an inward safeguard against possible events\nwhich she dreaded as stored-up retribution? It is one of the secrets in\nthat change of mental poise which has been fitly named conversion, that\nto many among us neither heaven nor earth has any revelation till some\npersonality touches theirs with a peculiar influence, subduing them\ninto receptiveness. It had been Gwendolen's habit to think of the\npersons around her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting.\nDeronda had lit up her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words\nonly, but by imagined facts, his influence had entered into the current\nof that self-suspicion and self-blame which awakens a new consciousness.\n\n\"I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him,\" was\none of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch,\nsupporting her head with her hand, and looking at herself in a\nmirror--not in admiration, but in a sad kind of companionship. \"I wish\nhe knew that I am not so contemptible as he thinks me; that I am in\ndeep trouble, and want to be something better if I could.\" Without the\naid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned this man,\nonly a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust\nless rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who\nis also young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of\ntemptation, and the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force--not\nsuspected to be a mere residue from weary experience.\n\nBut the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence.\nThose who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration\nof Gwendolen's, some education was being prepared for Deronda.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI.\n\n  \"Rien ne pese tant qu'un secret\n  Le porter loin est difficile aux dames:\n  Et je sçais mesme sur ce fait\n  Bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes.\"\n                               --LA FONTAINE.\n\n\nMeanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, who\nwished for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we\ncannot tell a man his own secrets, the restraint of being in his\ncompany often breeds a desire to pair off in conversation with some\nmore ignorant person, and Mr. Vandernoodt presently said--\n\n\"What a washed-out piece of cambric Grandcourt is! But if he is a\nfavorite of yours, I withdraw the remark.\"\n\n\"Not the least in the world,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"I thought not. One wonders how he came to have a great passion again;\nand he must have had--to marry in this way. Though Lush, his old chum,\nhints that he married this girl out of obstinacy. By George! it was a\nvery accountable obstinacy. A man might make up his mind to marry her\nwithout the stimulus of contradiction. But he must have made himself a\npretty large drain of money, eh?\"\n\n\"I know nothing of his affairs.\"\n\n\"What! not of the other establishment he keeps up?\"\n\n\"Diplow? Of course. He took that of Sir Hugo. But merely for the year.\"\n\n\"No, no; not Diplow: Gadsmere. Sir Hugo knows, I'll answer for it.\"\n\nDeronda said nothing. He really began to feel some curiosity, but he\nforesaw that he should hear what Mr. Vandernoodt had to tell, without\nthe condescension of asking.\n\n\"Lush would not altogether own to it, of course. He's a confident and\ngo-between of Grandcourt's. But I have it on the best authority. The\nfact is, there's another lady with four children at Gadsmere. She has\nhad the upper hand of him these ten years and more, and by what I can\nunderstand has it still--left her husband for him, and used to travel\nwith him everywhere. Her husband's dead now; I found a fellow who was\nin the same regiment with him, and knew this Mrs. Glasher before she\ntook wing. A fiery dark-eyed woman--a noted beauty at that time--he\nthought she was dead. They say she has Grandcourt under her thumb\nstill, and it's a wonder he didn't marry her, for there's a very fine\nboy, and I understand Grandcourt can do absolutely as he pleases with\nthe estates. Lush told me as much as that.\"\n\n\"What right had he to marry this girl?\" said Deronda, with disgust.\n\nMr. Vandernoodt, adjusting the end of his cigar, shrugged his shoulders\nand put out his lips.\n\n\"_She_ can know nothing of it,\" said Deronda, emphatically. But that\npositive statement was immediately followed by an inward query--\"Could\nshe have known anything of it?\"\n\n\"It's rather a piquant picture,\" said Mr. Vandernoodt--\"Grandcourt\nbetween two fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has\nplenty of devil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It's\na sort of Medea and Creüsa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt\nis a new kind of Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it.\nIt's a dog's part at best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, 'Jasone!\nJasone!' These fine women generally get hold of a stick.\"\n\n\"Grandcourt can bite, I fancy,\" said Deronda. \"He is no stick.\"\n\n\"No, no; I meant Jason. I can't quite make out Grandcourt. But he's a\nkeen fellow enough--uncommonly well built too. And if he comes into all\nthis property, the estates will bear dividing. This girl, whose friends\nhad come to beggary, I understand, may think herself lucky to get him.\nI don't want to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair\nof that sort. But he might make himself more agreeable. I was telling\nhim a capital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the\nmiddle. I felt inclined to kick him. Do you suppose that is inattention\nor insolence, now?\"\n\n\"Oh, a mixture. He generally observes the forms: but he doesn't listen\nmuch,\" said Deronda. Then, after a moment's pause, he went on, \"I\nshould think there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you\nhave heard about this lady at Gadsmere.\"\n\n\"Not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. People\nhave forgotten all about it. But there the nest is, and the birds are\nin it. And I know Grandcourt goes there. I have good evidence that he\ngoes there. However, that's nobody's business but his own. The affair\nhas sunk below the surface.\"\n\n\"I wonder you could have learned so much about it,\" said Deronda,\nrather drily.\n\n\"Oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such stories\nget packed away like old letters. They interest me. I like to know the\nmanners of my time--contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. These\nDryasdust fellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal\nabout Semiramis or Nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems\nwritten upon it by all the warblers big and little. But I don't care a\nstraw about the _faux pas_ of the mummies. You do, though. You are one\nof the historical men--more interested in a lady when she's got a rag\nface and skeleton toes peeping out. Does that flatter your imagination?\"\n\n\"Well, if she had any woes in her love, one has the satisfaction of\nknowing that she's well out of them.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are thinking of the Medea, I see.\"\n\nDeronda then chose to point to some giant oaks worth looking at in\ntheir bareness. He also felt an interest in this piece of contemporary\ngossip, but he was satisfied that Mr. Vandernoodt had no more to tell\nabout it.\n\nSince the early days when he tried to construct the hidden story of his\nown birth, his mind had perhaps never been so active in weaving\nprobabilities about any private affair as it had now begun to be about\nGwendolen's marriage. This unavowed relation of Grandcourt's--could she\nhave gained some knowledge of it, which caused her to shrink from the\nmatch--a shrinking finally overcome by the urgence of poverty? He could\nrecall almost every word she had said to him, and in certain of these\nwords he seemed to discern that she was conscious of having done some\nwrong--inflicted some injury. His own acute experience made him alive\nto the form of injury which might affect the unavowed children and\ntheir mother. Was Mrs. Grandcourt, under all her determined show of\nsatisfaction, gnawed by a double, a treble-headed grief--self-reproach,\ndisappointment, jealousy? He dwelt especially on all the slight signs\nof self-reproach: he was inclined to judge her tenderly, to excuse, to\npity. He thought he had found a key now by which to interpret her more\nclearly: what magnifying of her misery might not a young creature get\ninto who had wedded her fresh hopes to old secrets! He thought he saw\nclearly enough now why Sir Hugo had never dropped any hint of this\naffair to him; and immediately the image of this Mrs. Glasher became\npainfully associated with his own hidden birth. Gwendolen knowing of\nthat woman and her children, marrying Grandcourt, and showing herself\ncontented, would have been among the most repulsive of beings to him;\nbut Gwendolen tasting the bitterness of remorse for having contributed\nto their injury was brought very near to his fellow-feeling. If it were\nso, she had got to a common plane of understanding with him on some\ndifficulties of life which a woman is rarely able to judge of with any\njustice or generosity; for, according to precedent, Gwendolen's view of\nher position might easily have been no other than that her husband's\nmarriage with her was his entrance on the path of virtue, while Mrs.\nGlasher represented his forsaken sin. And Deronda had naturally some\nresentment on behalf of the Hagars and Ishmaels.\n\nUndeniably Deronda's growing solicitude about Gwendolen depended\nchiefly on her peculiar manner toward him; and I suppose neither man\nnor woman would be the better for an utter insensibility to such\nappeals. One sign that his interest in her had changed its footing was\nthat he dismissed any caution against her being a coquette setting\nsnares to involve him in a vulgar flirtation, and determined that he\nwould not again evade any opportunity of talking to her. He had shaken\noff Mr. Vandernoodt, and got into a solitary corner in the twilight;\nbut half an hour was long enough to think of those possibilities in\nGwendolen's position and state of mind; and on forming the\ndetermination not to avoid her, he remembered that she was likely to be\nat tea with the other ladies in the drawing-room. The conjecture was\ntrue; for Gwendolen, after resolving not to go down again for the next\nfour hours, began to feel, at the end of one, that in shutting herself\nup she missed all chances of seeing and hearing, and that her visit\nwould only last two days more. She adjusted herself, put on her little\nair of self-possession, and going down, made herself resolutely\nagreeable. Only ladies were assembled, and Lady Pentreath was amusing\nthem with a description of a drawing-room under the Regency, and the\nfigure that was cut by ladies and gentlemen in 1819, the year she was\npresented--when Deronda entered.\n\n\"Shall I be acceptable?\" he said. \"Perhaps I had better go back and\nlook for the others. I suppose they are in the billiard-room.\"\n\n\"No, no; stay where you are,\" said Lady Pentreath. \"They were all\ngetting tired of me; let us hear what _you_ have to say.\"\n\n\"That is rather an embarrassing appeal,\" said Deronda, drawing up a\nchair near Lady Mallinger's elbow at the tea-table. \"I think I had\nbetter take the opportunity of mentioning our songstress,\" he added,\nlooking at Lady Mallinger--\"unless you have done so.\"\n\n\"Oh, the little Jewess!\" said Lady Mallinger. \"No, I have not mentioned\nher. It never entered my head that any one here wanted singing lessons.\"\n\n\"All ladies know some one else who wants singing lessons,\" said\nDeronda. \"I have happened to find an exquisite singer,\"--here he turned\nto Lady Pentreath. \"She is living with some ladies who are friends of\nmine--the mother and sisters of a man who was my chum at Cambridge. She\nwas on the stage at Vienna; but she wants to leave that life, and\nmaintain herself by teaching.\"\n\n\"There are swarms of those people, aren't there?\" said the old lady.\n\"Are her lessons to be very cheap or very expensive? Those are the two\nbaits I know of.\"\n\n\"There is another bait for those who hear her,\" said Deronda. \"Her\nsinging is something quite exceptional, I think. She has had such\nfirst-rate teaching--or rather first-rate instinct with her\nteaching--that you might imagine her singing all came by nature.\"\n\n\"Why did she leave the stage, then?\" said Lady Pentreath. \"I'm too old\nto believe in first-rate people giving up first-rate chances.\"\n\n\"Her voice was too weak. It is a delicious voice for a room. You who\nput up with my singing of Schubert would be enchanted with hers,\" said\nDeronda, looking at Mrs. Raymond. \"And I imagine she would not object\nto sing at private parties or concerts. Her voice is quite equal to\nthat.\"\n\n\"I am to have her in my drawing-room when we go up to town,\" said Lady\nMallinger. \"You shall hear her then. I have not heard her myself yet;\nbut I trust Daniel's recommendation. I mean my girls to have lessons of\nher.\"\n\n\"Is it a charitable affair?\" said Lady Pentreath. \"I can't bear\ncharitable music.\"\n\nLady Mallinger, who was rather helpless in conversation, and felt\nherself under an engagement not to tell anything of Mirah's story, had\nan embarrassed smile on her face, and glanced at Deronda.\n\n\"It is a charity to those who want to have a good model of feminine\nsinging,\" said Deronda. \"I think everybody who has ears would benefit\nby a little improvement on the ordinary style. If you heard Miss\nLapidoth\"--here he looked at Gwendolen--\"perhaps you would revoke your\nresolution to give up singing.\"\n\n\"I should rather think my resolution would be confirmed,\" said\nGwendolen. \"I don't feel able to follow your advice of enjoying my own\nmiddlingness.\"\n\n\"For my part,\" said Deronda, \"people who do anything finely always\ninspirit me to try. I don't mean that they make me believe I can do it\nas well. But they make the thing, whatever it may be, seem worthy to be\ndone. I can bear to think my own music not good for much, but the world\nwould be more dismal if I thought music itself not good for much.\nExcellence encourages one about life generally; it shows the spiritual\nwealth of the world.\"\n\n\"But then, if we can't imitate it, it only makes our own life seem the\ntamer,\" said Gwendolen, in a mood to resent encouragement founded on\nher own insignificance.\n\n\"That depends on the point of view, I think,\" said Deronda. \"We should\nhave a poor life of it if we were reduced for all our pleasure to our\nown performances. A little private imitation of what is good is a sort\nof private devotion to it, and most of us ought to practice art only in\nthe light of private study--preparation to understand and enjoy what\nthe few can do for us. I think Miss Lapidoth is one of the few.\"\n\n\"She must be a very happy person, don't you think?\" said Gwendolen,\nwith a touch of sarcasm, and a turn of her neck toward Mrs. Raymond.\n\n\"I don't know,\" answered the independent lady; \"I must hear more of her\nbefore I say that.\"\n\n\"It may have been a bitter disappointment to her that her voice failed\nher for the stage,\" said Juliet Fenn, sympathetically.\n\n\"I suppose she's past her best, though,\" said the deep voice of Lady\nPentreath.\n\n\"On the contrary, she has not reached it,\" said Deronda. \"She is barely\ntwenty.\"\n\n\"And very pretty,\" interposed Lady Mallinger, with an amiable wish to\nhelp Deronda. \"And she has very good manners. I'm sorry she's a bigoted\nJewess; I should not like it for anything else, but it doesn't matter\nin singing.\"\n\n\"Well, since her voice is too weak for her to scream much, I'll tell\nLady Clementina to set her on my nine granddaughters,\" said Lady\nPentreath; \"and I hope she'll convince eight of them that they have not\nvoice enough to sing anywhere but at church. My notion is, that many of\nour girls nowadays want lessons not to sing.\"\n\n\"I have had my lessons in that,\" said Gwendolen, looking at Deronda.\n\"You see Lady Pentreath is on my side.\"\n\nWhile she was speaking, Sir Hugo entered with some of the other\ngentlemen, including Grandcourt, and standing against the group at the\nlow tea-table said--\n\n\"What imposition is Deronda putting on you, ladies--slipping in among\nyou by himself?\"\n\n\"Wanting to pass off an obscurity on us as better than any celebrity,\"\nsaid Lady Pentreath--\"a pretty singing Jewess who is to astonish these\nyoung people. You and I, who heard Catalani in her prime, are not so\neasily astonished.\"\n\nSir Hugo listened with his good-humored smile as he took a cup of tea\nfrom his wife, and then said, \"Well, you know, a Liberal is bound to\nthink that there have been singers since Catalani's time.\"\n\n\"Ah, you are younger than I am. I dare say you are one of the men who\nran after Alcharisi. But she married off and left you all in the lurch.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; it's rather too bad when these great singers marry\nthemselves into silence before they have a crack in their voices. And\nthe husband is a public robber. I remember Leroux saying, 'A man might\nas well take down a fine peal of church bells and carry them off to the\nsteppes,\" said Sir Hugo, setting down his cup and turning away, while\nDeronda, who had moved from his place to make room for others, and felt\nthat he was not in request, sat down a little apart. Presently he\nbecame aware that, in the general dispersion of the group, Gwendolen\nhad extricated herself from the attentions of Mr. Vandernoodt and had\nwalked to the piano, where she stood apparently examining the music\nwhich lay on the desk. Will any one be surprised at Deronda's\nconcluding that she wished him to join her? Perhaps she wanted to make\namends for the unpleasant tone of resistance with which she had met his\nrecommendation of Mirah, for he had noticed that her first impulse\noften was to say what she afterward wished to retract. He went to her\nside and said--\n\n\"Are you relenting about the music and looking for something to play or\nsing?\"\n\n\"I am not looking for anything, but I _am_ relenting,\" said Gwendolen,\nspeaking in a submissive tone.\n\n\"May I know the reason?\"\n\n\"I should like to hear Miss Lapidoth and have lessons from her, since\nyou admire her so much,--that is, of course, when we go to town. I mean\nlessons in rejoicing at her excellence and my own deficiency,\" said\nGwendolen, turning on him a sweet, open smile.\n\n\"I shall be really glad for you to see and hear her,\" said Deronda,\nreturning the smile in kind.\n\n\"Is she as perfect in every thing else as in her music?\"\n\n\"I can't vouch for that exactly. I have not seen enough of her. But I\nhave seen nothing in her that I could wish to be different. She has had\nan unhappy life. Her troubles began in early childhood, and she has\ngrown up among very painful surroundings. But I think you will say that\nno advantages could have given her more grace and truer refinement.\"\n\n\"I wonder what sort of trouble hers were?\"\n\n\"I have not any very precise knowledge. But I know that she was on the\nbrink of drowning herself in despair.\"\n\n\"And what hindered her?\" said Gwendolen, quickly, looking at Deronda.\n\n\"Some ray or other came--which made her feel that she ought to\nlive--that it was good to live,\" he answered, quietly. \"She is full of\npiety, and seems capable of submitting to anything when it takes the\nform of duty.\"\n\n\"Those people are not to be pitied,\" said Gwendolen, impatiently. \"I\nhave no sympathy with women who are always doing right. I don't believe\nin their great sufferings.\" Her fingers moved quickly among the edges\nof the music.\n\n\"It is true,\" said Deronda, \"that the consciousness of having done\nwrong is something deeper, more bitter. I suppose we faulty creatures\ncan never feel so much for the irreproachable as for those who are\nbruised in the struggle with their own faults. It is a very ancient\nstory, that of the lost sheep--but it comes up afresh every day.\"\n\n\"That is a way of speaking--it is not acted upon, it is not real,\" said\nGwendolen, bitterly. \"You admire Miss Lapidoth because you think her\nblameless, perfect. And you know you would despise a woman who had done\nsomething you thought very wrong.\"\n\n\"That would depend entirely upon her own view of what she had done,\"\nsaid Deronda.\n\n\"You would be satisfied if she were very wretched, I suppose,\" said\nGwendolen, impetuously.\n\n\"No, not satisfied--full of sorrow for her. It was not a mere way of\nspeaking. I did not mean to say that the finer nature is not more\nadorable; I meant that those who would be comparatively uninteresting\nbeforehand may become worthier of sympathy when they do something that\nawakens in them a keen remorse. Lives are enlarged in different ways. I\ndare say some would never get their eyes opened if it were not for a\nviolent shock from the consequences of their own actions. And when they\nare suffering in that way one must care for them more than for the\ncomfortably self-satisfied.\" Deronda forgot everything but his vision\nof what Gwendolen's experience had probably been, and urged by\ncompassion let his eyes and voice express as much interest as they\nwould.\n\nGwendolen had slipped on to the music-stool, and looked up at him with\npain in her long eyes, like a wounded animal asking for help.\n\n\"Are you persuading Mrs. Grandcourt to play to us, Dan?\" said Sir Hugo,\ncoming up and putting his hand on Deronda's shoulder with a gentle,\nadmonitory pinch.\n\n\"I cannot persuade myself,\" said Gwendolen, rising.\n\nOthers had followed Sir Hugo's lead, and there was an end of any\nliability to confidences for that day. But the next was New Year's Eve;\nand a grand dance, to which the chief tenants were invited, was to be\nheld in the picture-gallery above the cloister--the sort of\nentertainment in which numbers and general movement may create privacy.\nWhen Gwendolen was dressing, she longed, in remembrance of Leubronn, to\nput on the old turquoise necklace for her sole ornament; but she dared\nnot offend her husband by appearing in that shabby way on an occasion\nwhen he would demand her utmost splendor. Determined to wear the\nmemorial necklace somehow, she wound it thrice round her wrist and made\na bracelet of it--having gone to her room to put it on just before the\ntime of entering the ball-room.\n\nIt was always a beautiful scene, this dance on New Year's Eve, which\nhad been kept up by the family tradition as nearly in the old fashion\nas inexorable change would allow. Red carpet was laid down for the\noccasion: hot-house plants and evergreens were arranged in bowers at\nthe extremities and in every recess of the gallery; and the old\nportraits stretching back through generations, even to the\npre-portraying period, made a piquant line of spectators. Some\nneighboring gentry, major and minor, were invited; and it was certainly\nan occasion when a prospective master and mistress of Abbott's and\nKing's Topping might see their future glory in an agreeable light, as a\npicturesque provincial supremacy with a rent-roll personified by the\nmost prosperous-looking tenants. Sir Hugo expected Grandcourt to feel\nflattered by being asked to the Abbey at a time which included this\nfestival in honor of the family estate; but he also hoped that his own\nhale appearance might impress his successor with the probable length of\ntime that would elapse before the succession came, and with the wisdom\nof preferring a good actual sum to a minor property that must be waited\nfor. All present, down to the least important farmer's daughter, knew\nthat they were to see \"young Grandcourt,\" Sir Hugo's nephew, the\npresumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his\nbride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and\nnephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. The\nbride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of\nall eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have\nshown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself\nmoving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she\nheld in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness\nand spirit would enable her to make the best of. And now she was\nwondering that she could get so little joy out of the exultation to\nwhich she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty\nempire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and\nsuperfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even\nunreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the\nmoment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist\nlike willful tormentors.\n\nWondering in this way at her own dullness, and all the while longing\nfor an excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing\nthrough files of admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it\nwas traditional to open the ball, and was being generally regarded by\nher own sex as an enviable woman. It was remarked that she carried\nherself with a wonderful air, considering that she had been nobody in\nparticular, and without a farthing to her fortune. If she had been a\nduke's daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have\ntaken the honors of the evening more as a matter of course. Poor\nGwendolen! It would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was\nautomatically practiced to hear this last great gambling loss with an\nair of perfect self-possession.\n\nThe next couple that passed were also worth looking at. Lady Pentreath\nhad said, \"I shall stand up for one dance, but I shall choose my\npartner. Mr. Deronda, you are the youngest man, I mean to dance with\nyou. Nobody is old enough to make a good pair with me. I must have a\ncontrast.\" And the contrast certainly set off the old lady to the\nutmost. She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are\nold, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early\nas possible. What might have seemed harshness in her features when she\nwas young, had turned now into a satisfactory strength of form and\nexpression which defied wrinkles, and was set off by a crown of white\nhair; her well-built figure was well covered with black drapery, her\nears and neck comfortably caressed with lace, showing none of those\nwithered spaces which one would think it a pitiable condition of\npoverty to expose. She glided along gracefully enough, her dark eyes\nstill with a mischievous smile in them as she observed the company. Her\npartner's young richness of tint against the flattened hues and rougher\nforms of her aged head had an effect something like that of a fine\nflower against a lichenous branch. Perhaps the tenants hardly\nappreciated this pair. Lady Pentreath was nothing more than a straight,\nactive old lady: Mr. Deronda was a familiar figure regarded with\nfriendliness; but if he had been the heir, it would have been regretted\nthat his face was not as unmistakably English as Sir Hugo's.\n\nGrandcourt's appearance when he came up with Lady Mallinger was not\nimpeached with foreignness: still the satisfaction in it was not\ncomplete. It would have been matter of congratulation if one who had\nthe luck to inherit two old family estates had had more hair, a fresher\ncolor, and a look of greater animation; but that fine families dwindled\noff into females, and estates ran together into the single heirship of\na mealy-complexioned male, was a tendency in things which seemed to be\naccounted for by a citation of other instances. It was agreed that Mr.\nGrandcourt could never be taken for anything but what he was--a born\ngentleman; and that, in fact, he looked like an heir. Perhaps the\nperson least complacently disposed toward him at that moment was Lady\nMallinger, to whom going in procession up this country-dance with\nGrandcourt was a blazonment of herself as the infelicitous wife who had\nproduced nothing but daughters, little better than no children, poor\ndear things, except for her own fondness and for Sir Hugo's wonderful\ngoodness to them. But such inward discomfort could not prevent the\ngentle lady from looking fair and stout to admiration, or her full blue\neyes from glancing mildly at her neighbors. All the mothers and fathers\nheld it a thousand pities that she had not had a fine boy, or even\nseveral--which might have been expected, to look at her when she was\nfirst married.\n\nThe gallery included only three sides of the quadrangle, the fourth\nbeing shut off as a lobby or corridor: one side was used for dancing,\nand the opposite side for the supper-table, while the intermediate part\nwas less brilliantly lit, and fitted with comfortable seats. Later in\nthe evening Gwendolen was in one of these seats, and Grandcourt was\nstanding near her. They were not talking to each other: she was leaning\nbackward in her chair, and he against the wall; and Deronda, happening\nto observe this, went up to ask her if she had resolved not to dance\nany more. Having himself been doing hard duty in this way among the\nguests, he thought he had earned the right to sink for a little while\ninto the background, and he had spoken little to Gwendolen since their\nconversation at the piano the day before. Grandcourt's presence would\nonly make it the easier to show that pleasure in talking to her even\nabout trivialities which would be a sign of friendliness; and he\nfancied that her face looked blank. A smile beamed over it as she saw\nhim coming, and she raised herself from her leaning posture. Grandcourt\nhad been grumbling at the _ennui_ of staying so long in this stupid\ndance, and proposing that they should vanish: she had resisted on the\nground of politeness--not without being a little frightened at the\nprobability that he was silently, angry with her. She had her reason\nfor staying, though she had begun to despair of the opportunity for the\nsake of which she had put the old necklace on her wrist. But now at\nlast Deronda had come.\n\n\"Yes; I shall not dance any more. Are you not glad?\" she said, with\nsome gayety, \"you might have felt obliged humbly to offer yourself as a\npartner, and I feel sure you have danced more than you like already.\"\n\n\"I will not deny that,\" said Deronda, \"since you have danced as much as\nyou like.\"\n\n\"But will you take trouble for me in another way, and fetch me a glass\nof that fresh water?\"\n\nIt was but a few steps that Deronda had to go for the water. Gwendolen\nwas wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under\nwhich her hands were hidden. While he was gone she had drawn off her\nglove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her\nhand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the\nnecklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily\nto her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. Grandcourt saw it, and saw\nthat it was attracting Deronda's notice.\n\n\"What is that hideous thing you have got on your wrist?\" said the\nhusband.\n\n\"That?\" said Gwendolen, composedly, pointing to the turquoises, while\nshe still held the glass; \"it is an old necklace I like to wear. I lost\nit once, and someone found it for me.\"\n\nWith that she gave the glass again to Deronda, who immediately carried\nit away, and on returning said, in order to banish any consciousness\nabout the necklace--\n\n\"It is worth while for you to go and look out at one of the windows on\nthat side. You can see the finest possible moonlight on the stone\npillars and carving, and shadows waving across it in the wind.\"\n\n\"I should like to see it. Will you go?\" said Gwendolen, looking up at\nher husband.\n\nHe cast his eyes down at her, and saying, \"No, Deronda will take you,\"\nslowly moved from his leaning attitude, and walked away.\n\nGwendolen's face for a moment showed a fleeting vexation: she resented\nthis show of indifference toward her. Deronda felt annoyed, chiefly for\nher sake; and with a quick sense, that it would relieve her most to\nbehave as if nothing peculiar had occurred, he said, \"Will you take my\narm and go, while only servants are there?\" He thought that he\nunderstood well her action in drawing his attention to the necklace:\nshe wished him to infer that she had submitted her mind to rebuke--her\nspeech and manner had from the first fluctuated toward that\nsubmission--and that she felt no lingering resentment. Her evident\nconfidence in his interpretation of her appealed to him as a peculiar\nclaim.\n\nWhen they were walking together, Gwendolen felt as if the annoyance\nwhich had just happened had removed another film of reserve from\nbetween them, and she had more right than before to be as open as she\nwished. She did not speak, being filled with the sense of silent\nconfidence, until they were in front of the window looking out on the\nmoonlit court. A sort of bower had been made round the window, turning\nit into a recess. Quitting his arm, she folded her hands in her\nburnous, and pressed her brow against the glass. He moved slightly\naway, and held the lapels of his coat with his thumbs under the collar\nas his manner was: he had a wonderful power of standing perfectly\nstill, and in that position reminded one sometimes of Dante's _spiriti\nmagni con occhi tardi e gravi_. (Doubtless some of these danced in\ntheir youth, doubted of their own vocation, and found their own times\ntoo modern.) He abstained from remarking on the scene before them,\nfearing that any indifferent words might jar on her: already the calm\nlight and shadow, the ancient steadfast forms, and aloofness enough\nfrom those inward troubles which he felt sure were agitating her. And\nhe judged aright: she would have been impatient of polite conversation.\nThe incidents of the last minute or two had receded behind former\nthoughts which she had imagined herself uttering to Deronda, which now\nurged themselves to her lips. In a subdued voice, she said--\n\n\"Suppose I had gambled again, and lost the necklace again, what should\nyou have thought of me?\"\n\n\"Worse than I do now.\"\n\n\"Then you are mistaken about me. You wanted me not to do that--not to\nmake my gain out of another's loss in that way--and I have done a great\ndeal worse.\"\n\n\"I can't imagine temptations,\" said Deronda. \"Perhaps I am able to\nunderstand what you mean. At least I understand self-reproach.\" In\nspite of preparation he was almost alarmed at Gwendolen's precipitancy\nof confidence toward him, in contrast with her habitual resolute\nconcealment.\n\n\"What should you do if you were like me--feeling that you were wrong\nand miserable, and dreading everything to come?\" It seemed that she was\nhurrying to make the utmost use of this opportunity to speak as she\nwould.\n\n\"That is not to be amended by doing one thing only--but many,\" said\nDeronda, decisively.\n\n\"What?\" said Gwendolen, hastily, moving her brow from the glass and\nlooking at him.\n\nHe looked full at her in return, with what she thought was severity. He\nfelt that it was not a moment in which he must let himself be tender,\nand flinch from implying a hard opinion.\n\n\"I mean there are many thoughts and habits that may help us to bear\ninevitable sorrow. Multitudes have to bear it.\"\n\nShe turned her brow to the window again, and said impatiently, \"You\nmust tell me then what to think and what to do; else why did you not\nlet me go on doing as I liked and not minding? If I had gone on\ngambling I might have won again, and I might have got not to care for\nanything else. You would not let me do that. Why shouldn't I do as I\nlike, and not mind? Other people do.\" Poor Gwendolen's speech expressed\nnothing very clearly except her irritation.\n\n\"I don't believe you would ever get not to mind,\" said Deronda, with\ndeep-toned decision. \"If it were true that baseness and cruelty made an\nescape from pain, what difference would that make to people who can't\nbe quite base or cruel? Idiots escape some pain; but you can't be an\nidiot. Some may do wrong to another without remorse; but suppose one\ndoes feel remorse? I believe you could never lead an injurious\nlife--all reckless lives are injurious, pestilential--without feeling\nremorse.\" Deronda's unconscious fervor had gathered as he went on: he\nwas uttering thoughts which he had used for himself in moments of\npainful meditation.\n\n\"Then tell me what better I can do,\" said Gwendolen, insistently.\n\n\"Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their\ntroubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in\nthis vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try\nto care for what is best in thought and action--something that is good\napart from the accidents of your own lot.\"\n\nFor an instant or two Gwendolen was mute. Then, again moving her brow\nfrom the glass, she said--\n\n\"You mean that I am selfish and ignorant.\"\n\nHe met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly--\"You will\nnot go on being selfish and ignorant!\"\n\nShe did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change\ncame over her face--that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will\nsometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the\nsubsidence of self-assertion.\n\n\"Shall I lead you back?\" said Deronda, gently, turning and offering her\nhis arm again. She took it silently, and in that way they came in sight\nof Grandcourt, who was walking slowly near their former place.\nGwendolen went up to him and said, \"I am ready to go now. Mr. Deronda\nwill excuse us to Lady Mallinger.\"\n\n\"Certainly,\" said Deronda. \"Lord and Lady Pentreath disappeared some\ntime ago.\"\n\nGrandcourt gave his arm in silent compliance, nodding over his shoulder\nto Deronda, and Gwendolen too only half turned to bow and say,\n\"Thanks.\" The husband and wife left the gallery and paced the corridors\nin silence. When the door had closed on them in the boudoir, Grandcourt\nthrew himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness,\n\"Sit down.\" She, already in the expectation of something unpleasant,\nhad thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and\nimmediately obeyed. Turning his eyes toward her, he began--\n\n\"Oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play.\"\n\n\"What do you mean?\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"I suppose there is some understanding between you and Deronda about\nthat thing you have on your wrist. If you have anything to say to him,\nsay it. But don't carry on a telegraphing which other people are\nsupposed not to see. It's damnably vulgar.\"\n\n\"You can know all about the necklace,\" said Gwendolen, her angry pride\nresisting the nightmare of fear.\n\n\"I don't want to know. Keep to yourself whatever you like.\" Grandcourt\npaused between each sentence, and in each his speech seemed to become\nmore preternaturally distinct in its inward tones. \"What I care to know\nI shall know without your telling me. Only you will please to behave as\nbecomes my wife. And not make a spectacle of yourself.\"\n\n\"Do you object to my talking to Mr. Deronda?\"\n\n\"I don't care two straws about Deronda, or any other conceited\nhanger-on. You may talk to him as much as you like. He is not going to\ntake my place. You are my wife. And you will either fill your place\nproperly--to the world and to me--or you will go to the devil.\"\n\n\"I never intended anything but to fill my place properly,\" said\nGwendolen, with bitterest mortification in her soul.\n\n\"You put that thing on your wrist, and hid it from me till you wanted\nhim to see it. Only fools go into that deaf and dumb talk, and think\nthey're secret. You will understand that you are not to compromise\nyourself. Behave with dignity. That's all I have to say.\"\n\nWith that last word Grandcourt rose, turned his back to the fire and\nlooked down on her. She was mute. There was no reproach that she dared\nto fling back at him in return for these insulting admonitions, and the\nvery reason she felt them to be insulting was that their purport went\nwith the most absolute dictate of her pride. What she would least like\nto incur was the making a fool of herself and being compromised. It was\nfutile and irrelevant to try and explain that Deronda too had only been\na monitor--the strongest of all monitors. Grandcourt was contemptuous,\nnot jealous; contemptuously certain of all the subjection he cared for.\nWhy could she not rebel and defy him? She longed to do it. But she\nmight as well have tried to defy the texture of her nerves and the\npalpitation of her heart. Her husband had a ghostly army at his back,\nthat could close round her wherever she might turn. She sat in her\nsplendid attire, like a white image of helplessness, and he seemed to\ngratify himself with looking at her. She could not even make a\npassionate exclamation, or throw up her arms, as she would have done in\nher maiden days. The sense of his scorn kept her still.\n\n\"Shall I ring?\" he said, after what seemed to her a long while. She\nmoved her head in assent, and after ringing he went to his\ndressing-room.\n\nCertain words were gnawing within her. \"The wrong you have done me will\nbe your own curse.\" As he closed the door, the bitter tears rose, and\nthe gnawing words provoked an answer: \"Why did you put your fangs into\nme and not into him?\" It was uttered in a whisper, as the tears came up\nsilently. But she immediately pressed her handkerchief against her\neyes, and checked her tendency to sob.\n\nThe next day, recovered from the shuddering fit of this evening scene,\nshe determined to use the charter which Grandcourt had scornfully given\nher, and to talk as much as she liked with Deronda; but no\nopportunities occurred, and any little devices she could imagine for\ncreating them were rejected by her pride, which was now doubly active.\nNot toward Deronda himself--she was singularly free from alarm lest he\nshould think her openness wanting in dignity: it was part of his power\nover her that she believed him free from all misunderstanding as to the\nway in which she appealed to him; or rather, that he should\nmisunderstand her had never entered into her mind. But the last morning\ncame, and still she had never been able to take up the dropped thread\nof their talk, and she was without devices. She and Grandcourt were to\nleave at three o'clock. It was too irritating that after a walk in the\ngrounds had been planned in Deronda's hearing, he did not present\nhimself to join in it. Grandcourt was gone with Sir Hugo to King's\nTopping, to see the old manor-house; others of the gentlemen were\nshooting; she was condemned to go and see the decoy and the waterfowl,\nand everything else that she least wanted to see, with the ladies, with\nold Lord Pentreath and his anecdotes, with Mr. Vandernoodt and his\nadmiring manners. The irritation became too strong for her; without\npremeditation, she took advantage of the winding road to linger a\nlittle out of sight, and then set off back to the house, almost running\nwhen she was safe from observation. She entered by a side door, and the\nlibrary was on her left hand; Deronda, she knew, was often there; why\nmight she not turn in there as well as into any other room in the\nhouse? She had been taken there expressly to see the illuminated family\ntree, and other remarkable things--what more natural than that she\nshould like to look in again? The thing most to be feared was that the\nroom would be empty of Deronda, for the door was ajar. She pushed it\ngently, and looked round it. He was there, writing busily at a distant\ntable, with his back toward the door (in fact, Sir Hugo had asked him\nto answer some constituents' letters which had become pressing). An\nenormous log fire, with the scent of Russia from the books, made the\ngreat room as warmly odorous as a private chapel in which the censors\nhave been swinging. It seemed too daring to go in--too rude to speak\nand interrupt him; yet she went in on the noiseless carpet, and stood\nstill for two or three minutes, till Deronda, having finished a letter,\npushed it aside for signature, and threw himself back to consider\nwhether there were anything else for him to do, or whether he could\nwalk out for the chance of meeting the party which included Gwendolen,\nwhen he heard her voice saying, \"Mr. Deronda.\"\n\nIt was certainly startling. He rose hastily, turned round, and pushed\naway his chair with a strong expression of surprise.\n\n\"Am I wrong to come in?\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"I thought you were far on your walk,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"I turned back,\" said Gwendolen.\n\n\"Do you intend to go out again? I could join you now, if you would\nallow me.\"\n\n\"No; I want to say something, and I can't stay long,\" said Gwendolen,\nspeaking quickly in a subdued tone, while she walked forward and rested\nher arms and muff on the back of the chair he had pushed away from him.\n\"I want to tell you that it is really so--I can't help feeling remorse\nfor having injured others. That was what I meant when I said that I had\ndone worse than gamble again and pawn the necklace again--something\nmore injurious, as you called it. And I can't alter it. I am punished,\nbut I can't alter it. You said I could do many things. Tell me again.\nWhat should you do--what should you feel if you were in my place?\"\n\nThe hurried directness with which she spoke--the absence of all her\nlittle airs, as if she were only concerned to use the time in getting\nan answer that would guide her, made her appeal unspeakably touching.\n\nDeronda said,--\"I should feel something of what you feel--deep sorrow.\"\n\n\"But what would you try to do?\" said Gwendolen, with urgent quickness.\n\n\"Order my life so as to make any possible amends, and keep away from\ndoing any sort of injury again,\" said Deronda, catching her sense that\nthe time for speech was brief.\n\n\"But I can't--I can't; I must go on,\" said Gwendolen, in a passionate\nloud whisper. \"I have thrust out others--I have made my gain out of\ntheir loss--tried to make it--tried. And I must go on. I can't alter\nit.\"\n\nIt was impossible to answer this instantaneously. Her words had\nconfirmed his conjecture, and the situation of all concerned rose in\nswift images before him. His feeling for those who had been thrust out\nsanctioned her remorse; he could not try to nullify it, yet his heart\nwas full of pity for her. But as soon as he could he answered--taking\nup her last words--\n\n\"That is the bitterest of all--to wear the yoke of our own wrong-doing.\nBut if you submitted to that as men submit to maiming or life-long\nincurable disease?--and made the unalterable wrong a reason for more\neffort toward a good, that may do something to counterbalance the evil?\nOne who has committed irremediable errors may be scourged by that\nconsciousness into a higher course than is common. There are many\nexamples. Feeling what it is to have spoiled one life may well make us\nlong to save other lives from being spoiled.\"\n\n\"But you have not wronged any one, or spoiled their lives,\" said\nGwendolen, hastily. \"It is only others who have wronged _you_.\"\n\nDeronda colored slightly, but said immediately--\"I suppose our keen\nfeeling for ourselves might end in giving us a keen feeling for others,\nif, when we are suffering acutely, we were to consider that others go\nthrough the same sharp experience. That is a sort of remorse before\ncommission. Can't you understand that?\"\n\n\"I think I do--now,\" said Gwendolen. \"But you were right--I _am_\nselfish. I have never thought much of any one's feelings, except my\nmother's. I have not been fond of people. But what can I do?\" she went\non, more quickly. \"I must get up in the morning and do what every one\nelse does. It is all like a dance set beforehand. I seem to see all\nthat can be--and I am tired and sick of it. And the world is all\nconfusion to me\"--she made a gesture of disgust. \"You say I am\nignorant. But what is the good of trying to know more, unless life were\nworth more?\"\n\n\"This good,\" said Deronda promptly, with a touch of indignant severity,\nwhich he was inclined to encourage as his own safeguard; \"life _would_\nbe worth more to you: some real knowledge would give you an interest in\nthe world beyond the small drama of personal desires. It is the curse\nof your life--forgive me--of so many lives, that all passion is spent\nin that narrow round, for want of ideas and sympathies to make a larger\nhome for it. Is there any single occupation of mind that you care about\nwith passionate delight or even independent interest?\"\n\nDeronda paused, but Gwendolen, looking startled and thrilled as by an\nelectric shock, said nothing, and he went on more insistently--\n\n\"I take what you said of music for a small example--it answers for all\nlarger things--you will not cultivate it for the sake of a private joy\nin it. What sort of earth or heaven would hold any spiritual wealth in\nit for souls pauperized by inaction? If one firmament has no stimulus\nfor our attention and awe, I don't see how four would have it. We\nshould stamp every possible world with the flatness of our own\ninanity--which is necessarily impious, without faith or fellowship. The\nrefuge you are needing from personal trouble is the higher, the\nreligious life, which holds an enthusiasm for something more than our\nown appetites and vanities. The few may find themselves in it simply by\nan elevation of feeling; but for us who have to struggle for our\nwisdom, the higher life must be a region in which the affections are\nclad with knowledge.\"\n\nThe half-indignant remonstrance that vibrated in Deronda's voice came,\nas often happens, from the habit of inward argument with himself rather\nthan from severity toward Gwendolen: but it had a more beneficial\neffect on her than any soothings. Nothing is feebler than the indolent\nrebellion of complaint; and to be roused into self-judgment is\ncomparative activity. For the moment she felt like a shaken\nchild--shaken out of its wailing into awe, and she said humbly--\n\n\"I will try. I will think.\"\n\nThey both stood silent for a minute, as if some third presence had\narrested them,--for Deronda, too, was under that sense of pressure\nwhich is apt to come when our own winged words seem to be hovering\naround us,--till Gwendolen began again--\n\n\"You said affection was the best thing, and I have hardly any--none\nabout me. If I could, I would have mamma; but that is impossible.\nThings have changed to me so--in such a short time. What I used not to\nlike I long for now. I think I am almost getting fond of the old things\nnow they are gone.\" Her lip trembled.\n\n\"Take the present suffering as a painful letting in of light,\" said\nDeronda, more gently. \"You are conscious of more beyond the round of\nyour own inclinations--you know more of the way in which your life\npresses on others, and their life on yours. I don't think you could\nhave escaped the painful process in some form or other.\"\n\n\"But it is a very cruel form,\" said Gwendolen, beating her foot on the\nground with returning agitation. \"I am frightened at everything. I am\nfrightened at myself. When my blood is fired I can do daring\nthings--take any leap; but that makes me frightened at myself.\" She was\nlooking at nothing outside her; but her eyes were directed toward the\nwindow, away from Deronda, who, with quick comprehension said--\n\n\"Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of\nincreasing that remorse which is so bitter to you. Fixed meditation may\ndo a great deal toward defining our longing or dread. We are not always\nin a state of strong emotion, and when we are calm we can use our\nmemories and gradually change the bias of our fear, as we do our\ntastes. Take your fear as a safeguard. It is like quickness of hearing.\nIt may make consequences passionately present to you. Try to take hold\nof your sensibility, and use it as if it were a faculty, like vision.\"\nDeronda uttered each sentence more urgently; he felt as if he were\nseizing a faint chance of rescuing her from some indefinite danger.\n\n\"Yes, I know; I understand what you mean,\" said Gwendolen in her loud\nwhisper, not turning her eyes, but lifting up her small gloved hand and\nwaving it in deprecation of the notion that it was easy to obey that\nadvice. \"But if feelings rose--there are some feelings--hatred and\nanger--how can I be good when they keep rising? And if there came a\nmoment when I felt stifled and could bear it no longer----\" She broke\noff, and with agitated lips looked at Deronda, but the expression on\nhis face pierced her with an entirely new feeling. He was under the\nbaffling difficulty of discerning, that what he had been urging on her\nwas thrown into the pallid distance of mere thought before the outburst\nof her habitual emotion. It was as if he saw her drowning while his\nlimbs were bound. The pained compassion which was spread over his\nfeatures as he watched her, affected her with a compunction unlike any\nshe had felt before, and in a changed and imploring tone she said--\n\n\"I am grieving you. I am ungrateful. You _can_ help me. I will think of\neverything. I will try. Tell me--it will not be a pain to you that I\nhave dared to speak of my trouble to you? You began it, you know, when\nyou rebuked me.\" There was a melancholy smile on her lips as she said\nthat, but she added more entreatingly, \"It will not be a pain to you?\"\n\n\"Not if it does anything to save you from an evil to come,\" said\nDeronda, with strong emphasis; \"otherwise, it will be a lasting pain.\"\n\n\"No--no--it shall not be. It may be--it shall be better with me because\nI have known you.\" She turned immediately, and quitted the room.\n\nWhen she was on the first landing of the staircase, Sir Hugo passed\nacross the hall on his way to the library, and saw her. Grandcourt was\nnot with him.\n\nDeronda, when the baronet entered, was standing in his ordinary\nattitude, grasping his coat-collar, with his back to the table, and\nwith that indefinable expression by which we judge that a man is still\nin the shadow of a scene which he has just gone through. He moved,\nhowever, and began to arrange the letters.\n\n\"Has Mrs. Grandcourt been in here?\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"Yes, she has.\"\n\n\"Where are the others?\"\n\n\"I believe she left them somewhere in the grounds.\"\n\nAfter a moment's silence, in which Sir Hugo looked at a letter without\nreading it, he said \"I hope you are not playing with fire, Dan--you\nunderstand me?\"\n\n\"I believe I do, sir,\" said Deronda, after a slight hesitation, which\nhad some repressed anger in it. \"But there is nothing answering to your\nmetaphor--no fire, and therefore no chance of scorching.\"\n\nSir Hugo looked searchingly at him, and then said, \"So much the better.\nFor, between ourselves, I fancy there may be some hidden gunpowder in\nthat establishment.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII.\n\n  _Aspern._    Pardon, my lord--I speak for Sigismund.\n  _Fronsberg._ For him? Oh, ay--for him I always hold\n               A pardon safe in bank, sure he will draw\n               Sooner or later on me. What his need?\n               Mad project broken? fine mechanic wings\n               That would not fly? durance, assault on watch,\n               Bill for Epernay, not a crust to eat?\n  _Aspern._    Oh, none of these, my lord; he has escaped\n               From Circe's herd, and seeks to win the love\n               Of your fair ward Cecilia: but would win\n               First your consent. You frown.\n  _Fronsberg._                         Distinguish words.\n               I said I held a pardon, not consent.\n\n\nIn spite of Deronda's reasons for wishing to be in town again--reasons\nin which his anxiety for Mirah was blent with curiosity to know more of\nthe enigmatic Mordecai--he did not manage to go up before Sir Hugo, who\npreceded his family that he might be ready for the opening of\nParliament on the sixth of February. Deronda took up his quarters in\nPark Lane, aware that his chambers were sufficiently tenanted by Hans\nMeyrick. This was what he expected; but he found other things not\naltogether according to his expectations.\n\nMost of us remember Retzsch's drawing of destiny in the shape of\nMephistopheles playing at chess with man for his soul, a game in which\nwe may imagine the clever adversary making a feint of unintended moves\nso as to set the beguiled mortal on carrying his defensive pieces away\nfrom the true point of attack. The fiend makes preparation his favorite\nobject of mockery, that he may fatally persuade us against our taking\nout waterproofs when he is well aware the sky is going to clear,\nforeseeing that the imbecile will turn this delusion into a prejudice\nagainst waterproofs instead of giving a closer study to the\nweather-signs. It is a peculiar test of a man's metal when, after he\nhas painfully adjusted himself to what seems a wise provision, he finds\nall his mental precaution a little beside the mark, and his excellent\nintentions no better than miscalculated dovetails, accurately cut from\na wrong starting-point. His magnanimity has got itself ready to meet\nmisbehavior, and finds quite a different call upon it. Something of\nthis kind happened to Deronda.\n\nHis first impression was one of pure pleasure and amusement at finding\nhis sitting-room transformed into an _atelier_ strewed with\nmiscellaneous drawings and with the contents of two chests from Rome,\nthe lower half of the windows darkened with baize, and the blonde Hans\nin his weird youth as the presiding genius of the littered place--his\nhair longer than of old, his face more whimsically creased, and his\nhigh voice as usual getting higher under the excitement of rapid talk.\nThe friendship of the two had been kept up warmly since the memorable\nCambridge time, not only by correspondence but by little episodes of\ncompanionship abroad and in England, and the original relation of\nconfidence on one side and indulgence on the other had been developed\nin practice, as is wont to be the case where such spiritual borrowing\nand lending has been well begun.\n\n\"I knew you would like to see my casts and antiquities,\" said Hans,\nafter the first hearty greetings and inquiries, \"so I didn't scruple to\nunlade my chests here. But I've found two rooms at Chelsea not many\nhundred yards from my mother and sisters, and I shall soon be ready to\nhang out there--when they've scraped the walls and put in some new\nlights. That's all I'm waiting for. But you see I don't wait to begin\nwork: you can't conceive what a great fellow I'm going to be. The seed\nof immortality has sprouted within me.\"\n\n\"Only a fungoid growth, I dare say--a growing disease in the lungs,\"\nsaid Deronda, accustomed to treat Hans in brotherly fashion. He was\nwalking toward some drawings propped on the ledge of his bookcases;\nfive rapidly-sketched heads--different aspects of the same face. He\nstood at a convenient distance from them, without making any remark.\nHans, too, was silent for a minute, took up his palette and began\ntouching the picture on his easel.\n\n\"What do you think of them?\" he said at last.\n\n\"The full face looks too massive; otherwise the likenesses are good,\"\nsaid Deronda, more coldly than was usual with him.\n\n\"No, it is not too massive,\" said Hans, decisively. \"I have noted that.\nThere is always a little surprise when one passes from the profile to\nthe full face. But I shall enlarge her scale for Berenice. I am making\na Berenice series--look at the sketches along there--and now I think of\nit, you are just the model I want for the Agrippa.\" Hans, still with\npencil and palette in hand, had moved to Deronda's side while he said\nthis, but he added hastily, as if conscious of a mistake, \"No, no, I\nforgot; you don't like sitting for your portrait, confound you!\nHowever, I've picked up a capital Titus. There are to be five in the\nseries. The first is Berenice clasping the knees of Gessius Florus and\nbeseeching him to spare her people; I've got that on the easel. Then,\nthis, where she is standing on the Xystus with Agrippa, entreating the\npeople not to injure themselves by resistance.\"\n\n\"Agrippa's legs will never do,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"The legs are good realistically,\" said Hans, his face creasing drolly;\n\"public men are often shaky about the legs--' Their legs, the emblem of\ntheir various thought,' as somebody says in the 'Rehearsal.'\"\n\n\"But these are as impossible as the legs of Raphael's Alcibiades,\" said\nDeronda.\n\n\"Then they are good ideally,\" said Hans. \"Agrippa's legs were possibly\nbad; I idealize that and make them impossibly bad. Art, my Eugenius,\nmust intensify. But never mind the legs now: the third sketch in the\nseries is Berenice exulting in the prospects of being Empress of Rome,\nwhen the news has come that Vespasian is declared Emperor and her lover\nTitus his successor.\"\n\n\"You must put a scroll in her mouth, else people will not understand\nthat. You can't tell that in a picture.\"\n\n\"It will make them feel their ignorance then--an excellent æsthetic\neffect. The fourth is, Titus sending Berenice away from Rome after she\nhas shared his palace for ten years--both reluctant, both sad--_invitus\ninvitam_, as Suetonius hath it. I've found a model for the Roman brute.\"\n\n\"Shall you make Berenice look fifty? She must have been that.\"\n\n\"No, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. Dark-eyed\nbeauty wears well, hers particularly. But now, here is the fifth:\nBerenice seated lonely on the ruins of Jerusalem. That is pure\nimagination. That is what ought to have been--perhaps was. Now, see how\nI tell a pathetic negative. Nobody knows what became of her--that is\nfinely indicated by the series coming to a close. There is no sixth\npicture.\" Here Hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of\nsublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a\nlike impression on Deronda. \"I break off in the Homeric style. The\nstory is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into\nnothing--_le néant_; can anything be more sublime, especially in\nFrench? The vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial--perhaps\nher will read and her linen distributed. But now come and look at this\non the easel. I have made some way there.\"\n\n\"That beseeching attitude is really good,\" said Deronda, after a\nmoment's contemplation. \"You have been very industrious in the\nChristmas holidays; for I suppose you have taken up the subject since\nyou came to London.\" Neither of them had yet mentioned Mirah.\n\n\"No,\" said Hans, putting touches to his picture, \"I made up my mind to\nthe subject before. I take that lucky chance for an augury that I am\ngoing to burst on the world as a great painter. I saw a splendid woman\nin the Trastevere--the grandest women there are half Jewesses--and she\nset me hunting for a fine situation of a Jewess at Rome. Like other men\nof vast learning, I ended by taking what lay on the surface. I'll show\nyou a sketch of the Trasteverina's head when I can lay my hands on it.\"\n\n\"I should think she would be a more suitable model for Berenice,\" said\nDeronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent.\n\n\"Not a bit of it. The model ought to be the most beautiful Jewess in\nthe world, and I have found her.\"\n\n\"Have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that\ncharacter? I should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. Does\nshe quite know what you are doing?\"\n\n\"Certainly. I got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude.\nLittle mother sat for Gessius Florus, and Mirah clasped her knees.\"\nHere Hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches.\n\n\"I dare say she knows nothing about Berenice's history,\" said Deronda,\nfeeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify.\n\n\"Oh, yes, she does--ladies' edition. Berenice was a fervid patriot, but\nwas beguiled by love and ambition into attaching herself to the\narch-enemy of her people. Whence the Nemesis. Mirah takes it as a\ntragic parable, and cries to think what the penitent Berenice suffered\nas she wandered back to Jerusalem and sat desolate amidst desolation.\nThat was her own phrase. I couldn't find it in my heart to tell her I\ninvented that part of the story.\"\n\n\"Show me your Trasteverina,\" said Deronda, chiefly in order to hinder\nhimself from saying something else.\n\n\"Shall you mind turning over that folio?\" said Hans. \"My studies of\nheads are all there. But they are in confusion. You will perhaps find\nher next to a crop-eared undergraduate.\"\n\nAfter Deronda had been turning over the drawings a minute or two, he\nsaid--\n\n\"These seem to be all Cambridge heads and bits of country. Perhaps I\nhad better begin at the other end.\"\n\n\"No; you'll find her about the middle. I emptied one folio into\nanother.\"\n\n\"Is this one of your undergraduates?\" said Deronda, holding up a\ndrawing. \"It's an unusually agreeable face.\"\n\n\"That! Oh, that's a man named Gascoigne--Rex Gascoigne. An uncommonly\ngood fellow; his upper lip, too, is good. I coached him before he got\nhis scholarship. He ought to have taken honors last Easter. But he was\nill, and has had to stay up another year. I must look him up. I want to\nknow how he's going on.\"\n\n\"Here she is, I suppose,\" said Deronda, holding up a sketch of the\nTrasteverina.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Hans, looking at it rather contemptuously, \"too coarse. I\nwas unregenerate then.\"\n\nDeronda was silent while he closed the folio, leaving the Trasteverina\noutside. Then clasping his coat-collar, and turning toward Hans, he\nsaid, \"I dare say my scruples are excessive, Meyrick, but I must ask\nyou to oblige me by giving up this notion.\"\n\nHans threw himself into a tragic attitude, and screamed, \"What! my\nseries--my immortal Berenice series? Think of what you are saying,\nman--destroying, as Milton says, not a life but an immortality. Wait\nbefore you, answer, that I may deposit the implements of my art and be\nready to uproot my hair.\"\n\nHere Hans laid down his pencil and palette, threw himself backward into\na great chair, and hanging limply over the side, shook his long hair\nover his face, lifted his hooked fingers on each side his head, and\nlooked up with comic terror at Deronda, who was obliged to smile, as he\nsaid--\n\n\"Paint as many Berenices as you like, but I wish you could feel with\nme--perhaps you will, on reflection--that you should choose another\nmodel.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Hans, standing up, and looking serious again.\n\n\"Because she may get into such a position that her face is likely to be\nrecognized. Mrs. Meyrick and I are anxious for her that she should be\nknown as an admirable singer. It is right, and she wishes it, that she\nshould make herself independent. And she has excellent chances. One\ngood introduction is secured already, and I am going to speak to\nKlesmer. Her face may come to be very well known, and--well, it is\nuseless to attempt to explain, unless you feel as I do. I believe that\nif Mirah saw the circumstances clearly, she would strongly object to\nbeing exhibited in this way--to allowing herself to be used as a model\nfor a heroine of this sort.\"\n\nAs Hans stood with his thumbs in the belt of his blouse, listening to\nthis speech, his face showed a growing surprise melting into amusement,\nthat at last would have its way in an explosive laugh: but seeing that\nDeronda looked gravely offended, he checked himself to say, \"Excuse my\nlaughing, Deronda. You never gave me an advantage over you before. If\nit had been about anything but my own pictures, I should have swallowed\nevery word because you said it. And so you actually believe that I\nshould get my five pictures hung on the line in a conspicuous position,\nand carefully studied by the public? Zounds, man! cider-cup and conceit\nnever gave me half such a beautiful dream. My pictures are likely to\nremain as private as the utmost hypersensitiveness could desire.\"\n\nHans turned to paint again as a way of filling up awkward pauses.\nDeronda stood perfectly still, recognizing his mistake as to publicity,\nbut also conscious that his repugnance was not much diminished. He was\nthe reverse of satisfied either with himself or with Hans; but the\npower of being quiet carries a man well through moments of\nembarrassment. Hans had a reverence for his friend which made him feel\na sort of shyness at Deronda's being in the wrong; but it were not in\nhis nature to give up anything readily, though it were only a whim--or\nrather, especially if it were a whim, and he presently went on,\npainting the while--\n\n\"But even supposing I had a public rushing after my pictures as if they\nwere a railway series including nurses, babies and bonnet-boxes, I\ncan't see any justice in your objection. Every painter worth\nremembering has painted the face he admired most, as often as he could.\nIt is a part of his soul that goes out into his pictures. He diffuses\nits influence in that way. He puts what he hates into a caricature. He\nputs what he adores into some sacred, heroic form. If a man could paint\nthe woman he loves a thousand times as the Stella Marts to put courage\ninto the sailors on board a thousand ships, so much the more honor to\nher. Isn't that better than painting a piece of staring immodesty and\ncalling it by a worshipful name?\"\n\n\"Every objection can be answered if you take broad ground enough, Hans:\nno special question of conduct can be properly settled in that way,\"\nsaid Deronda, with a touch of peremptoriness. \"I might admit all your\ngeneralities, and yet be right in saying you ought not to publish\nMirah's face as a model for Berenice. But I give up the question of\npublicity. I was unreasonable there.\" Deronda hesitated a moment.\n\"Still, even as a private affair, there might be good reasons for your\nnot indulging yourself too much in painting her from the point of view\nyou mention. You must feel that her situation at present is a very\ndelicate one; and until she is in more independence, she should be kept\nas carefully as a bit of Venetian glass, for fear of shaking her out of\nthe safe place she is lodged in. Are you quite sure of your own\ndiscretion? Excuse me, Hans. My having found her binds me to watch over\nher. Do you understand me?\"\n\n\"Perfectly,\" said Hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile.\n\"You have the very justifiable opinion of me that I am likely to\nshatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the\nbargain. Quite fair. Since I got into the scrape of being born,\neverything I have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or\nsomebody else. Everything I have taken to heartily has somehow turned\ninto a scrape. My painting is the last scrape; and I shall be all my\nlife getting out of it. You think now I shall get into a scrape at\nhome. No; I am regenerate. You think I must be over head and ears in\nlove with Mirah. Quite right; so I am. But you think I shall scream and\nplunge and spoil everything. There you are mistaken--excusably, but\ntranscendently mistaken. I have undergone baptism by immersion. Awe\ntakes care of me. Ask the little mother.\"\n\n\"You don't reckon a hopeless love among your scrapes, then,\" said\nDeronda, whose voice seemed to get deeper as Hans's went higher.\n\n\"I don't mean to call mine hopeless,\" said Hans, with provoking\ncoolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt,\nand moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more\ndeliberately.\n\n\"My dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself,\" said\nDeronda, decisively. \"She would not marry a Christian, even if she\nloved him. Have you heard her--of course you have--heard her speak of\nher people and her religion?\"\n\n\"That can't last,\" said Hans. \"She will see no Jew who is tolerable.\nEvery male of that race is insupportable,--'insupportably\nadvancing'--his nose.\"\n\n\"She may rejoin her family. That is what she longs for. Her mother and\nbrother are probably strict Jews.\"\n\n\"I'll turn proselyte, if she wishes it,\" said Hans, with a shrug and a\nlaugh.\n\n\"Don't talk nonsense, Hans. I thought you professed a serious love for\nher,\" said Deronda, getting heated.\n\n\"So I do. You think it desperate, but I don't.\"\n\n\"I know nothing; I can't tell what has happened. We must be prepared\nfor surprises. But I can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than\nthat there should have seemed to be anything in Mirah's sentiments for\nyou to found a romantic hope on.\" Deronda felt that he was too\ncontemptuous.\n\n\"I don't found my romantic hopes on a woman's sentiments,\" said Hans,\nperversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with\ngravity. \"I go to science and philosophy for my romance. Nature\ndesigned Mirah to fall in love with me. The amalgamation of races\ndemands it--the mitigation of human ugliness demands it--the affinity\nof contrasts assures it. I am the utmost contrast to Mirah--a bleached\nChristian, who can't sing two notes in tune. Who has a chance against\nme?\"\n\n\"I see now; it was all _persiflage_. You don't mean a word you say,\nMeyrick,\" said Deronda, laying his hand on Meyrick's shoulder, and\nspeaking in a tone of cordial relief. \"I was a wiseacre to answer you\nseriously.\"\n\n\"Upon my honor I do mean it, though,\" said Hans, facing round and\nlaying his left hand on Deronda's shoulder, so that their eyes fronted\neach other closely. \"I am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as\nsoon as you came. My mother says you are Mirah's guardian, and she\nthinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah\nin her house. Well, I love her--I worship her--I won't despair--I mean\nto deserve her.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, you can't do it,\" said Deronda, quickly.\n\n\"I should have said, I mean to try.\"\n\n\"You can't keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would\ndo for your mother and sisters.\"\n\n\"You have a right to reproach me, old fellow,\" said Hans, gently.\n\n\"Perhaps I am ungenerous,\" said Deronda, not apologetically, however.\n\"Yet it can't be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad,\nQuixotic expectations.\"\n\n\"Who will be hurt but myself, then?\" said Hans, putting out his lip. \"I\nam not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I\ndare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir\nThomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose,\nthan be sure of winning anywhere else. And I don't mean to swallow the\npoison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am\ngiving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity.\"\n\n\"With all my heart, if it will do you any good,\" said Deronda, loosing\nHans's shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his\nwords were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced.\n\nHe was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes\nbefall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor--the\nirritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the\nsame plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our\nguides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the\nbest teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes.\nThroughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans's egotism,\nbut he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually\npouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any\ndetail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, and soon forgotten\nit. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent--nay,\nsatisfied. But now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger\nbecause it must not be betrayed, Hans's evident assumption that for any\ndanger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to Mirah, Deronda was not as\nmuch out of the question as the angel Gabriel. It is one thing to be\nresolute in placing one's self out of the question, and another to\nendure that others should perform that exclusion for us. He had\nexpected that Hans would give him trouble: what he had not expected was\nthat the trouble would have a strong element of personal feeling. And\nhe was rather ashamed that Hans's hopes caused him uneasiness in spite\nof his well-warranted conviction that they would never be fulfilled.\nThey had raised an image of Mirah changing; and however he might\nprotest that the change would not happen, the protest kept up the\nunpleasant image. Altogether poor Hans seemed to be entering into\nDeronda's experience in a disproportionate manner--going beyond his\npart of rescued prodigal, and rousing a feeling quite distinct from\ncompassionate affection.\n\nWhen Deronda went to Chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought\nto have been by Mrs. Meyrick's evident release from anxiety about the\nbeloved but incalculable son. Mirah seemed livelier than before, and\nfor the first time he saw her laugh. It was when they were talking of\nHans, he being naturally the mother's first topic. Mirah wished to know\nif Deronda had seen Mr. Hans going through a sort of character piece\nwithout changing his dress.\n\n\"He passes from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame\nwhere you fancied the figures without seeing them,\" said Mirah, full of\nher subject; \"he is so wonderfully quick. I used never to like comic\nthings on the stage--they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute\nMr. Hans makes himself a blind bard, and then Rienzi addressing the\nRomans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young\ngentleman--I am sorry for them all, and yet I laugh, all in one\"--here\nMirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song.\n\n\"We hardly thought that Mirah could laugh till Hans came,\" said Mrs.\nMeyrick, seeing that Deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty\npicture.\n\n\"Hans seems in great force just now,\" said Deronda in a tone of\ncongratulation. \"I don't wonder at his enlivening you.\"\n\n\"He's been just perfect ever since he came back,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nkeeping to herself the next clause--\"if it will but last.\"\n\n\"It is a great happiness,\" said Mirah, \"to see the son and brother come\ninto this dear home. And I hear them all talk about what they did\ntogether when they were little. That seems like heaven, and to have a\nmother and brother who talk in that way. I have never had it.\"\n\n\"Nor I,\" said Deronda, involuntarily.\n\n\"No?\" said Mirah, regretfully. \"I wish you had. I wish you had had\nevery good.\" The last words were uttered with a serious ardor as if\nthey had been part of a litany, while her eyes were fixed on Deronda,\nwho with his elbow on the back of his chair was contemplating her by\nthe new light of the impression she had made on Hans, and the\npossibility of her being attracted by that extraordinary contrast. It\nwas no more than what had happened on each former visit of his, that\nMirah appeared to enjoy speaking of what she felt very much as a little\ngirl fresh from school pours forth spontaneously all the long-repressed\nchat for which she has found willing ears. For the first time in her\nlife Mirah was among those whom she entirely trusted, and her original\nvisionary impression that Deronda was a divinely-sent messenger hung\nabout his image still, stirring always anew the disposition to reliance\nand openness. It was in this way she took what might have been the\ninjurious flattery of admiring attention into which her helpless\ndependence had been suddenly transformed. Every one around her watched\nfor her looks and words, and the effect on her was simply that of\nhaving passed from a trifling imprisonment into an exhilarating air\nwhich made speech and action a delight. To her mind it was all a gift\nfrom others' goodness. But that word of Deronda's implying that there\nhad been some lack in his life which might be compared with anything\nshe had known in hers, was an entirely new inlet of thought about him.\nAfter her first expression of sorrowful surprise she went on--\n\n\"But Mr. Hans said yesterday that you thought so much of others you\nhardly wanted anything for yourself. He told us a wonderful story of\nBuddha giving himself to the famished tigress to save her and her\nlittle ones from starving. And he said you were like Buddha. That is\nwhat we all imagine of you.\"\n\n\"Pray don't imagine that,\" said Deronda, who had lately been finding\nsuch suppositions rather exasperating. \"Even if it were true that I\nthought so much of others, it would not follow that I had no wants for\nmyself. When Buddha let the tigress eat him he might have been very\nhungry himself.\"\n\n\"Perhaps if he was starved he would not mind so much about being\neaten,\" said Mab, shyly.\n\n\"Please don't think that, Mab; it takes away the beauty of the action,\"\nsaid Mirah.\n\n\"But if it were true, Mirah?\" said the rational Amy, having a\nhalf-holiday from her teaching; \"you always take what is beautiful as\nif it were true.\"\n\n\"So it is,\" said Mirah, gently. \"If people have thought what is the\nmost beautiful and the best thing, it must be true. It is always there.\"\n\n\"Now, Mirah, what do you mean?\" said Amy.\n\n\"I understand her,\" said Deronda, coming to the rescue.\n\n\"It is a truth in thought though it may never have been carried out in\naction. It lives as an idea. Is that it?\" He turned to Mirah, who was\nlistening with a blind look in her lovely eyes.\n\n\"It must be that, because you understand me, but I cannot quite\nexplain,\" said Mirah, rather abstractedly--still searching for some\nexpression.\n\n\"But _was_ it beautiful for Buddha to let the tiger eat him?\" said Amy,\nchanging her ground. \"It would be a bad pattern.\"\n\n\"The world would get full of fat tigers,\" said Mab.\n\nDeronda laughed, but defended the myth. \"It is like a passionate word,\"\nhe said; \"the exaggeration is a flash of fervor. It is an extreme image\nof what is happening every day-the transmutation of self.\"\n\n\"I think I can say what I mean, now,\" said Mirah, who had not heard the\nintermediate talk. \"When the best thing comes into our thoughts, it is\nlike what my mother has been to me. She has been just as really with me\nas all the other people about me--often more really with me.\"\n\nDeronda, inwardly wincing under this illustration, which brought other\npossible realities about that mother vividly before him, presently\nturned the conversation by saying, \"But we must not get too far away\nfrom practical matters. I came, for one thing, to tell of an interview\nI had yesterday, which I hope Mirah will find to have been useful to\nher. It was with Klesmer, the great pianist.\"\n\n\"Ah?\" said Mrs. Meyrick, with satisfaction. \"You think he will help\nher?\"\n\n\"I hope so. He is very much occupied, but has promised to fix a time\nfor receiving and hearing Miss Lapidoth, as we must learn to call\nher\"--here Deronda smiled at Mirah--\"If she consents to go to him.\"\n\n\"I shall be very grateful,\" said Mirah. \"He wants to hear me sing,\nbefore he can judge whether I ought to be helped.\"\n\nDeronda was struck with her plain sense about these matters of\npractical concern.\n\n\"It will not be at all trying to you, I hope, if Mrs. Meyrick will\nkindly go with you to Klesmer's house.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not at all trying. I have been doing that all my life--I mean,\ntold to do things that others may judge of me. And I have gone through\na bad trial of that sort. I am prepared to bear it, and do some very\nsmall thing. Is Klesmer a severe man?\"\n\n\"He is peculiar, but I have not had experience enough of him to know\nwhether he would be what you would call severe.\"\n\n\"I know he is kind-hearted--kind in action, if not in speech.\"\n\n\"I have been used to be frowned at and not praised,\" said Mirah.\n\n\"By the by, Klesmer frowns a good deal,\" said Deronda, \"but there is\noften a sort of smile in his eyes all the while. Unhappily he wears\nspectacles, so you must catch him in the right light to see the smile.\"\n\n\"I shall not be frightened,\" said Mirah. \"If he were like a roaring\nlion, he only wants me to sing. I shall do what I can.\"\n\n\"Then I feel sure you will not mind being invited to sing in Lady\nMallinger's drawing-room,\" said Deronda. \"She intends to ask you next\nmonth, and will invite many ladies to hear you, who are likely to want\nlessons from you for their daughters.\"\n\n\"How fast we are mounting!\" said Mrs. Meyrick, with delight. \"You never\nthought of getting grand so quickly, Mirah.\"\n\n\"I am a little frightened at being called Miss Lapidoth,\" said Mirah,\ncoloring with a new uneasiness. \"Might I be called Cohen?\"\n\n\"I understand you,\" said Deronda, promptly. \"But I assure you, you must\nnot be called Cohen. The name is inadmissible for a singer. This is one\nof the trifles in which we must conform to vulgar prejudice. We could\nchoose some other name, however--such as singers ordinarily choose--an\nItalian or Spanish name, which would suit your _physique_.\" To Deronda\njust now the name Cohen was equivalent to the ugliest of yellow badges.\n\nMirah reflected a little, anxiously, then said, \"No. If Cohen will not\ndo, I will keep the name I have been called by. I will not hide myself.\nI have friends to protect me. And now--if my father were very miserable\nand wanted help--no,\" she said, looking at Mrs. Meyrick, \"I should\nthink, then, that he was perhaps crying as I used to see him, and had\nnobody to pity him, and I had hidden myself from him. He had none\nbelonging to him but me. Others that made friends with him always left\nhim.\"\n\n\"Keep to what you feel right, my dear child,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"_I_\nwould not persuade you to the contrary.\" For her own part she had no\npatience or pity for that father, and would have left him to his crying.\n\nDeronda was saying to himself, \"I am rather base to be angry with Hans.\nHow can he help being in love with her? But it is too absurdly\npresumptuous for him even to frame the idea of appropriating her, and a\nsort of blasphemy to suppose that she could possibly give herself to\nhim.\"\n\nWhat would it be for Daniel Deronda to entertain such thoughts? He was\nnot one who could quite naively introduce himself where he had just\nexcluded his friend, yet it was undeniable that what had just happened\nmade a new stage in his feeling toward Mirah. But apart from other\ngrounds for self-repression, reasons both definite and vague made him\nshut away that question as he might have shut up a half-opened writing\nthat would have carried his imagination too far, and given too much\nshape to presentiments. Might there not come a disclosure which would\nhold the missing determination of his course? What did he really know\nabout his origin? Strangely in these latter months when it seemed right\nthat he should exert his will in the choice of a destination, the\npassion of his nature had got more and more locked by this uncertainty.\nThe disclosure might bring its pain, indeed the likelihood seemed to\nhim to be all on that side; but if it helped him to make his life a\nsequence which would take the form of duty--if it saved him from having\nto make an arbitrary selection where he felt no preponderance of\ndesire? Still more, he wanted to escape standing as a critic outside\nthe activities of men, stiffened into the ridiculous attitude of\nself-assigned superiority. His chief tether was his early inwrought\naffection for Sir Hugo, making him gratefully deferential to wishes\nwith which he had little agreement: but gratitude had been sometimes\ndisturbed by doubts which were near reducing it to a fear of being\nungrateful. Many of us complain that half our birthright is sharp duty:\nDeronda was more inclined to complain that he was robbed of this half;\nyet he accused himself, as he would have accused another, of being\nweakly self-conscious and wanting in resolve. He was the reverse of\nthat type painted for us in Faulconbridge and Edmund of Gloster, whose\ncoarse ambition for personal success is inflamed by a defiance of\naccidental disadvantages. To Daniel the words Father and Mother had the\naltar-fire in them; and the thought of all closest relations of our\nnature held still something of the mystic power which had made his neck\nand ears burn in boyhood. The average man may regard this sensibility\non the question of birth as preposterous and hardly credible; but with\nthe utmost respect for his knowledge as the rock from which all other\nknowledge is hewn, it must be admitted that many well-proved facts are\ndark to the average man, even concerning the action of his own heart\nand the structure of his own retina. A century ago he and all his\nforefathers had not had the slightest notion of that electric discharge\nby means of which they had all wagged their tongues mistakenly; any\nmore than they were awake to the secluded anguish of exceptional\nsensitiveness into which many a carelessly-begotten child of man is\nborn.\n\nPerhaps the ferment was all the stronger in Deronda's mind because he\nhad never had a confidant to whom he could open himself on these\ndelicate subjects. He had always been leaned on instead of being\ninvited to lean. Sometimes he had longed for the sort of friend to whom\nhe might possibly unfold his experience: a young man like himself who\nsustained a private grief and was not too confident about his own\ncareer; speculative enough to understand every moral difficulty, yet\nsocially susceptible, as he himself was, and having every outward sign\nof equality either in bodily or spiritual wrestling;--for he had found\nit impossible to reciprocate confidences with one who looked up to him.\nBut he had no expectation of meeting the friend he imagined. Deronda's\nwas not one of those quiveringly-poised natures that lend themselves to\nsecond-sight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII.\n\n    There be who hold that the deeper tragedy were a Prometheus Bound not\n    _after_ but _before_ he had well got the celestial fire into\n    the _narthex_ whereby it might be conveyed to mortals: thrust by\n    the Kratos and Bia of instituted methods into a solitude of despised\n    ideas, fastened in throbbing helplessness by the fatal pressure of\n    poverty and disease--a solitude where many pass by, but none regard.\n\n\n\"Second-sight\" is a flag over disputed ground. But it is matter of\nknowledge that there are persons whose yearnings, conceptions--nay,\ntraveled conclusions--continually take the form of images which have a\nforeshadowing power; the deed they would do starts up before them in\ncomplete shape, making a coercive type; the event they hunger for or\ndread rises into vision with a seed-like growth, feeding itself fast on\nunnumbered impressions. They are not always the less capable of the\nargumentative process, nor less sane than the commonplace calculators\nof the market: sometimes it may be that their natures have manifold\nopenings, like the hundred-gated Thebes, where there may naturally be a\ngreater and more miscellaneous inrush than through a narrow\nbeadle-watched portal. No doubt there are abject specimens of the\nvisionary, as there is a minim mammal which you might imprison in the\nfinger of your glove. That small relative of the elephant has no harm\nin him; but what great mental or social type is free from specimens\nwhose insignificance is both ugly and noxious? One is afraid to think\nof all that the genus \"patriot\" embraces; or of the elbowing there\nmight be at the day of judgment for those who ranked as authors, and\nbrought volumes either in their hands or on trucks.\n\nThis apology for inevitable kinship is meant to usher in some facts\nabout Mordecai, whose figure had bitten itself into Deronda's mind as a\nnew question which he felt an interest in getting answered. But the\ninterest was no more than a vaguely-expectant suspense: the\nconsumptive-looking Jew, apparently a fervid student of some kind,\ngetting his crust by a quiet handicraft, like Spinoza, fitted into none\nof Deronda's anticipations.\n\nIt was otherwise with the effect of their meeting on Mordecai. For many\nwinters, while he had been conscious of an ebbing physical life, and as\nwidening spiritual loneliness, all his passionate desire had\nconcentrated itself in the yearning for some young ear into which he\ncould pour his mind as a testament, some soul kindred enough to accept\nthe spiritual product of his own brief, painful life, as a mission to\nbe executed. It was remarkable that the hopefulness which is often the\nbeneficent illusion of consumptive patients, was in Mordecai wholly\ndiverted from the prospect of bodily recovery and carried into the\ncurrent of this yearning for transmission. The yearning, which had\npanted upward from out of over-whelming discouragements, had grown into\na hope--the hope into a confident belief, which, instead of being\nchecked by the clear conception he had of his hastening decline, took\nrather the intensity of expectant faith in a prophecy which has only\nbrief space to get fulfilled in.\n\nSome years had now gone since he had first begun to measure men with a\nkeen glance, searching for a possibility which became more and more a\ndistinct conception. Such distinctness as it had at first was reached\nchiefly by a method of contrast: he wanted to find a man who differed\nfrom himself. Tracing reasons in that self for the rebuffs he had met\nwith and the hindrances that beset him, he imagined a man who would\nhave all the elements necessary for sympathy with him, but in an\nembodiment unlike his own: he must be a Jew, intellectually cultured,\nmorally fervid--in all this a nature ready to be plenished from\nMordecai's; but his face and frame must be beautiful and strong, he\nmust have been used to all the refinements of social life, his voice\nmust flow with a full and easy current, his circumstances be free from\nsordid need: he must glorify the possibilities of the Jew, not sit and\nwonder as Mordecai did, bearing the stamp of his people amid the sign\nof poverty and waning breath. Sensitive to physical characteristics, he\nhad, both abroad and in England, looked at pictures as well as men, and\nin a vacant hour he had sometimes lingered in the National Gallery in\nsearch of paintings which might feed his hopefulness with grave and\nnoble types of the human form, such as might well belong to men of his\nown race. But he returned in disappointment. The instances are\nscattered but thinly over the galleries of Europe, in which the fortune\nor selection even of the chief masters has given to art a face at once\nyoung, grand, and beautiful, where, if there is any melancholy, it is\nno feeble passivity, but enters into the foreshadowed capability of\nheroism.\n\nSome observant persons may perhaps remember his emaciated figure, and\ndark eyes deep in their sockets, as he stood in front of a picture that\nhad touched him either to new or habitual meditation: he commonly wore\na cloth cap with black fur round it, which no painter would have asked\nhim to take off. But spectators would be likely to think of him as an\nodd-looking Jew who probably got money out of pictures; and Mordecai,\nwhen he looked at them, was perfectly aware of the impression he made.\nExperience had rendered him morbidly alive to the effect of a man's\npoverty and other physical disadvantages in cheapening his ideas,\nunless they are those of a Peter the Hermit who has a tocsin for the\nrabble. But he was too sane and generous to attribute his spiritual\nbanishment solely to the excusable prejudices of others; certain\nincapacities of his own had made the sentence of exclusion; and hence\nit was that his imagination had constructed another man who would be\nsomething more ample than the second soul bestowed, according to the\nnotion of the Cabbalists, to help out the insufficient first--who would\nbe a blooming human life, ready to incorporate all that was worthiest\nin an existence whose visible, palpable part was burning itself fast\naway. His inward need for the conception of this expanded, prolonged\nself was reflected as an outward necessity. The thoughts of his heart\n(that ancient phrase best shadows the truth) seemed to him too\nprecious, too closely interwoven with the growth of things not to have\na further destiny. And as the more beautiful, the stronger, the more\nexecutive self took shape in his mind, he loved it beforehand with an\naffection half identifying, half contemplative and grateful.\n\nMordecai's mind wrought so constantly in images, that his coherent\ntrains of thought often resembled the significant dreams attributed to\nsleepers by waking persons in their most inventive moments: nay, they\noften resembled genuine dreams in their way of breaking off the passage\nfrom the known to the unknown. Thus, for a long while, he habitually\nthought of the Being answering to his need as one distantly approaching\nor turning his back toward him, darkly painted against a golden sky.\nThe reason of the golden sky lay in one of Mordecai's habits. He was\nkeenly alive to some poetic aspects of London; and a favorite resort of\nhis, when strength and leisure allowed, was to some of the bridges,\nespecially about sunrise or sunset. Even when he was bending over\nwatch-wheels and trinkets, or seated in a small upper room looking out\non dingy bricks and dingy cracked windows, his imagination\nspontaneously planted him on some spot where he had a far-stretching\nscene; his thoughts went on in wide spaces; and whenever he could, he\ntried to have in reality the influences of a large sky. Leaning on the\nparapet of Blackfriar's Bridge, and gazing meditatively, the breadth\nand calm of the river, with its long vista half hazy, half luminous,\nthe grand dim masses of tall forms of buildings which were the signs of\nworld-commerce, the oncoming of boats and barges from the still\ndistance into sound and color, entered into his mood and blent\nthemselves indistinguishably with his thinking, as a fine symphony to\nwhich we can hardly be said to listen, makes a medium that bears up our\nspiritual wings. Thus it happened that the figure representative of\nMordecai's longing was mentally seen darkened by the excess of light in\nthe aerial background. But in the inevitable progress of his\nimagination toward fuller detail, he ceased to see the figure with its\nback toward him. It began to advance, and a face became discernible;\nthe words youth, beauty, refinement, Jewish birth, noble gravity,\nturned into hardly individual but typical form and color: gathered from\nhis memory of faces seen among the Jews of Holland and Bohemia, and\nfrom the paintings which revived that memory. Reverently let it be said\nof this mature spiritual need that it was akin to the boy's and girl's\npicturing of the future beloved; but the stirrings of such young desire\nare feeble compared with the passionate current of an ideal life\nstraining to embody itself, made intense by resistance to imminent\ndissolution. The visionary form became a companion and auditor; keeping\na place not only in the waking imagination, but in those dreams of\nlighter slumber of which it is truest to say, \"I sleep, but my heart\nwaketh\"--when the disturbing trivial story of yesterday is charged with\nthe impassioned purpose of years.\n\nOf late the urgency of irremediable time, measured by the gradual\nchoking of life, had turned Mordecai's trust into an agitated watch for\nthe fulfillment that must be at hand. Was the bell on the verge of\ntolling, the sentence about to be executed? The deliverer's footstep\nmust be near--the deliverer who was to rescue Mordecai's spiritual\ntravail from oblivion, and give it an abiding-place in the best\nheritage of his people. An insane exaggeration of his own value, even\nif his ideas had been as true and precious as those of Columbus or\nNewton, many would have counted this yearning, taking it as the\nsublimer part for a man to say, \"If not I, then another,\" and to hold\ncheap the meaning of his own life. But the fuller nature desires to be\nan agent, to create, and not merely to look on: strong love hungers to\nbless, and not merely to behold blessing. And while there is warmth\nenough in the sun to feed an energetic life, there will still be men to\nfeel, \"I am lord of this moment's change, and will charge it with my\nsoul.\"\n\nBut with that mingling of inconsequence which belongs to us all, and\nnot unhappily, since it saves us from many effects of mistake,\nMordecai's confidence in the friend to come did not suffice to make him\npassive, and he tried expedients, pathetically humble, such as happened\nto be within his reach, for communicating something of himself. It was\nnow two years since he had taken up his abode under Ezra Cohen's roof,\nwhere he was regarded with much good-will as a compound of workman,\ndominie, vessel of charity, inspired idiot, man of piety, and (if he\nwere inquired into) dangerous heretic. During that time little Jacob\nhad advanced into knickerbockers, and into that quickness of\napprehension which has been already made manifest in relation to\nhardware and exchange. He had also advanced in attachment to Mordecai,\nregarding him as an inferior, but liking him none the worse, and taking\nhis helpful cleverness as he might have taken the services of an\nenslaved Djinn. As for Mordecai, he had given Jacob his first lessons,\nand his habitual tenderness easily turned into the teacher's\nfatherhood. Though he was fully conscious of the spiritual distance\nbetween the parents and himself, and would never have attempted any\ncommunication to them from his peculiar world, the boy moved him with\nthat idealizing affection which merges the qualities of the individual\nchild in the glory of childhood and the possibilities of a long future.\nAnd this feeling had drawn him on, at first without premeditation, and\nafterward with conscious purpose, to a sort of outpouring in the ear of\nthe boy which might have seemed wild enough to any excellent man of\nbusiness who overheard it. But none overheard when Jacob went up to\nMordecai's room one day, for example, in which there was little work to\nbe done, or at an hour when the work was ended, and after a brief\nlesson in English reading or in numeration, was induced to remain\nstanding at his teacher's knees, or chose to jump astride them, often\nto the patient fatigue of the wasted limbs. The inducement was perhaps\nthe mending of a toy, or some little mechanical device in which\nMordecai's well-practiced finger-tips had an exceptional skill; and\nwith the boy thus tethered, he would begin to repeat a Hebrew poem of\nhis own, into which years before he had poured his first youthful\nardors for that conception of a blended past and future which was the\nmistress of his soul, telling Jacob to say the words after him.\n\n\"The boy will get them engraved within him,\" thought Mordecai; \"it is a\nway of printing.\"\n\nNone readier than Jacob at this fascinating game of imitating\nunintelligible words; and if no opposing diversion occurred he would\nsometimes carry on his share in it as long as the teacher's breath\nwould last out. For Mordecai threw into each repetition the fervor\nbefitting a sacred occasion. In such instances, Jacob would show no\nother distraction than reaching out and surveying the contents of his\npockets; or drawing down the skin of his cheeks to make his eyes look\nawful, and rolling his head to complete the effect; or alternately\nhandling his own nose and Mordecai's as if to test the relation of\ntheir masses. Under all this the fervid reciter would not pause,\nsatisfied if the young organs of speech would submit themselves. But\nmost commonly a sudden impulse sent Jacob leaping away into some antic\nor active amusement, when, instead of following the recitation he would\nreturn upon the foregoing words most ready to his tongue, and mouth or\ngabble, with a see-saw suited to the action of his limbs, a verse on\nwhich Mordecai had spent some of his too scanty heart's blood. Yet he\nwaited with such patience as a prophet needs, and began his strange\nprinting again undiscouraged on the morrow, saying inwardly--\n\n\"My words may rule him some day. Their meaning may flash out on him. It\nis so with a nation--after many days.\"\n\nMeanwhile Jacob's sense of power was increased and his time enlivened\nby a store of magical articulation with which he made the baby crow, or\ndrove the large cat into a dark corner, or promised himself to frighten\nany incidental Christian of his own years. One week he had\nunfortunately seen a street mountebank, and this carried off his\nmuscular imitativeness in sad divergence from New Hebrew poetry, after\nthe model of Jehuda ha-Levi. Mordecai had arrived at a fresh passage in\nhis poem; for as soon as Jacob had got well used to one portion, he was\nled on to another, and a fresh combination of sounds generally answered\nbetter in keeping him fast for a few minutes. The consumptive voice,\ngenerally a strong high baritone, with its variously mingling\nhoarseness, like a haze amidst illuminations, and its occasional\nincipient gasp had more than the usual excitement, while it gave forth\nHebrew verses with a meaning something like this:--\n\n  \"Away from me the garment of forgetfulness.\n  Withering the heart;\n  The oil and wine from presses of the Goyim,\n  Poisoned with scorn.\n  Solitude is on the sides of Mount Nebo,\n  In its heart a tomb:\n  There the buried ark and golden cherubim\n  Make hidden light:\n  There the solemn gaze unchanged,\n  The wings are spread unbroken:\n  Shut beneath in silent awful speech\n  The Law lies graven.\n  Solitude and darkness are my covering,\n  And my heart a tomb;\n  Smite and shatter it, O Gabriel!\n  Shatter it as the clay of the founder\n  Around the golden image.\"\n\nIn the absorbing enthusiasm with which Mordecai had intoned rather than\nspoken this last invocation, he was unconscious that Jacob had ceased\nto follow him and had started away from his knees; but pausing he saw,\nas by a sudden flash, that the lad had thrown himself on his hands with\nhis feet in the air, mountebank fashion, and was picking up with his\nlips a bright farthing which was a favorite among his pocket treasures.\nThis might have been reckoned among the tricks Mordecai was used to,\nbut at this moment it jarred him horribly, as if it had been a Satanic\ngrin upon his prayer.\n\n\"Child! child!\" he called out with a strange cry that startled Jacob to\nhis feet, and then he sank backward with a shudder, closing his eyes.\n\n\"What?\" said Jacob, quickly. Then, not getting an immediate answer, he\npressed Mordecai's knees with a shaking movement, in order to rouse\nhim. Mordecai opened his eyes with a fierce expression in them, leaned\nforward, grasped the little shoulders, and said in a quick, hoarse\nwhisper--\n\n\"A curse is on your generation, child. They will open the mountain and\ndrag forth the golden wings and coin them into money, and the solemn\nfaces they will break up into ear-rings for wanton women! And they\nshall get themselves a new name, but the angel of ignominy, with the\nfiery brand, shall know them, and their heart shall be the tomb of dead\ndesires that turn their life to rottenness.\"\n\nThe aspect and action of Mordecai were so new and mysterious to\nJacob--they carried such a burden of obscure threat--it was as if the\npatient, indulgent companion had turned into something unknown and\nterrific: the sunken dark eyes and hoarse accents close to him, the\nthin grappling fingers, shook Jacob's little frame into awe, and while\nMordecai was speaking he stood trembling with a sense that the house\nwas tumbling in and they were not going to have dinner any more. But\nwhen the terrible speech had ended and the pinch was relaxed, the shock\nresolved itself into tears; Jacob lifted up his small patriarchal\ncountenance and wept aloud. This sign of childish grief at once\nrecalled Mordecai to his usual gentle self: he was not able to speak\nagain at present, but with a maternal action he drew the curly head\ntoward him and pressed it tenderly against his breast. On this Jacob,\nfeeling the danger well-nigh over, howled at ease, beginning to imitate\nhis own performance and improve upon it--a sort of transition from\nimpulse into art often observable. Indeed, the next day he undertook to\nterrify Adelaide Rebekah in like manner, and succeeded very well.\n\nBut Mordecai suffered a check which lasted long, from the consciousness\nof a misapplied agitation; sane as well as excitable, he judged\nseverely his moments of aberration into futile eagerness, and felt\ndiscredited with himself. All the more his mind was strained toward the\ndiscernment of that friend to come, with whom he would have a calm\ncertainty of fellowship and understanding.\n\nIt was just then that, in his usual midday guardianship of the old\nbook-shop, he was struck by the appearance of Deronda, and it is\nperhaps comprehensible now why Mordecai's glance took on a sudden eager\ninterest as he looked at the new-comer: he saw a face and frame which\nseemed to him to realize the long-conceived type. But the disclaimer of\nJewish birth was for the moment a backward thrust of double severity,\nthe particular disappointment tending to shake his confidence in the\nmore indefinite expectation. Nevertheless, when he found Deronda seated\nat the Cohens' table, the disclaimer was for the moment nullified: the\nfirst impression returned with added force, seeming to be guaranteed by\nthis second meeting under circumstance more peculiar than the former;\nand in asking Deronda if he knew Hebrew, Mordecai was so possessed by\nthe new inrush of belief, that he had forgotten the absence of any\nother condition to the fulfillment of his hopes. But the answering \"No\"\nstruck them all down again, and the frustration was more painful than\nbefore. After turning his back on the visitor that Sabbath evening,\nMordecai went through days of a deep discouragement, like that of men\non a doomed ship, who having strained their eyes after a sail, and\nbeheld it with rejoicing, behold it never advance, and say, \"Our sick\neyes make it.\" But the long-contemplated figure had come as an\nemotional sequence of Mordecai's firmest theoretic convictions; it had\nbeen wrought from the imagery of his most passionate life; and it\ninevitably reappeared--reappeared in a more specific self-asserting\nform than ever. Deronda had that sort of resemblance to the\npreconceived type which a finely individual bust or portrait has to the\nmore generalized copy left in our minds after a long interval: we renew\nour memory with delight, but we hardly know with how much correction.\nAnd now, his face met Mordecai's inward gaze as it had always belonged\nto the awaited friend, raying out, moreover, some of that influence\nwhich belongs to breathing flesh; till by-and-by it seemed that\ndiscouragement had turned into a new obstinacy of resistance, and the\never-recurrent vision had the force of an outward call to disregard\ncounter-evidence, and keep expectation awake. It was Deronda now who\nwas seen in the often painful night-watches, when we are all liable to\nbe held with the clutch of a single thought--whose figure, never with\nits back turned, was seen in moments of soothed reverie or soothed\ndozing, painted on that golden sky which was the doubly blessed symbol\nof advancing day and of approaching rest.\n\nMordecai knew that the nameless stranger was to come and redeem his\nring; and, in spite of contrary chances, the wish to see him again was\ngrowing into a belief that he should see him. In the January weeks, he\nfelt an increasing agitation of that subdued hidden quality which\nhinders nervous people from any steady occupation on the eve of an\nanticipated change. He could not go on with his printing of Hebrew on\nlittle Jacob's mind; or with his attendance at a weekly club, which was\nanother effort of the same forlorn hope: something else was coming. The\none thing he longed for was to get as far as the river, which he could\ndo but seldom and with difficulty. He yearned with a poet's yearning\nfor the wide sky, the far-reaching vista of bridges, the tender and\nfluctuating lights on the water which seems to breathe with a life that\ncan shiver and mourn, be comforted and rejoice.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX.\n\n  \"Vor den Wissenden sich stellen\n  Sicher ist's in alien Fällen!\n  Wenn du lange dich gequälet\n  Weiss er gleich wo dir es fehlet;\n  Auch auf Beifall darfst du hoffen,\n  Denn er weiss wo du's getroffen,\"\n           --GOETHE: _West-östlicker Divan_.\n\n\nMomentous things happened to Deronda the very evening of that visit to\nthe small house at Chelsea, when there was the discussion about Mirah's\npublic name. But for the family group there, what appeared to be the\nchief sequence connected with it occurred two days afterward. About\nfour o'clock wheels paused before the door, and there came one of those\nknocks with an accompanying ring which serve to magnify the sense of\nsocial existence in a region where the most enlivening signals are\nusually those of the muffin-man. All the girls were at home, and the\ntwo rooms were thrown together to make space for Kate's drawing, as\nwell as a great length of embroidery which had taken the place of the\nsatin cushions--a sort of _pièce de résistance_ in the courses of\nneedlework, taken up by any clever fingers that happened to be at\nliberty. It stretched across the front room picturesquely enough, Mrs.\nMeyrick bending over it on one corner, Mab in the middle, and Amy at\nthe other end. Mirah, whose performances in point of sewing were on the\nmake-shift level of the tailor-bird's, her education in that branch\nhaving been much neglected, was acting as reader to the party, seated\non a camp-stool; in which position she also served Kate as model for a\ntitle-page vignette, symbolizing a fair public absorbed in the\nsuccessive volumes of the family tea-table. She was giving forth with\ncharming distinctness the delightful Essay of Elia, \"The Praise of\nChimney-Sweeps,\" and all were smiling over the \"innocent blackness,\"\nwhen the imposing knock and ring called their thoughts to loftier\nspheres, and they looked up in wonderment.\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Mrs. Meyrick; \"can it be Lady Mallinger? Is there a\ngrand carriage, Amy?\"\n\n\"No--only a hansom cab. It must be a gentleman.\"\n\n\"The Prime Minister, I should think,\" said Kate dryly. \"Hans says the\ngreatest man in London may get into a hansom cab.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh!\" cried Mab. \"Suppose it should be Lord Russell!\"\n\nThe five bright faces were all looking amused when the old maid-servant\nbringing in a card distractedly left the parlor-door open, and there\nwas seen bowing toward Mrs. Meyrick a figure quite unlike that of the\nrespected Premier--tall and physically impressive even in his kid and\nkerseymere, with massive face, flamboyant hair, and gold spectacles: in\nfact, as Mrs. Meyrick saw from the card, _Julius Klesmer_.\n\nEven embarrassment could hardly have made the \"little mother\" awkward,\nbut quick in her perceptions she was at once aware of the situation,\nand felt well satisfied that the great personage had come to Mirah\ninstead of requiring her to come to him; taking it as a sign of active\ninterest. But when he entered, the rooms shrank into closets, the\ncottage piano, Mab thought, seemed a ridiculous toy, and the entire\nfamily existence as petty and private as an establishment of mice in\nthe Tuileries. Klesmer's personality, especially his way of glancing\nround him, immediately suggested vast areas and a multitudinous\naudience, and probably they made the usual scenery of his\nconsciousness, for we all of us carry on our thinking in some habitual\nlocus where there is a presence of other souls, and those who take in a\nlarger sweep than their neighbors are apt to seem mightily vain and\naffected. Klesmer was vain, but not more so than many contemporaries of\nheavy aspect, whose vanity leaps out and startles one like a spear out\nof a walking-stick; as to his carriage and gestures, these were as\nnatural to him as the length of his fingers; and the rankest\naffectation he could have shown would have been to look diffident and\ndemure. While his grandiose air was making Mab feel herself a\nridiculous toy to match the cottage piano, he was taking in the details\naround him with a keen and thoroughly kind sensibility. He remembered a\nhome no longer than this on the outskirts of Bohemia; and in the\nfigurative Bohemia too he had had large acquaintance with the variety\nand romance which belong to small incomes. He addressed Mrs. Meyrick\nwith the utmost deference.\n\n\"I hope I have not taken too great a freedom. Being in the\nneighborhood, I ventured to save time by calling. Our friend, Mr.\nDeronda, mentioned to me an understanding that I was to have the honor\nof becoming acquainted with a young lady here--Miss Lapidoth.\"\n\nKlesmer had really discerned Mirah in the first moment of entering,\nbut, with subtle politeness, he looked round bowingly at the three\nsisters as if he were uncertain which was the young lady in question.\n\n\"Those are my daughters: this is Miss Lapidoth,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nwaving her hand toward Mirah.\n\n\"Ah,\" said Klesmer, in a tone of gratified expectation, turning a\nradiant smile and deep bow to Mirah, who, instead of being in the least\ntaken by surprise, had a calm pleasure in her face. She liked the look\nof Klesmer, feeling sure that he would scold her, like a great musician\nand a kind man.\n\n\"You will not object to beginning our acquaintance by singing to me,\"\nhe added, aware that they would all be relieved by getting rid of\npreliminaries.\n\n\"I shall be very glad. It is good of you to be willing to listen to\nme,\" said Mirah, moving to the piano. \"Shall I accompany myself?\"\n\n\"By all means,\" said Klesmer, seating himself, at Mrs. Meyrick's\ninvitation, where he could have a good view of the singer. The acute\nlittle mother would not have acknowledged the weakness, but she really\nsaid to herself, \"He will like her singing better if he sees her.\"\n\nAll the feminine hearts except Mirah's were beating fast with anxiety,\nthinking Klesmer terrific as he sat with his listening frown on, and\nonly daring to look at him furtively. If he did say anything severe it\nwould be so hard for them all. They could only comfort themselves with\nthinking that Prince Camaralzaman, who had heard the finest things,\npreferred Mirah's singing to any other:--also she appeared to be doing\nher very best, as if she were more instead of less at ease than usual.\n\nThe song she had chosen was a fine setting of some words selected from\nLeopardi's grand Ode to Italy:--\n\n  \"_O patria mia, vedo le mura c gli archi\n  E le colonne e i simula-cri e l'erme\n  Torridegli avi nostri_\"--\n\nThis was recitative: then followed--\n\n  \"_Ma la gloria--non vedo_\"--\n\na mournful melody, a rhythmic plaint. After this came a climax of\ndevout triumph--passing from the subdued adoration of a happy Andante\nin the words--\n\n  \"_Beatissimi voi.\n  Che offriste il petto alle nemiche lance\n  Per amor di costei che al sol vi diede_\"--\n\nto the joyous outburst of an exultant Allegro in--\n\n        \"_Oh viva, oh viva:\n  Beatissimi voi\n  Mentre nel monde si favelli o scriva._\"\n\nWhen she had ended, Klesmer said after a moment--\n\n\"That is Joseph Leo's music.\"\n\n\"Yes, he was my last master--at Vienna: so fierce and so good,\" said\nMirah, with a melancholy smile. \"He prophesied that my voice would not\ndo for the stage. And he was right.\"\n\n\"_Con_tinue, if you please,\" said Klesmer, putting out his lips and\nshaking his long fingers, while he went on with a smothered\narticulation quite unintelligible to the audience.\n\nThe three girls detested him unanimously for not saying one word of\npraise. Mrs. Meyrick was a little alarmed.\n\nMirah, simply bent on doing what Klesmer desired, and imagining that he\nwould now like to hear her sing some German, went through Prince\nRadzivill's music to Gretchen's songs in the \"Faust,\" one after the\nother without any interrogatory pause. When she had finished he rose\nand walked to the extremity of the small space at command, then walked\nback to the piano, where Mirah had risen from her seat and stood\nlooking toward him with her little hands crossed before her, meekly\nawaiting judgment; then with a sudden unknitting of his brow and with\nbeaming eyes, he stretched out his hand and said abruptly, \"Let us\nshake hands: you are a musician.\"\n\nMab felt herself beginning to cry, and all the three girls held Klesmer\nadorable. Mrs. Meyrick took a long breath.\n\nBut straightway the frown came again, the long hand, back uppermost,\nwas stretched out in quite a different sense to touch with finger-tip\nthe back of Mirah's, and with protruded lip he said--\n\n\"Not for great tasks. No high roofs. We are no skylarks. We must be\nmodest.\" Klesmer paused here. And Mab ceased to think him adorable: \"as\nif Mirah had shown the least sign of conceit!\"\n\nMirah was silent, knowing that there was a specific opinion to be\nwaited for, and Klesmer presently went on--\"I would not advise--I would\nnot further your singing in any larger space than a private\ndrawing-room. But you will do there. And here in London that is one of\nthe best careers open. Lessons will follow. Will you come and sing at a\nprivate concert at my house on Wednesday?\"\n\n\"Oh, I shall be grateful,\" said Mirah, putting her hands together\ndevoutly. \"I would rather get my bread in that way than by anything\nmore public. I will try to improve. What should I work at most?\"\n\nKlesmer made a preliminary answer in noises which sounded like words\nbitten in two and swallowed before they were half out, shaking his\nfingers the while, before he said, quite distinctly, \"I shall introduce\nyou to Astorga: he is the foster-father of good singing and will give\nyou advice.\" Then addressing Mrs. Meyrick, he added, \"Mrs. Klesmer will\ncall before Wednesday, with your permission.\"\n\n\"We shall feel that to be a great kindness,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\n\"You will sing to her,\" said Klesmer, turning again to Mirah. \"She is a\nthorough musician, and has a soul with more ears to it than you will\noften get in a musician. Your singing will satisfy her:--\n\n  'Vor den Wissenden sich stellen;'\n\nyou know the rest?\"\n\n  \"'Sicher ist's in alien Fällen.'\"\n\nsaid Mirah, promptly. And Klesmer saying \"Schön!\" put out his hand\nagain as a good-bye.\n\nHe had certainly chosen the most delicate way of praising Mirah, and\nthe Meyrick girls had now given him all their esteem. But imagine Mab's\nfeeling when suddenly fixing his eyes on her, he said decisively, \"That\nyoung lady is musical, I see!\" She was a mere blush and sense of\nscorching.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mirah, on her behalf. \"And she has a touch.\"\n\n\"Oh, please, Mirah--a scramble, not a touch,\" said Mab, in anguish,\nwith a horrible fear of what the next thing might be: this dreadful\ndivining personage--evidently Satan in gray trousers--might order her\nto sit down to the piano, and her heart was like molten wax in the\nmidst of her. But this was cheap payment for her amazed joy when\nKlesmer said benignantly, turning to Mrs. Meyrick, \"Will she like to\naccompany Miss Lapidoth and hear the music on Wednesday?\"\n\n\"There could hardly be a greater pleasure for her,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\"She will be most glad and grateful.\"\n\nThereupon Klesmer bowed round to the three sisters more grandly than\nthey had ever been bowed to before. Altogether it was an amusing\npicture--the little room with so much of its diagonal taken up in\nKlesmer's magnificent bend to the small feminine figures like images a\nlittle less than life-size, the grave Holbein faces on the walls, as\nmany as were not otherwise occupied, looking hard at this stranger who\nby his face seemed a dignified contemporary of their own, but whose\ngarments seemed a deplorable mockery of the human form.\n\nMrs. Meyrick could not help going out of the room with Klesmer and\nclosing the door behind her. He understood her, and said with a\nfrowning nod--\n\n\"She will do: if she doesn't attempt too much and her voice holds out,\nshe can make an income. I know that is the great point: Deronda told\nme. You are taking care of her. She looks like a good girl.\"\n\n\"She is an angel,\" said the warm-hearted woman.\n\n\"No,\" said Klesmer, with a playful nod; \"she is a pretty Jewess: the\nangels must not get the credit of her. But I think she has found a\nguardian angel,\" he ended, bowing himself out in this amiable way.\n\nThe four young creatures had looked at each other mutely till the door\nbanged and Mrs. Meyrick re-entered. Then there was an explosion. Mab\nclapped her hands and danced everywhere inconveniently; Mrs. Meyrick\nkissed Mirah and blessed her; Amy said emphatically, \"We can never get\nher a new dress before Wednesday!\" and Kate exclaimed, \"Thank heaven my\ntable is not knocked over!\"\n\nMirah had reseated herself on the music-stool without speaking, and the\ntears were rolling down her cheeks as she looked at her friends.\n\n\"Now, now, Mab!\" said Mrs. Meyrick; \"come and sit down reasonably and\nlet us talk?\"\n\n\"Yes, let us talk,\" said Mab, cordially, coming back to her low seat\nand caressing her knees. \"I am beginning to feel large again. Hans said\nhe was coming this afternoon. I wish he had been here--only there would\nhave been no room for him. Mirah, what are you looking sad for?\"\n\n\"I am too happy,\" said Mirah. \"I feel so full of gratitude to you all;\nand he was so very kind.\"\n\n\"Yes, at last,\" said Mab, sharply. \"But he might have said something\nencouraging sooner. I thought him dreadfully ugly when he sat frowning,\nand only said, '_Con_tinue.' I hated him all the long way from the top\nof his hair to the toe of his polished boot.\"\n\n\"Nonsense, Mab; he has a splendid profile,\" said Kate.\n\n\"_Now_, but not _then_. I cannot bear people to keep their minds\nbottled up for the sake of letting them off with a pop. They seem to\ngrudge making you happy unless they can make you miserable beforehand.\nHowever, I forgive him everything,\" said Mab, with a magnanimous air,\n\"but he has invited me. I wonder why he fixed on me as the musical one?\nWas it because I have a bulging forehead, ma, and peep from under it\nlike a newt from under a stone?\"\n\n\"It was your way of listening to the singing, child,\" said Mrs.\nMeyrick. \"He has magic spectacles and sees everything through them,\ndepend upon it. But what was that German quotation you were so ready\nwith, Mirah--you learned puss?\"\n\n\"Oh, that was not learning,\" said Mirah, her tearful face breaking into\nan amused smile. \"I said it so many times for a lesson. It means that\nit is safer to do anything--singing or anything else--before those who\nknow and understand all about it.\"\n\n\"That was why you were not one bit frightened, I suppose,\" said Amy.\n\"But now, what we have to talk about is a dress for you on Wednesday.\"\n\n\"I don't want anything better than this black merino,\" said Mirah,\nrising to show the effect. \"Some white gloves and some new _bottines_.\"\nShe put out her little foot, clad in the famous felt slipper.\n\n\"There comes Hans,\" said Mrs. Meyrick. \"Stand still, and let us hear\nwhat he says about the dress. Artists are the best people to consult\nabout such things.\"\n\n\"You don't consult me, ma,\" said Kate, lifting up her eyebrow with a\nplayful complainingness. \"I notice mothers are like the people I deal\nwith--the girls' doings are always priced low.\"\n\n\"My dear child, the boys are such a trouble--we could never put up with\nthem, if we didn't make believe they were worth more,\" said Mrs.\nMeyrick, just as her boy entered. \"Hans, we want your opinion about\nMirah's dress. A great event has happened. Klesmer has been here, and\nshe is going to sing at his house on Wednesday among grand people. She\nthinks this dress will do.\"\n\n\"Let me see,\" said Hans. Mirah in her childlike way turned toward him\nto be looked at; and he, going to a little further distance, knelt with\none knee on a hassock to survey her.\n\n\"This would be thought a very good stage-dress for me,\" she said,\npleadingly, \"in a part where I was to come on as a poor Jewess and sing\nto fashionable Christians.\"\n\n\"It would be effective,\" said Hans, with a considering air; \"it would\nstand out well among the fashionable _chiffons_.\"\n\n\"But you ought not to claim all the poverty on your side, Mirah,\" said\nAmy. \"There are plenty of poor Christians and dreadfully rich Jews and\nfashionable Jewesses.\"\n\n\"I didn't mean any harm,\" said Mirah. \"Only I have been used to\nthinking about my dress for parts in plays. And I almost always had a\npart with a plain dress.\"\n\n\"That makes me think it questionable,\" said Hans, who had suddenly\nbecome as fastidious and conventional on this occasion as he had\nthought Deronda was, apropos of the Berenice-pictures. \"It looks a\nlittle too theatrical. We must not make you a _rôle_ of the poor\nJewess--or of being a Jewess at all.\" Hans had a secret desire to\nneutralize the Jewess in private life, which he was in danger of not\nkeeping secret.\n\n\"But it is what I am really. I am not pretending anything. I shall\nnever be anything else,\" said Mirah. \"I always feel myself a Jewess.\"\n\n\"But we can't feel that about you,\" said Hans, with a devout look.\n\"What does it signify whether a perfect woman is a Jewess or not?\"\n\n\"That is your kind way of praising me; I never was praised so before,\"\nsaid Mirah, with a smile, which was rather maddening to Hans and made\nhim feel still more of a cosmopolitan.\n\n\"People don't think of me as a British Christian,\" he said, his face\ncreasing merrily. \"They think of me as an imperfectly handsome young\nman and an unpromising painter.\"\n\n\"But you are wandering from the dress,\" said Amy. \"If that will not do,\nhow are we to get another before Wednesday? and to-morrow Sunday?\"\n\n\"Indeed this will do,\" said Mirah, entreatingly. \"It is all real, you\nknow,\" here she looked at Hans--\"even if it seemed theatrical. Poor\nBerenice sitting on the ruins--any one might say that was theatrical,\nbut I know that this is just what she would do.\"\n\n\"I am a scoundrel,\" said Hans, overcome by this misplaced trust. \"That\nis my invention. Nobody knows that she did that. Shall you forgive me\nfor not saying so before?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. \"You knew\nit was what she would be sure to do--a Jewess who had not been\nfaithful--who had done what she did and was penitent. She could have no\njoy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is\nvery beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel.\"\n\n\"The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins,\" said Hans, starting up with a\nsense of being checkmated. \"That makes them convenient for pictures.\"\n\n\"But the dress--the dress,\" said Amy; \"is it settled?\"\n\n\"Yes; is it not?\" said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who\nin her turn looked up at her son, and said, \"What do you think, Hans?\"\n\n\"That dress will not do,\" said Hans, decisively. \"She is not going to\nsit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go\nto Regent Street. It's plenty of time to get anything you like--a black\nsilk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of\ncharity. She has talents to make people indebted to her.\"\n\n\"I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like--for her to have a handsome\ndress,\" said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating.\n\n\"Of course it is,\" said Hans, with some sharpness. \"You may take my\nword for what a gentleman would feel.\"\n\n\"I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do,\" said Mirah,\ngravely, seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning\non his heel, went to Kate's table and took up one of her drawings as if\nhis interest needed a new direction.\n\n\"Shouldn't you like to make a study of Klesmer's head, Hans?\" said\nKate. \"I suppose you have often seen him?\"\n\n\"Seen him!\" exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and\nmane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were\nsurveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down\nperpendicularly toward the keys. But then in another instant he wheeled\nround on the stool, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly--\"Perhaps\nyou don't like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you\ndon't like it.\"\n\nMirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still,\nbut with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said--\"Thank\nyou. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he\ncould, belonging to you,\" she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick.\n\nIn this way Hans got food for his hope. How could the rose help it when\nseveral bees in succession took its sweet odor as a sign of personal\nattachment?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XL.\n\n  \"Within the soul a faculty abides,\n  That with interpositions, which would hide\n  And darken, so can deal, that they become\n  Contingencies of pomp; and serve to exalt\n  Her native brightness, as the ample moon.\n  In the deep stillness of a summer even.\n  Rising behind a thick and lofty grove.\n  Into a substance glorious as her own,\n  Yea, with her own incorporated, by power\n  Capacious and serene.\"\n               --WORDSWORTH: _Excursion_, B. IV.\n\n\nDeronda came out of the narrow house at Chelsea in a frame of mind that\nmade him long for some good bodily exercise to carry off what he was\nhimself inclined to call the fumes of his temper. He was going toward\nthe city, and the sight of the Chelsea Stairs with the waiting boats at\nonce determined him to avoid the irritating inaction of being driven in\na cab, by calling a wherry and taking an oar.\n\nHis errand was to go to Ram's book-shop, where he had yesterday arrived\ntoo late for Mordecai's midday watch, and had been told that he\ninvariably came there again between five and six. Some further\nacquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the Cohens was particularly\ndesired by Deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring: he wished\nthat their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of\nMordecai's interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge, and\nthreatened to shut out any easy communication in future. As he got\nwarmed with the use of the oar, fixing his mind on the errand before\nhim and the ends he wanted to achieve on Mirah's account, he\nexperienced, as was wont with him, a quick change of mental light,\nshifting his point of view to that of the person whom he had been\nthinking of hitherto chiefly as serviceable to his own purposes, and\nwas inclined to taunt himself with being not much better than an\nenlisting sergeant, who never troubles himself with the drama that\nbrings him the needful recruits.\n\n\"I suppose if I got from this man the information I am most anxious\nabout,\" thought Deronda, \"I should be contented enough if he felt no\ndisposition to tell me more of himself, or why he seemed to have some\nexpectation from me which was disappointed. The sort of curiosity he\nstirs would die out; and yet it might be that he had neared and parted\nas one can imagine two ships doing, each freighted with an exile who\nwould have recognized the other if the two could have looked out face\nto face. Not that there is any likelihood of a peculiar tie between me\nand this poor fellow, whose voyage, I fancy, must soon be over. But I\nwonder whether there is much of that momentous mutual missing between\npeople who interchange blank looks, or even long for one another's\nabsence in a crowded place. However, one makes one's self chances of\nmissing by going on the recruiting sergeant's plan.\"\n\nWhen the wherry was approaching Blackfriars Bridge, where Deronda meant\nto land, it was half-past four, and the gray day was dying gloriously,\nits western clouds all broken into narrowing purple strata before a\nwide-spreading saffron clearness, which in the sky had a monumental\ncalm, but on the river, with its changing objects, was reflected as a\nluminous movement, the alternate flash of ripples or currents, the\nsudden glow of the brown sail, the passage of laden barges from\nblackness into color, making an active response to that brooding glory.\n\nFeeling well heated by this time, Deronda gave up the oar and drew over\nhim again his Inverness cape. As he lifted up his head while fastening\nthe topmost button his eyes caught a well-remembered face looking\ntoward him over the parapet of the bridge--brought out by the western\nlight into startling distinctness and brilliancy--an illuminated type\nof bodily emaciation and spiritual eagerness. It was the face of\nMordecai, who also, in his watch toward the west, had caught sight of\nthe advancing boat, and had kept it fast within his gaze, at first\nsimply because it was advancing, then with a recovery of impressions\nthat made him quiver as with a presentiment, till at last the nearing\nfigure lifted up its face toward him--the face of his visions--and then\nimmediately, with white uplifted hand, beckoned again and again.\n\nFor Deronda, anxious that Mordecai should recognize and await him, had\nlost no time before signaling, and the answer came straightway.\nMordecai lifted his cap and waved it--feeling in that moment that his\ninward prophecy was fulfilled. Obstacles, incongruities, all melted\ninto the sense of completion with which his soul was flooded by this\noutward satisfaction of his longing. His exultation was not widely\ndifferent from that of the experimenter, bending over the first\nstirrings of change that correspond to what in the fervor of\nconcentrated prevision his thought has foreshadowed. The prefigured\nfriend had come from the golden background, and had signaled to him:\nthis actually was: the rest was to be.\n\nIn three minutes Deronda had landed, had paid his boatman, and was\njoining Mordecai, whose instinct it was to stand perfectly still and\nwait for him.\n\n\"I was very glad to see you standing here,\" said Deronda, \"for I was\nintending to go on to the book-shop and look for you again. I was there\nyesterday--perhaps they mentioned it to you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mordecai; \"that was the reason I came to the bridge.\"\n\nThis answer, made with simple gravity, was startlingly mysterious to\nDeronda. Were the peculiarities of this man really associated with any\nsort of mental alienation, according to Cohen's hint?\n\n\"You knew nothing of my being at Chelsea?\" he said, after a moment.\n\n\"No; but I expected you to come down the river. I have been waiting for\nyou these five years.\" Mordecai's deep-sunk eyes were fixed on those of\nthe friend who had at last arrived with a look of affectionate\ndependence, at once pathetic and solemn. Deronda's sensitiveness was\nnot the less responsive because he could not but believe that this\nstrangely-disclosed relation was founded on an illusion.\n\n\"It will be a satisfaction to me if I can be of any real use to you,\"\nhe answered, very earnestly. \"Shall we get into a cab and drive\nto--wherever you wish to go? You have probably had walking enough with\nyour short breath.\"\n\n\"Let us go to the book-shop. It will soon be time for me to be there.\nBut now look up the river,\" said Mordecai, turning again toward it and\nspeaking in undertones of what may be called an excited calm--so\nabsorbed by a sense of fulfillment that he was conscious of no barrier\nto a complete understanding between him and Deronda. \"See the sky, how\nit is slowly fading. I have always loved this bridge: I stood on it\nwhen I was a little boy. It is a meeting-place for the spiritual\nmessengers. It is true--what the Masters said--that each order of\nthings has its angel: that means the full message of each from what is\nafar. Here I have listened to the messages of earth and sky; when I was\nstronger I used to stay and watch for the stars in the deep heavens.\nBut this time just about sunset was always what I loved best. It has\nsunk into me and dwelt with me--fading, slowly fading: it was my own\ndecline: it paused--it waited, till at last it brought me my new\nlife--my new self--who will live when this breath is all breathed out.\"\n\nDeronda did not speak. He felt himself strangely wrought upon. The\nfirst-prompted suspicion that Mordecai might be liable to\nhallucinations of thought--might have become a monomaniac on some\nsubject which had given too severe a strain to his diseased\norganism--gave way to a more submissive expectancy. His nature was too\nlarge, too ready to conceive regions beyond his own experience, to rest\nat once in the easy explanation, \"madness,\" whenever a consciousness\nshowed some fullness and conviction where his own was blank. It\naccorded with his habitual disposition that he should meet rather than\nresist any claim on him in the shape of another's need; and this claim\nbrought with it a sense of solemnity which seemed a radiation from\nMordecai, as utterly nullifying his outward poverty and lifting him\ninto authority as if he had been that preternatural guide seen in the\nuniversal legend, who suddenly drops his mean disguise and stands a\nmanifest Power. That impression was the more sanctioned by a sort of\nresolved quietude which the persuasion of fulfillment had produced in\nMordecai's manner. After they had stood a moment in silence he said,\n\"Let us go now,\" and when they were riding he added, \"We will get down\nat the end of the street and walk to the shop. You can look at the\nbooks, and Mr. Ram will be going away directly and leave us alone.\"\n\nIt seemed that this enthusiast was just as cautious, just as much alive\nto judgments in other minds as if he had been that antipode of all\nenthusiasm called \"a man of the world.\"\n\nWhile they were rattling along in the cab, Mirah was still present with\nDeronda in the midst of this strange experience, but he foresaw that\nthe course of conversation would be determined by Mordecai, not by\nhimself: he was no longer confident what questions he should be able to\nask; and with a reaction on his own mood, he inwardly said, \"I suppose\nI am in a state of complete superstition, just as if I were awaiting\nthe destiny that could interpret the oracle. But some strong relation\nthere must be between me and this man, since he feels it strongly.\nGreat heaven! what relation has proved itself more potent in the world\nthan faith even when mistaken--than expectation even when perpetually\ndisappointed? Is my side of the relation to be disappointing or\nfulfilling?--well, if it is ever possible for me to fulfill I will not\ndisappoint.\"\n\nIn ten minutes the two men, with as intense a consciousness as if they\nhad been two undeclared lovers, felt themselves alone in the small\ngas-lit book-shop and turned face to face, each baring his head from an\ninstinctive feeling that they wished to see each other fully. Mordecai\ncame forward to lean his back against the little counter, while Deronda\nstood against the opposite wall hardly more than four feet off. I wish\nI could perpetuate those two faces, as Titian's \"Tribute Money\" has\nperpetuated two types presenting another sort of contrast. Imagine--we\nall of us can--the pathetic stamp of consumption with its brilliancy of\nglance to which the sharply-defined structure of features reminding one\nof a forsaken temple, give already a far-off look as of one getting\nunwillingly out of reach; and imagine it on a Jewish face naturally\naccentuated for the expression of an eager mind--the face of a man\nlittle above thirty, but with that age upon it which belongs to time\nlengthened by suffering, the hair and beard, still black, throwing out\nthe yellow pallor of the skin, the difficult breathing giving more\ndecided marking to the mobile nostril, the wasted yellow hands\nconspicuous on the folded arms: then give to the yearning consumptive\nglance something of the slowly dying mother's look, when her one loved\nson visits her bedside, and the flickering power of gladness leaps out\nas she says, \"My boy!\"--for the sense of spiritual perpetuation in\nanother resembles that maternal transference of self.\n\nSeeing such a portrait you would see Mordecai. And opposite to him was\na face not more distinctively oriental than many a type seen among what\nwe call the Latin races; rich in youthful health, and with a forcible\nmasculine gravity in its repose, that gave the value of judgment to the\nreverence with which he met the gaze of this mysterious son of poverty\nwho claimed him as a long-expected friend. The more exquisite quality\nof Deronda's nature--that keenly perceptive sympathetic emotiveness\nwhich ran along with his speculative tendency--was never more\nthoroughly tested. He felt nothing that could be called belief in the\nvalidity of Mordecai's impressions concerning him or in the probability\nof any greatly effective issue: what he felt was a profound sensibility\nto a cry from the depths of another and accompanying that, the summons\nto be receptive instead of superciliously prejudging. Receptiveness is\na rare and massive power, like fortitude; and this state of mind now\ngave Deronda's face its utmost expression of calm benignant force--an\nexpression which nourished Mordecai's confidence and made an open way\nbefore him. He began to speak.\n\n\"You cannot know what has guided me to you and brought us together at\nthis moment. You are wondering.\"\n\n\"I am not impatient,\" said Deronda. \"I am ready to listen to whatever\nyou may wish to disclose.\"\n\n\"You see some of the reasons why I needed you,\" said Mordecai, speaking\nquietly, as if he wished to reserve his strength. \"You see that I am\ndying. You see that I am as one shut up behind bars by the wayside, who\nif he spoke to any would be met only by head-shaking and pity. The day\nis closing--the light is fading--soon we should not have been able to\ndiscern each other. But you have come in time.\"\n\n\"I rejoice that I am come in time,\" said Deronda, feelingly. He would\nnot say, \"I hope you are not mistaken in me,\"--the very word\n\"mistaken,\" he thought, would be a cruelty at that moment.\n\n\"But the hidden reasons why I need you began afar off,\" said Mordecai;\n\"began in my early years when I was studying in another land. Then\nideas, beloved ideas, came to me, because I was a Jew. They were a\ntrust to fulfill, because I was a Jew. They were an inspiration,\nbecause I was a Jew, and felt the heart of my race beating within me.\nThey were my life; I was not fully born till then. I counted this\nheart, and this breath, and this right hand\"--Mordecai had pathetically\npressed his hand upon his breast, and then stretched its wasted fingers\nout before him--\"I counted my sleep and my waking, and the work I fed\nmy body with, and the sights that fed my eyes--I counted them but as\nfuel to the divine flame. But I had done as one who wanders and\nengraves his thought in rocky solitudes, and before I could change my\ncourse came care and labor and disease, and blocked the way before me,\nand bound me with the iron that eats itself into the soul. Then I said,\n'How shall I save the life within me from being stifled with this\nstifled breath?'\"\n\nMordecai paused to rest that poor breath which had been taxed by the\nrising excitement of his speech. And also he wished to check that\nexcitement. Deronda dared not speak the very silence in the narrow\nspace seemed alive with mingled awe and compassion before this\nstruggling fervor. And presently Mordecai went on--\n\n\"But you may misunderstand me. I speak not as an ignorant dreamer--as\none bred up in the inland valleys, thinking ancient thoughts anew, and\nnot knowing them ancient, never having stood by the great waters where\nthe world's knowledge passes to and fro. English is my mother-tongue,\nEngland is the native land of this body, which is but as a breaking pot\nof earth around the fruit-bearing tree, whose seed might make the\ndesert rejoice. But my true life was nourished in Holland at the feet\nof my mother's brother, a Rabbi skilled in special learning: and when\nhe died I went to Hamburg to study, and afterwards to Göttingen, that I\nmight take a larger outlook on my people, and on the Gentile world, and\ndrank knowledge at all sources. I was a youth; I felt free; I saw our\nchief seats in Germany; I was not then in utter poverty. And I had\npossessed myself of a handicraft. For I said, I care not if my lot be\nas that of Joshua ben Chananja: after the last destruction he earned\nhis bread by making needles, but in his youth he had been a singer on\nthe steps of the Temple, and had a memory of what was before the glory\ndeparted. I said, let my body dwell in poverty, and my hands be as the\nhands of the toiler: but let my soul be as a temple of remembrance\nwhere the treasures of knowledge enter and the inner sanctuary is hope.\nI knew what I chose. They said, 'He feeds himself on visions,' and I\ndenied not; for visions are the creators and feeders of the world. I\nsee, I measure the world as it is, which the vision will create anew.\nYou are not listening to one who raves aloof from the lives of his\nfellows.\"\n\nMordecai paused, and Deronda, feeling that the pause was expectant,\nsaid, \"Do me the justice to believe that I was not inclined to call\nyour words raving. I listen that I may know, without prejudgment. I\nhave had experience which gives me a keen interest in the story of a\nspiritual destiny embraced willingly, and embraced in youth.\"\n\n\"A spiritual destiny embraced willingly--in youth?\" Mordecai repeated\nin a corrective tone. \"It was the soul fully born within me, and it\ncame in my boyhood. It brought its own world--a mediaeval world, where\nthere are men who made the ancient language live again in new psalms of\nexile. They had absorbed the philosophy of the Gentile into the faith\nof the Jew, and they still yearned toward a center for our race. One of\ntheir souls was born again within me, and awakened amid the memories of\ntheir world. It traveled into Spain and Provence; it debated with\nAben-Ezra; it took ship with Jehuda ha-Levi; it heard the roar of the\nCrusaders and the shrieks of tortured Israel. And when its dumb tongue\nwas loosed, it spoke the speech they had made alive with the new blood\nof their ardor, their sorrow, and their martyred trust: it sang with\nthe cadence of their strain.\"\n\nMordecai paused again, and then said in a loud, hoarse whisper--\n\n\"While it is imprisoned in me, it will never learn another.\"\n\n\"Have you written entirely in Hebrew, then?\" said Deronda, remembering\nwith some anxiety the former question as to his own knowledge of that\ntongue.\n\n\"Yes--yes,\" said Mordecai, in a tone of deep sadness: \"in my youth I\nwandered toward that solitude, not feeling that it was a solitude. I\nhad the ranks of the great dead around me; the martyrs gathered and\nlistened. But soon I found that the living were deaf to me. At first I\nsaw my life spread as a long future: I said part of my Jewish heritage\nis an unbreaking patience; part is skill to seek divers methods and\nfind a rooting-place where the planters despair. But there came new\nmessengers from the Eternal. I had to bow under the yoke that presses\non the great multitude born of woman: family troubles called me--I had\nto work, to care, not for myself alone. I was left solitary again; but\nalready the angel of death had turned to me and beckoned, and I felt\nhis skirts continually on my path. I loosed not my effort. I besought\nhearing and help. I spoke; I went to men of our people--to the rich in\ninfluence or knowledge, to the rich in other wealth. But I found none\nto listen with understanding. I was rebuked for error; I was offered a\nsmall sum in charity. No wonder. I looked poor; I carried a bundle of\nHebrew manuscript with me; I said, our chief teachers are misleading\nthe hope of our race. Scholar and merchant were both too busy to\nlisten. Scorn stood as interpreter between me and them. One said, 'The\nbook of Mormon would never have answered in Hebrew; and if you mean to\naddress our learned men, it is not likely you can teach them anything.'\nHe touched a truth there.\"\n\nThe last words had a perceptible irony in their hoarsened tone.\n\n\"But though you had accustomed yourself to write in Hebrew, few,\nsurely, can use English better,\" said Deronda, wanting to hint\nconsolation in a new effort for which he could smooth the way.\n\nMordecai shook his head slowly, and answered--\n\n\"Too late--too late. I can write no more. My writing would be like this\ngasping breath. But the breath may wake the fount of pity--the writing\nnot. If I could write now and used English, I should be as one who\nbeats a board to summon those who have been used to no signal but a\nbell. My soul has an ear to hear the faults of its own speech. New\nwriting of mine would be like this body\"--Mordecai spread his\narms--\"within it there might be the Ruach-ha-kodesh--the breath of\ndivine thought--but, men would smile at it and say, 'A poor Jew!' and\nthe chief smilers would be of my own people.\"\n\nMordecai let his hands fall, and his head sink in melancholy: for the\nmoment he had lost hold of his hope. Despondency, conjured up by his\nown words, had floated in and hovered above him with eclipsing wings.\nHe had sunk into momentary darkness,\n\n\"I feel with you--I feel strongly with you,\" said Deronda, in a clear\ndeep voice which was itself a cordial, apart from the words of\nsympathy. \"But forgive me if I speak hastily--for what you have\nactually written there need be no utter burial. The means of\npublication are within reach. If you will rely on me, I can assure you\nof all that is necessary to that end.\"\n\n\"That is not enough,\" said Mordecai, quickly, looking up again with the\nflash of recovered memory and confidence. \"That is not all my trust in\nyou. You must be not only a hand to me, but a soul--believing my\nbelief--being moved by my reasons--hoping my hope-seeing the vision I\npoint to--beholding a glory where I behold it!\"--Mordecai had taken a\nstep nearer as he spoke, and now laid his hand on Deronda's arm with a\ntight grasp; his face little more than a foot off had something like a\npale flame in it--an intensity of reliance that acted as a peremptory\nclaim, while he went on--\"You will be my life: it will be planted\nafresh; it will grow. You shall take the inheritance; it has been\ngathering for ages. The generations are crowding on my narrow life as a\nbridge: what has been and what is to be are meeting there; and the\nbridge is breaking. But I have found you. You have come in time, You\nwill take the inheritance which the base son refuses because of the\ntombs which the plow and harrow may not pass over or the gold-seeker\ndisturb: you will take the sacred inheritance of the Jew.\"\n\nDeronda had become as pallid as Mordecai. Quick as an alarm of flood or\nfire, there spread within him not only a compassionate dread of\ndiscouraging this fellowman who urged a prayer as one in the last\nagony, but also the opposing dread of fatally feeding an illusion, and\nbeing hurried on to a self-committal which might turn into a falsity.\nThe peculiar appeal to his tenderness overcame the repulsion that most\nof us experience under a grasp and speech which assumed to dominate.\nThe difficulty to him was to inflict the accents of hesitation and\ndoubt on this ardent suffering creature, who was crowding too much of\nhis brief being into a moment of perhaps extravagant trust. With\nexquisite instinct, Deronda, before he opened his lips, placed his palm\ngently on Mordecai's straining hand--an act just then equal to many\nspeeches. And after that he said, without haste, as if conscious that\nhe might be wrong--\n\n\"Do you forget what I told you when we first saw each other? Do you\nremember that I said I was not of your race?\"\n\n\"It can't be true,\" Mordecai whispered immediately, with no sign of\nshock. The sympathetic hand still upon him had fortified the feeling\nwhich was stronger than those words of denial. There was a perceptible\npause, Deronda feeling it impossible to answer, conscious indeed that\nthe assertion \"It can't be true\"--had the pressure of argument for him.\nMordecai, too entirely possessed by the supreme importance of the\nrelation between himself and Deronda to have any other care in his\nspeech, followed up that assertion by a second, which came to his lips\nas a mere sequence of his long-cherished conviction--\"You are not sure\nof your own origin.\"\n\n\"How do you know that?\" said Daniel, with an habitual shrinking which\nmade him remove his hands from Mordecai's, who also relaxed his hold,\nand fell back into his former leaning position.\n\n\"I know it--I know it; what is my life else?\" said Mordecai, with a low\ncry of impatience. \"Tell me everything: tell me why you deny?\"\n\nHe could have no conception what that demand was to the hearer--how\nprobingly it touched the hidden sensibility, the vividly conscious\nreticence of years; how the uncertainty he was insisting on as part of\nhis own hope had always for Daniel been a threatening possibility of\npainful revelation about his mother. But the moment had influences\nwhich were not only new but solemn to Deronda; any evasion here might\nturn out to be a hateful refusal of some task that belonged to him,\nsome act of due fellowship; in any case it would be a cruel rebuff to a\nbeing who was appealing to him as a forlorn hope under the shadow of a\ncoming doom. After a few moments, he said, with a great effort over\nhimself--determined to tell all the truth briefly--\n\n\"I have never known my mother. I have no knowledge about her. I have\nnever called any man father. But I am convinced that my father is an\nEnglishman.\"\n\nDeronda's deep tones had a tremor in them as he uttered this\nconfession; and all the while there was an undercurrent of amazement in\nhim at the strange circumstances under which he uttered it. It seemed\nas if Mordecai were hardly overrating his own power to determine the\naction of the friend whom he had mysteriously chosen.\n\n\"It will be seen--it will be declared,\" said Mordecai, triumphantly.\n\"The world grows, and its frame is knit together by the growing soul;\ndim, dim at first, then clearer and more clear, the consciousness\ndiscerns remote stirrings. As thoughts move within us darkly, and shake\nus before they are fully discerned--so events--so beings: they are knit\nwith us in the growth of the world. You have risen within me like a\nthought not fully spelled; my soul is shaken before the words are all\nthere. The rest will come--it will come.\".\n\n\"We must not lose sight of the fact that the outward event has not\nalways been a fulfillment of the firmest faith,\" said Deronda, in a\ntone that was made hesitating by the painfully conflicting desires, not\nto give any severe blow to Mordecai, and not to give his confidence a\nsanction which might have the severest of blows in reserve.\n\nMordecai's face, which had been illuminated to the utmost in that last\ndeclaration of his confidence, changed under Deronda's words, not only\ninto any show of collapsed trust: the force did not disappear from the\nexpression, but passed from the triumphant into the firmly resistant.\n\n\"You would remind me that I may be under an illusion--that the history\nof our people's trust has been full of illusion. I face it all.\" Here\nMordecai paused a moment. Then bending his head a little forward, he\nsaid, in his hoarse whisper, \"_So it might be with my trust, if you\nwould make it an illusion. But you will not._\"\n\nThe very sharpness with which these words penetrated Deronda made him\nfeel the more that here was a crisis in which he must be firm.\n\n\"What my birth was does not lie in my will,\" he answered. \"My sense of\nclaims on me cannot be independent of my knowledge there. And I cannot\npromise you that I will try to hasten a disclosure. Feelings which have\nstruck root through half my life may still hinder me from doing what I\nhave never been able to do. Everything must be waited for. I must know\nmore of the truth about my own life, and I must know more of what it\nwould become if it were made a part of yours.\"\n\nMordecai had folded his arms again while Deronda was speaking, and now\nanswered with equal firmness, though with difficult breathing--\n\n\"You _shall_ know. What are we met for, but that you should know. Your\ndoubts lie as light as dust on my belief. I know the philosophies of\nthis time and of other times; if I chose I could answer a summons\nbefore their tribunals. I could silence the beliefs which are the\nmother-tongue of my soul and speak with the rote-learned language of a\nsystem, that gives you the spelling of all things, sure of its alphabet\ncovering them all. I could silence them: may not a man silence his awe\nor his love, and take to finding reasons, which others demand? But if\nhis love lies deeper than any reasons to be found? Man finds his\npathways: at first they were foot tracks, as those of the beast in the\nwilderness: now they are swift and invisible: his thought dives through\nthe ocean, and his wishes thread the air: has he found all the pathways\nyet? What reaches him, stays with him, rules him: he must accept it,\nnot knowing its pathway. Say, my expectation of you has grown but as\nfalse hopes grow. That doubt is in your mind? Well, my expectation was\nthere, and you are come. Men have died of thirst. But I was thirsty,\nand the water is on my lips! What are doubts to me? In the hour when\nyou come to me and say, 'I reject your soul: I know that I am not a\nJew: we have no lot in common'--I shall not doubt. I shall be\ncertain--certain that I have been deluded. That hour will never come!\"\n\nDeronda felt a new chord sounding in his speech: it was rather\nimperious than appealing--had more of conscious power than of the\nyearning need which had acted as a beseeching grasp on him before. And\nusually, though he was the reverse of pugnacious, such a change of\nattitude toward him would have weakened his inclination to admit a\nclaim. But here there was something that balanced his resistance and\nkept it aloof. This strong man whose gaze was sustainedly calm and his\nfinger-nails pink with health, who was exercised in all questioning,\nand accused of excessive mental independence, still felt a subduing\ninfluence over him in the tenacious certitude of the fragile creature\nbefore him, whose pallid yellow nostril was tense with effort as his\nbreath labored under the burthen of eager speech. The influence seemed\nto strengthen the bond of sympathetic obligation. In Deronda at this\nmoment the desire to escape what might turn into a trying embarrassment\nwas no more likely to determine action than the solicitations of\nindolence are likely to determine it in one with whom industry is a\ndaily law. He answered simply--\n\n\"It is my wish to meet and satisfy your wishes wherever that is\npossible to me. It is certain to me at least that I desire not to\nundervalue your toil and your suffering. Let me know your thoughts. But\nwhere can we meet?\"\n\n\"I have thought of that,\" said Mordecai. \"It is not hard for you to\ncome into this neighborhood later in the evening? You did so once.\"\n\n\"I can manage it very well occasionally,\" said Deronda. \"You live under\nthe same roof with the Cohens, I think?\"\n\nBefore Mordecai could answer, Mr. Ram re-entered to take his place\nbehind the counter. He was an elderly son of Abraham, whose childhood\nhad fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who\nremained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved\nspecimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and\ncontempt which were the common heritage of most English Jews seventy\nyears ago. He had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in Mr.\nCohen's aspect: his very features--broad and chubby--showed that\ntendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous\nLondon neighborhood, may perhaps be compared with the marvels of\nimitation in insects, and may have been nature's imperfect effort on\nbehalf of the pure Caucasian to shield him from the shame and spitting\nto which purer features would have been exposed in the times of zeal.\nMr. Ram dealt ably in books, in the same way that he would have dealt\nin tins of meat and other commodities--without knowledge or\nresponsibility as to the proportion of rottenness or nourishment they\nmight contain. But he believed in Mordecai's learning as something\nmarvellous, and was not sorry that his conversation should be sought by\na bookish gentleman, whose visits had twice ended in a purchase. He\ngreeted Deronda with a crabbed good-will, and, putting on large silver\nspectacles, appeared at once to abstract himself in the daily accounts.\n\nBut Deronda and Mordecai were soon in the street together, and without\nany explicit agreement as to their direction, were walking toward Ezra\nCohen's.\n\n\"We can't meet there: my room is too narrow,\" said Mordecai, taking up\nthe thread of talk where they had dropped it. \"But there is a tavern\nnot far from here where I sometimes go to a club. It is the _Hand and\nBanner_, in the street at the next turning, five doors down. We can\nhave the parlor there any evening.\"\n\n\"We can try that for once,\" said Deronda. \"But you will perhaps let me\nprovide you with some lodging, which would give you more freedom and\ncomfort than where you are.\"\n\n\"No; I need nothing. My outer life is as nought. I will take nothing\nless precious from you than your soul's brotherhood. I will think of\nnothing else yet. But I am glad you are rich. You did not need money on\nthat diamond ring. You had some other motive for bringing it.\"\n\nDeronda was a little startled by this clear-sightedness; but before he\ncould reply Mordecai added--\"it is all one. Had you been in need of the\nmoney, the great end would have been that we should meet again. But you\nare rich?\" he ended, in a tone of interrogation.\n\n\"Not rich, except in the sense that every one is rich who has more than\nhe needs for himself.\"\n\n\"I desired that your life should be free,\" said Mordecai,\ndreamily--\"mine has been a bondage.\"\n\nIt was clear that he had no interest in the fact of Deronda's\nappearance at the Cohens' beyond its relation to his own ideal purpose.\nDespairing of leading easily up to the question he wished to ask,\nDeronda determined to put it abruptly, and said--\n\n\"Can you tell me why Mrs. Cohen, the mother, must not be spoken to\nabout her daughter?\"\n\nThere was no immediate answer, and he thought that he should have to\nrepeat the question. The fact was that Mordecai had heard the words,\nbut had to drag his mind to a new subject away from his passionate\npreoccupation. After a few moments, he replied with a careful effort\nsuch as he would have used if he had been asked the road to Holborn---\n\n\"I know the reason. But I will not speak even of trivial family affairs\nwhich I have heard in the privacy of the family. I dwell in their tent\nas in a sanctuary. Their history, so far as they injure none other, is\ntheir own possession.\"\n\nDeronda felt the blood mounting to his cheeks as a sort of rebuke he\nwas little used to, and he also found himself painfully baffled where\nhe had reckoned with some confidence on getting decisive knowledge. He\nbecame the more conscious of emotional strain from the excitements of\nthe day; and although he had the money in his pocket to redeem his\nring, he recoiled from the further task of a visit to the Cohens',\nwhich must be made not only under the former uncertainty, but under a\nnew disappointment as to the possibility of its removal.\n\n\"I will part from you now,\" he said, just before they could reach\nCohen's door; and Mordecai paused, looking up at him with an anxious\nfatigued face under the gaslight.\n\n\"When will you come back?\" he said, with slow emphasis.\n\n\"May I leave that unfixed? May I ask for you at the Cohens' any evening\nafter your hour at the book-shop? There is no objection, I suppose, to\ntheir knowing that you and I meet in private?\"\n\n\"None,\" said Mordecai. \"But the days I wait now are longer than the\nyears of my strength. Life shrinks: what was but a tithe is now the\nhalf. My hope abides in you.\"\n\n\"I will be faithful,\" said Deronda--he could not have left those words\nunuttered. \"I will come the first evening I can after seven: on\nSaturday or Monday, if possible. Trust me.\"\n\nHe put out his ungloved hand. Mordecai, clasping it eagerly, seemed to\nfeel a new instreaming of confidence, and he said with some recovered\nenergy--\"This is come to pass, and the rest will come.\"\n\nThat was their good-bye.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VI---REVELATIONS\n\n\nCHAPTER XLI.\n\n    \"This, too is probable, according to that saying of Agathon: 'It is a\n    part of probability that many improbable things will happen.'\"\n    --ARISTOTLE: _Poetics_.\n\n\nImagine the conflict in a mind like Deronda's given not only to feel\nstrongly but to question actively, on the evening after the interview\nwith Mordecai. To a young man of much duller susceptibilities the\nadventure might have seemed enough out of the common way to divide his\nthoughts; but it had stirred Deronda so deeply, that with the usual\nreaction of his intellect he began to examine the grounds of his\nemotion, and consider how far he must resist its guidance. The\nconsciousness that he was half dominated by Mordecai's energetic\ncertitude, and still more by his fervent trust, roused his alarm. It\nwas his characteristic bias to shrink from the moral stupidity of\nvaluing lightly what had come close to him, and of missing blindly in\nhis own life of to-day the crisis which he recognized as momentous and\nsacred in the historic life of men. If he had read of this incident as\nhaving happened centuries ago in Rome, Greece, Asia Minor, Palestine,\nCairo, to some man young as himself, dissatisfied with his neutral\nlife, and wanting some closer fellowship, some more special duty to\ngive him ardor for the possible consequences of his work, it would have\nappeared to him quite natural that the incident should have created a\ndeep impression on that far-off man, whose clothing and action would\nhave been seen in his imagination as part of an age chiefly known to us\nthrough its more serious effects. Why should he be ashamed of his own\nagitated feeling merely because he dressed for dinner, wore a white\ntie, and lived among people who might laugh at his owning any\nconscience in the matter, as the solemn folly of taking himself too\nseriously?--that bugbear of circles in which the lack of grave emotion\npasses for wit. From such cowardice before modish ignorance and\nobtuseness, Deronda shrank. But he also shrank from having his course\ndetermined by mere contagion, without consent of reason; or from\nallowing a reverential pity for spiritual struggle to hurry him along a\ndimly-seen path.\n\nWhat, after all, had really happened? He knew quite accurately the\nanswer Sir Hugo would have given: \"A consumptive Jew, possessed by a\nfanaticism which obstacles and hastening death intensified, had fixed\non Deronda as the antitype of some visionary image, the offspring of\nwedded hope and despair: despair of his own life, irrepressible hope in\nthe propagation of his fanatical beliefs. The instance was perhaps odd,\nexceptional in its form, but substantially it was not rare. Fanaticism\nwas not so common as bankruptcy, but taken in all its aspects it was\nabundant enough. While Mordecai was waiting on the bridge for the\nfulfillment of his visions, another man was convinced that he had the\nmathematical key of the universe which would supersede Newton, and\nregarded all known physicists as conspiring to stifle his discovery and\nkeep the universe locked; another, that he had the metaphysical key,\nwith just that hair's-breadth of difference from the old wards which\nwould make it fit exactly. Scattered here and there in every direction\nyou might find a terrible person, with more or less power of speech,\nand with an eye either glittering or preternaturally dull, on the\nlook-out for the man who must hear him; and in most cases he had\nvolumes which it was difficult to get printed, or if printed to get\nread. This Mordecai happened to have a more pathetic aspect, a more\npassionate, penetrative speech than was usual with such monomaniacs; he\nwas more poetical than a social reformer with colored views of the new\nmoral world in parallelograms, or than an enthusiast in sewage; still\nhe came under the same class. It would be only right and kind to\nindulge him a little, to comfort him with such help as was practicable;\nbut what likelihood was there that his notions had the sort of value he\nascribed to them? In such cases a man of the world knows what to think\nbeforehand. And as to Mordecai's conviction that he had found a new\nexecutive self, it might be preparing for him the worst of\ndisappointments--that which presents itself as final.\"\n\nDeronda's ear caught all these negative whisperings; nay, he repeated\nthem distinctly to himself. It was not the first but it was the most\npressing occasion on which he had had to face this question of the\nfamily likeness among the heirs of enthusiasm, whether prophets or\ndreamers of dreams, whether the\n\n  \"Great benefactors of mankind, deliverers,\"\n\nor the devotees of phantasmal discovery--from the first believer in his\nown unmanifested inspiration, down to the last inventor of an ideal\nmachine that will achieve perpetual motion. The kinship of human\npassion, the sameness of mortal scenery, inevitably fill fact with\nburlesque and parody. Error and folly have had their hecatombs of\nmartyrs. Reduce the grandest type of man hitherto known to an abstract\nstatement of his qualities and efforts, and he appears in dangerous\ncompany: say that, like Copernicus and Galileo, he was immovably\nconvinced in the face of hissing incredulity; but so is the contriver\nof perpetual motion. We cannot fairly try the spirits by this sort of\ntest. If we want to avoid giving the dose of hemlock or the sentence of\nbanishment in the wrong case, nothing will do but a capacity to\nunderstand the subject-matter on which the immovable man is convinced,\nand fellowship with human travail, both near and afar, to hinder us\nfrom scanning and deep experience lightly. Shall we say, \"Let the ages\ntry the spirits, and see what they are worth?\" Why, we are the\nbeginning of the ages, which can only be just by virtue of just\njudgments in separate human breasts--separate yet combined. Even\nsteam-engines could not have got made without that condition, but must\nhave stayed in the mind of James Watt.\n\nThis track of thinking was familiar enough to Deronda to have saved him\nfrom any contemptuous prejudgment of Mordecai, even if their\ncommunication had been free from that peculiar claim on himself\nstrangely ushered in by some long-growing preparation in the Jew's\nagitated mind. This claim, indeed, considered in what is called a\nrational way, might seem justifiably dismissed as illusory and even\npreposterous; but it was precisely what turned Mordecai's hold on him\nfrom an appeal to his ready sympathy into a clutch on his struggling\nconscience. Our consciences are not all of the same pattern, an inner\ndeliverance of fixed laws: they are the voice of sensibilities as\nvarious as our memories (which also have their kinship and likeness).\nAnd Deronda's conscience included sensibilities beyond the common,\nenlarged by his early habit of thinking himself imaginatively into the\nexperience of others.\n\nWhat was the claim this eager soul made upon him?--\"You must believe my\nbeliefs--be moved by my reasons--hope my hopes--see the vision I point\nto--behold a glory where I behold it!\" To take such a demand in the\nlight of an obligation in any direct sense would have been\npreposterous--to have seemed to admit it would have been dishonesty;\nand Deronda, looking on the agitation of those moments, felt thankful\nthat in the midst of his compassion he had preserved himself from the\nbondage of false concessions. The claim hung, too, on a supposition\nwhich might be--nay, probably was--in discordance with the full fact:\nthe supposition that he, Deronda, was of Jewish blood. Was there ever a\nmore hypothetic appeal?\n\nBut since the age of thirteen Deronda had associated the deepest\nexperience of his affections with what was a pure supposition, namely,\nthat Sir Hugo was his father: that was a hypothesis which had been the\nsource of passionate struggle within him; by its light he had been\naccustomed to subdue feelings and to cherish them. He had been well\nused to find a motive in a conception which might be disproved; and he\nhad been also used to think of some revelation that might influence his\nview of the particular duties belonging to him. To be in a state of\nsuspense, which was also one of emotive activity and scruple, was a\nfamiliar attitude of his conscience.\n\nAnd now, suppose that wish-begotten belief in his Jewish birth, and\nthat extravagant demand of discipleship, to be the foreshadowing of an\nactual discovery and a genuine spiritual result: suppose that\nMordecai's ideas made a real conquest over Deronda's conviction? Nay,\nit was conceivable that as Mordecai needed and believed that, he had\nfound an active replenishment of himself, so Deronda might receive from\nMordecai's mind the complete ideal shape of that personal duty and\ncitizenship which lay in his own thought like sculptured fragments\ncertifying some beauty yearned after but not traceable by divination.\n\nAs that possibility presented itself in his meditations, he was aware\nthat it would be called dreamy, and began to defend it. If the\ninfluence he imagined himself submitting to had been that of some\nhonored professor, some authority in a seat of learning, some\nphilosopher who had been accepted as a voice of the age, would a\nthorough receptiveness toward direction have been ridiculed? Only by\nthose who hold it a sign of weakness to be obliged for an idea, and\nprefer to hint that they have implicitly held in a more correct form\nwhatever others have stated with a sadly short-coming explicitness.\nAfter all, what was there but vulgarity in taking the fact that\nMordecai was a poor Jewish workman, and that he was to be met perhaps\non a sanded floor in the parlor of the _Hand and Banner_ as a reason\nfor determining beforehand that there was not some spiritual force\nwithin him that might have a determining effect on a white-handed\ngentleman? There is a legend told of the Emperor Domitian, that having\nheard of a Jewish family, of the house of David, whence the ruler of\nthe world was to spring, he sent for its members in alarm, but quickly\nreleased them on observing that they had the hands of\nwork-people--being of just the opposite opinion with that Rabbi who\nstood waiting at the gate of Rome in confidence that the Messiah would\nbe found among the destitute who entered there. Both Emperor and Rabbi\nwere wrong in their trust of outward signs: poverty and poor clothes\nare no sign of inspiration, said Deronda to his inward objector, but\nthey have gone with it in some remarkable cases. And to regard\ndiscipleship as out of the question because of them, would be mere\ndullness of imagination.\n\nA more plausible reason for putting discipleship out of the question\nwas the strain of visionary excitement in Mordecai, which turned his\nwishes into overmastering impressions, and made him read outward facts\nas fulfillment. Was such a temper of mind likely to accompany that wise\nestimate of consequences which is the only safeguard from fatal error,\neven to ennobling motive? But it remained to be seen whether that rare\nconjunction existed or not in Mordecai: perhaps his might be one of the\nnatures where a wise estimate of consequences is fused in the fires of\nthat passionate belief which determines the consequences it believes\nin. The inspirations of the world have come in that way too: even\nstrictly-measuring science could hardly have got on without that\nforecasting ardor which feels the agitations of discovery beforehand,\nand has a faith in its preconception that surmounts many failures of\nexperiment. And in relation to human motives and actions, passionate\nbelief has a fuller efficacy. Here enthusiasm may have the validity of\nproof, and happening in one soul, give the type of what will one day be\ngeneral.\n\nAt least, Deronda argued, Mordecai's visionary excitability was hardly\na reason for concluding beforehand that he was not worth listening to\nexcept for pity sake. Suppose he had introduced himself as one of the\nstrictest reasoners. Do they form a body of men hitherto free from\nfalse conclusions and illusory speculations? The driest argument has\nits hallucinations, too hastily concluding that its net will now at\nlast be large enough to hold the universe. Men may dream in\ndemonstrations, and cut out an illusory world in the shape of axioms,\ndefinitions, and propositions, with a final exclusion of fact signed\nQ.E.D. No formulas for thinking will save us mortals from mistake in\nour imperfect apprehension of the matter to be thought about. And since\nthe unemotional intellect may carry us into a mathematical dreamland\nwhere nothing is but what is not, perhaps an emotional intellect may\nhave absorbed into its passionate vision of possibilities some truth of\nwhat will be--the more comprehensive massive life feeding theory with\nnew material, as the sensibility of the artist seizes combinations\nwhich science explains and justifies. At any rate, presumptions to the\ncontrary are not to be trusted. We must be patient with the inevitable\nmakeshift of our human thinking, whether in its sum total or in the\nseparate minds that have made the sum. Columbus had some impressions\nabout himself which we call superstitions, and used some arguments\nwhich we disapprove; but he had also some sound physical conceptions,\nand he had the passionate patience of genius to make them tell on\nmankind. The world has made up its mind rather contemptuously about\nthose who were deaf to Columbus.\n\n\"My contempt for them binds me to see that I don't adopt their mistake\non a small scale,\" said Deronda, \"and make myself deaf with the\nassumption that there cannot be any momentous relation between this Jew\nand me, simply because he has clad it in illusory notions. What I can\nbe to him, or he to me, may not at all depend on his persuasion about\nthe way we came together. To me the way seems made up of plainly\ndiscernible links. If I had not found Mirah, it is probable that I\nshould not have begun to be specially interested in the Jews, and\ncertainly I should not have gone on that loitering search after an Ezra\nCohen which made me pause at Ram's book-shop and ask the price of\n_Maimon_. Mordecai, on his side, had his visions of a disciple, and he\nsaw me by their light; I corresponded well enough with the image his\nlonging had created. He took me for one of his race. Suppose that his\nimpression--the elderly Jew at Frankfort seemed to have something like\nit--suppose in spite of all presumptions to the contrary, that his\nimpression should somehow be proved true, and that I should come\nactually to share any of the ideas he is devoted to? This is the only\nquestion which really concerns the effect of our meeting on my life.\n\n\"But if the issue should be quite different?--well, there will be\nsomething painful to go through. I shall almost inevitably have to be\nan active cause of that poor fellow's crushing disappointment. Perhaps\nthis issue is the one I had need prepare myself for. I fear that no\ntenderness of mine can make his suffering lighter. Would the\nalternative--that I should not disappoint him--be less painful to me?\"\n\nHere Deronda wavered. Feelings had lately been at work within him which\nhad very much modified the reluctance he would formerly have had to\nthink of himself as probably a Jew. And, if you like, he was romantic.\nThat young energy and spirit of adventure which have helped to create\nthe world-wide legions of youthful heroes going to seek the hidden\ntokens of their birth and its inheritance of tasks, gave him a certain\nquivering interest in the bare possibility that he was entering on a\ntrack like--all the more because the track was one of thought as well\nas action.\n\n\"The bare possibility.\" He could not admit it to be more. The belief\nthat his father was an Englishman only grew firmer under the weak\nassaults of unwarranted doubt. And that a moment should ever come in\nwhich that belief was declared a delusion, was something of which\nDeronda would not say, \"I should be glad.\" His life-long affection for\nSir Hugo, stronger than all his resentment, made him shrink from\nadmitting that wish.\n\nWhich way soever the truth might lie, he repeated to himself what he\nhad said to Mordecai--that he could not without farther reasons\nundertake to hasten its discovery. Nay, he was tempted now to regard\nhis uncertainty as a condition to be cherished for the present. If\nfurther intercourse revealed nothing but illusions as what he was\nexpected to share in, the want of any valid evidence that he was a Jew\nmight save Mordecai the worst shock in the refusal of fraternity. It\nmight even be justifiable to use the uncertainty on this point in\nkeeping up a suspense which would induce Mordecai to accept those\noffices of friendship that Deronda longed to urge on him.\n\nThese were the meditations that busied Deronda in the interval of four\ndays before he could fulfill his promise to call for Mordecai at Ezra\nCohen's, Sir Hugo's demands on him often lasting to an hour so late as\nto put the evening expedition to Holborn out of the question.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLII.\n\n    \"Wenn es eine Stutenleiter von Leiden giebt, so hat Israel die höchste\n    Staffel erstiegen; wen die Dauer der Schmerzen und die Geduld, mit\n    welcher sie ertragen werden, adeln, so nehmen es die Juden mit den\n    Hochgeborenen aller Länder auf; wenn eine Literatur reich genannt\n    wird, die wenige klassische Trauerspiele besitzt, welcher Platz\n    gebührt dann einer Tragodie die anderthalb Jahrtausende wahrt,\n    gedichtet und dargestellt von den Helden selber?\"--ZUNZ: _Die\n    Synagogale Poesie des Mittelalters._\n\n\n\"If there are ranks in suffering, Israel takes precedence of all the\nnations--if the duration of sorrows and the patience with which they\nare borne ennoble, the Jews are among the aristocracy of every land--if\na literature is called rich in the possession of a few classic\ntragedies, what shall we say to a National Tragedy lasting for fifteen\nhundred years, in which the poets and the actors were also the heroes?\"\n\nDeronda had lately been reading that passage of Zunz, and it occurred\nto him by way of contrast when he was going to the Cohens, who\ncertainly bore no obvious stamp of distinction in sorrow or in any\nother form of aristocracy. Ezra Cohen was not clad in the sublime\npathos of the martyr, and his taste for money-getting seemed to be\nfavored with that success which has been the most exasperating\ndifference in the greed of Jews during all the ages of their\ndispersion. This Jeshurun of a pawnbroker was not a symbol of the great\nJewish tragedy; and yet was there not something typical in the fact\nthat a life like Mordecai's--a frail incorporation of the national\nconsciousness, breathing with difficult breath--was nested in the\nself-gratulating ignorant prosperity of the Cohens?\n\nGlistening was the gladness in their faces when Deronda reappeared\namong them. Cohen himself took occasion to intimate that although the\ndiamond ring, let alone a little longer, would have bred more money, he\ndid not mind _that_--not a sixpence--when compared with the pleasure of\nthe women and children in seeing a young gentleman whose first visit\nhad been so agreeable that they had \"done nothing but talk of it ever\nsince.\" Young Mrs. Cohen was very sorry that baby was asleep, and then\nvery glad that Adelaide was not yet gone to bed, entreating Deronda not\nto stay in the shop, but to go forthwith into the parlor to see \"mother\nand the children.\" He willingly accepted the invitation, having\nprovided himself with portable presents; a set of paper figures for\nAdelaide, and an ivory cup and ball for Jacob.\n\nThe grandmother had a pack of cards before her and was making \"plates\"\nwith the children. A plate had just been thrown down and kept itself\nwhole.\n\n\"Stop!\" said Jacob, running to Deronda as he entered. \"Don't tread on\nmy plate. Stop and see me throw it up again.\"\n\nDeronda complied, exchanging a smile of understanding with the\ngrandmother, and the plate bore several tossings before it came to\npieces; then the visitor was allowed to come forward and seat himself.\nHe observed that the door from which Mordecai had issued on the former\nvisit was now closed, but he wished to show his interest in the Cohens\nbefore disclosing a yet stronger interest in their singular inmate.\n\nIt was not until he had Adelaide on his knee, and was setting up the\npaper figures in their dance on the table, while Jacob was already\npracticing with the cup and ball, that Deronda said--\n\n\"Is Mordecai in just now?\"\n\n\"Where is he, Addy?\" said Cohen, who had seized an interval of business\nto come and look on.\n\n\"In the workroom there,\" said his wife, nodding toward the closed door.\n\n\"The fact is, sir,\" said Cohen, \"we don't know what's come to him this\nlast day or two. He's always what I may call a little touched, you\nknow\"--here Cohen pointed to his own forehead--\"not quite so rational\nin all things, like you and me; but he's mostly wonderful regular and\nindustrious so far as a poor creature can be, and takes as much delight\nin the boy as anybody could. But this last day or two he's been moving\nabout like a sleep-walker, or else sitting as still as a wax figure.\"\n\n\"It's the disease, poor dear creature,\" said the grandmother, tenderly.\n\"I doubt whether he can stand long against it.\"\n\n\"No; I think its only something he's got in his head.\" said Mrs. Cohen\nthe younger. \"He's been turning over writing continually, and when I\nspeak to him it takes him ever so long to hear and answer.\"\n\n\"You may think us a little weak ourselves,\" said Cohen, apologetically.\n\"But my wife and mother wouldn't part with him if he was a still worse\nencumbrance. It isn't that we don't know the long and short of matters,\nbut it's our principle. There's fools do business at a loss and don't\nknow it. I'm not one of 'em.\"\n\n\"Oh, Mordecai carries a blessing inside him,\" said the grandmother.\n\n\"He's got something the matter inside him,\" said Jacob, coming up to\ncorrect this erratum of his grandmother's. \"He said he couldn't talk to\nme, and he wouldn't have a bit o' bun.\"\n\n\"So far from wondering at your feeling for him,\" said Deronda, \"I\nalready feel something of the same sort myself. I have lately talked to\nhim at Ram's book-shop--in fact, I promised to call for him here, that\nwe might go out together.\"\n\n\"That's it, then!\" said Cohen, slapping his knee. \"He's been expecting\nyou, and it's taken hold of him. I suppose he talks about his learning\nto you. It's uncommonly kind of _you_, sir; for I don't suppose there's\nmuch to be got out of it, else it wouldn't have left him where he is.\nBut there's the shop.\" Cohen hurried out, and Jacob, who had been\nlistening inconveniently near to Deronda's elbow, said to him with\nobliging familiarity, \"I'll call Mordecai for you, if you like.\"\n\n\"No, Jacob,\" said his mother; \"open the door for the gentleman, and let\nhim go in himself Hush! don't make a noise.\"\n\nSkillful Jacob seemed to enter into the play, and turned the handle of\nthe door as noiselessly as possible, while Deronda went behind him and\nstood on the threshold. The small room was lit only by a dying fire and\none candle with a shade over it. On the board fixed under the window,\nvarious objects of jewelry were scattered: some books were heaped in\nthe corner beyond them. Mordecai was seated on a high chair at the\nboard with his back to the door, his hands resting on each other and on\nthe board, a watch propped on a stand before him. He was in a state of\nexpectation as sickening as that of a prisoner listening for the\ndelayed deliverance--when he heard Deronda's voice saying, \"I am come\nfor you. Are you ready?\"\n\nImmediately he turned without speaking, seized his furred cap which lay\nnear, and moved to join Deronda. It was but a moment before they were\nboth in the sitting-room, and Jacob, noticing the change in his\nfriend's air and expression, seized him by the arm and said, \"See my\ncup and ball!\" sending the ball up close to Mordecai's face, as\nsomething likely to cheer a convalescent. It was a sign of the relieved\ntension in Mordecai's mind that he could smile and say, \"Fine, fine!\"\n\n\"You have forgotten your greatcoat and comforter,\" said young Mrs.\nCohen, and he went back into the work-room and got them.\n\n\"He's come to life again, do you see?\" said Cohen, who had\nre-entered--speaking in an undertone. \"I told you so: I'm mostly\nright.\" Then in his usual voice, \"Well, sir, we mustn't detain you now,\nI suppose; but I hope this isn't the last time we shall see you.\"\n\n\"Shall you come again?\" said Jacob, advancing. \"See, I can catch the\nball; I'll bet I catch it without stopping, if you come again.\"\n\n\"He has clever hands,\" said Deronda, looking at the grandmother. \"Which\nside of the family does he get them from?\"\n\nBut the grandmother only nodded towards her son, who said promptly, \"My\nside. My wife's family are not in that line. But bless your soul! ours\nis a sort of cleverness as good as gutta percha; you can twist it which\nway you like. There's nothing some old gentlemen won't do if you set\n'em to it.\" Here Cohen winked down at Jacob's back, but it was doubtful\nwhether this judicious allusiveness answered its purpose, for its\nsubject gave a nasal whinnying laugh and stamped about singing, \"Old\ngentlemen, old gentlemen,\" in chiming cadence.\n\nDeronda thought, \"I shall never know anything decisive about these\npeople until I ask Cohen pointblank whether he lost a sister named\nMirah when she was six years old.\" The decisive moment did not yet seem\neasy for him to face. Still his first sense of repulsion at the\ncommonness of these people was beginning to be tempered with kindlier\nfeeling. However unrefined their airs and speech might be, he was\nforced to admit some moral refinement in their treatment of the\nconsumptive workman, whose mental distinction impressed them chiefly as\na harmless, silent raving.\n\n\"The Cohens seem to have an affection for you,\" said Deronda, as soon\nas he and Mordecai were off the doorstep.\n\n\"And I for them,\" was the immediate answer. \"They have the heart of the\nIsraelite within them, though they are as the horse and the mule,\nwithout understanding beyond the narrow path they tread.\"\n\n\"I have caused you some uneasiness, I fear,\" said Deronda, \"by my\nslowness in fulfilling my promise. I wished to come yesterday, but I\nfound it impossible.\"\n\n\"Yes--yes, I trusted you. But it is true I have been uneasy, for the\nspirit of my youth has been stirred within me, and this body is not\nstrong enough to bear the beating of its wings. I am as a man bound and\nimprisoned through long years: behold him brought to speech of his\nfellow and his limbs set free: he weeps, he totters, the joy within him\nthreatens to break and overthrow the tabernacle of flesh.\"\n\n\"You must not speak too much in this evening air,\" said Deronda,\nfeeling Mordecai's words of reliance like so many cords binding him\npainfully. \"Cover your mouth with the woolen scarf. We are going to the\n_Hand and Banner_, I suppose, and shall be in private there?\"\n\n\"No, that is my trouble that you did not come yesterday. For this is\nthe evening of the club I spoke of, and we might not have any minutes\nalone until late, when all the rest are gone. Perhaps we had better\nseek another place. But I am used to that only. In new places the outer\nworld presses on me and narrows the inward vision. And the people there\nare familiar with my face.\"\n\n\"I don't mind the club if I am allowed to go in,\" said Deronda. \"It is\nenough that you like this place best. If we have not enough time I will\ncome again. What sort of club is it?\"\n\n\"It is called 'The Philosophers.' They are few--like the cedars of\nLebanon--poor men given to thought. But none so poor as I am: and\nsometimes visitors of higher worldly rank have been brought. We are\nallowed to introduce a friend, who is interested in our topics. Each\norders beer or some other kind of drink, in payment for the room. Most\nof them smoke. I have gone when I could, for there are other men of my\nrace who come, and sometimes I have broken silence. I have pleased\nmyself with a faint likeness between these poor philosophers and the\nMasters who handed down the thought of our race--the great\nTransmitters, who labored with their hands for scant bread, but\npreserved and enlarged for us the heritage of memory, and saved the\nsoul of Israel alive as a seed among the tombs. The heart pleases\nitself with faint resemblances.\"\n\n\"I shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you.\nIt is a sort of meeting I should like to join in,\" said Deronda, not\nwithout relief in the prospect of an interval before he went through\nthe strain of his next private conversation with Mordecai.\n\nIn three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain,\nand were in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet\nsquare, where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what\nto Deronda was a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various\nages, from between twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed,\nmost of them with clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a\nlook of concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress,\nwith blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who,\nholding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his\nknee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the\ncomparison of the avalanche in his \"Prometheus Unbound\")\n\n  \"As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth\n  Is loosened, and the nations echo round.\"\n\nThe entrance of the new-comers broke the fixity of attention, and\ncalled for re-arrangement of seats in the too narrow semicircle round\nthe fire-place and the table holding the glasses, spare pipes and\ntobacco. This was the soberest of clubs; but sobriety is no reason why\nsmoking and \"taking something\" should be less imperiously needed as a\nmeans of getting a decent status in company and debate. Mordecai was\nreceived with welcoming voices which had a slight cadence of compassion\nin them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion.\n\n\"I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects,\" said\nMordecai. \"He has traveled and studied much.\"\n\n\"Is the gentlemen anonymous? Is he a Great 'Unknown?'\" said the\nbroad-chested quoter of Shelley, with a humorous air.\n\n\"My name is Daniel Deronda. I am unknown, but not in any sense great.\"\nThe smile breaking over the stranger's grave face as he said this was\nso agreeable that there was a general indistinct murmur, equivalent to\na \"Hear, hear,\" and the broad man said--\n\n\"You recommend the name, sir, and are welcome. Here, Mordecai, come to\nthis corner against me,\" he added, evidently wishing to give the\ncoziest place to the one who most needed it.\n\nDeronda was well satisfied to get a seat on the opposite side, where\nhis general survey of the party easily included Mordecai, who remained\nan eminently striking object in this group of sharply-characterized\nfigures, more than one of whom, even to Daniel's little exercised\ndiscrimination, seemed probably of Jewish descent.\n\nIn fact pure English blood (if leech or lancet can furnish us with the\nprecise product) did not declare itself predominantly in the party at\npresent assembled. Miller, the broad man, an exceptional second-hand\nbookseller who knew the insides of books, had at least grand-parents\nwho called themselves German, and possibly far-away ancestors who\ndenied themselves to be Jews; Buchan, the saddler, was Scotch; Pash,\nthe watchmaker, was a small, dark, vivacious, triple-baked Jew; Gideon,\nthe optical instrument maker, was a Jew of the red-haired,\ngenerous-featured type easily passing for Englishmen of unusually\ncordial manners: and Croop, the dark-eyed shoemaker, was probably more\nCeltic than he knew. Only three would have been discernable everywhere\nas Englishman: the wood-inlayer Goodwin, well-built, open-faced,\npleasant-voiced; the florid laboratory assistant Marrables; and Lily,\nthe pale, neat-faced copying-clerk, whose light-brown hair was set up\nin a small parallelogram above his well-filled forehead, and whose\nshirt, taken with an otherwise seedy costume, had a freshness that\nmight be called insular, and perhaps even something narrower.\n\nCertainly a company select of the select among poor men, being drawn\ntogether by a taste not prevalent even among the privileged heirs of\nlearning and its institutions; and not likely to amuse any gentleman in\nsearch of crime or low comedy as the ground of interest in people whose\nweekly income is only divisible into shillings. Deronda, even if he had\nnot been more than usually inclined to gravity under the influence of\nwhat was pending between him and Mordecai, would not have set himself\nto find food for laughter in the various shades of departure from the\ntone of polished society sure to be observable in the air and talk of\nthese men who had probably snatched knowledge as most of us snatch\nindulgences, making the utmost of scant opportunity. He looked around\nhim with the quiet air of respect habitual to him among equals, ordered\nwhisky and water, and offered the contents of his cigar-case, which,\ncharacteristically enough, he always carried and hardly ever used for\nhis own behoof, having reasons for not smoking himself, but liking to\nindulge others. Perhaps it was his weakness to be afraid of seeming\nstraight-laced, and turning himself into a sort of diagram instead of a\ngrowth which can exercise the guiding attraction of fellowship. That he\nmade a decidedly winning impression on the company was proved by their\nshowing themselves no less at ease than before, and desirous of quickly\nresuming their interrupted talk.\n\n\"This is what I call one of our touch-and-go nights, sir,\" said Miller,\nwho was implicitly accepted as a sort of moderator--on addressing\nDeronda by way of explanation, and nodding toward each person whose\nname he mentioned. \"Sometimes we stick pretty close to the point. But\ntonight our friend Pash, there, brought up the law of progress; and we\ngot on statistics; then Lily, there, saying we knew well enough before\ncounting that in the same state of society the same sort of things\nwould happen, and it was no more wonder that quantities should remain\nthe same, than that qualities should remain the same, for in relation\nto society numbers are qualities--the number of drunkards is a quality\nin society--the numbers are an index to the qualities, and give us no\ninstruction, only setting us to consider the causes of difference\nbetween different social states--Lily saying this, we went off on the\ncauses of social change, and when you came in I was going upon the\npower of ideas, which I hold to be the main transforming cause.\"\n\n\"I don't hold with you there, Miller,\" said Goodwin, the inlayer, more\nconcerned to carry on the subject than to wait for a word from the new\nguest. \"For either you mean so many sorts of things by ideas that I get\nno knowledge by what you say, any more than if you said light was a\ncause; or else you mean a particular sort of ideas, and then I go\nagainst your meaning as too narrow. For, look at it in one way, all\nactions men put a bit of thought into are ideas--say, sowing seed, or\nmaking a canoe, or baking clay; and such ideas as these work themselves\ninto life and go on growing with it, but they can't go apart from the\nmaterial that set them to work and makes a medium for them. It's the\nnature of wood and stone yielding to the knife that raises the idea of\nshaping them, and with plenty of wood and stone the shaping will go on.\nI look at it, that such ideas as are mixed straight away with all the\nother elements of life are powerful along with 'em. The slower the\nmixing, the less power they have. And as to the causes of social\nchange, I look at it in this way--ideas are a sort of parliament, but\nthere's a commonwealth outside and a good deal of the commonwealth is\nworking at change without knowing what the parliament is doing.\"\n\n\"But if you take ready mixing as your test of power,\" said Pash, \"some\nof the least practical ideas beat everything. They spread without being\nunderstood, and enter into the language without being thought of.\"\n\n\"They may act by changing the distribution of gases,\" said Marrables;\n\"instruments are getting so fine now, men may come to register the\nspread of a theory by observed changes in the atmosphere and\ncorresponding changes in the nerves.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Pash, his dark face lighting up rather impishly, \"there is\nthe idea of nationalities; I dare say the wild asses are snuffing it,\nand getting more gregarious.\"\n\n\"You don't share that idea?\" said Deronda, finding a piquant\nincongruity between Pash's sarcasm and the strong stamp of race on his\nfeatures.\n\n\"Say, rather, he does not share that spirit,\" said Mordecai, who had\nturned a melancholy glance on Pash. \"Unless nationality is a feeling,\nwhat force can it have as an idea?\"\n\n\"Granted, Mordecai,\" said Pash, quite good-humoredly. \"And as the\nfeeling of nationality is dying, I take the idea to be no better than a\nghost, already walking to announce the death.\"\n\n\"A sentiment may seem to be dying and yet revive into strong life,\"\nsaid Deronda. \"Nations have revived. We may live to see a great\noutburst of force in the Arabs, who are being inspired with a new zeal.\"\n\n\"Amen, amen,\" said Mordecai, looking at Deronda with a delight which\nwas the beginning of recovered energy: his attitude was more upright,\nhis face was less worn.\n\n\"That may hold with backward nations,\" said Pash, \"but with us in\nEurope the sentiment of nationality is destined to die out. It will\nlast a little longer in the quarters where oppression lasts, but\nnowhere else. The whole current of progress is setting against it.\"\n\n\"Ay,\" said Buchan, in a rapid thin Scotch tone which was like the\nletting in of a little cool air on the conversation, \"ye've done well\nto bring us round to the point. Ye're all agreed that societies\nchange--not always and everywhere--but on the whole and in the long\nrun. Now, with all deference, I would beg t' observe that we have got\nto examine the nature of changes before we have a warrant to call them\nprogress, which word is supposed to include a bettering, though I\napprehend it to be ill-chosen for that purpose, since mere motion\nonward may carry us to a bog or a precipice. And the questions I would\nput are three: Is all change in the direction of progress? if not, how\nshall we discern which change is progress and which not? and thirdly,\nhow far and in what way can we act upon the course of change so as to\npromote it where it is beneficial, and divert it where it is injurious?\"\n\nBut Buchan's attempt to impose his method on the talk was a failure.\nLily immediately said--\n\n\"Change and progress are merged in the idea of development. The laws of\ndevelopment are being discovered, and changes taking place according to\nthem are necessarily progressive; that is to say, it we have any notion\nof progress or improvement opposed to them, the notion is a mistake.\"\n\n\"I really can't see how you arrive at that sort of certitude about\nchanges by calling them development,\" said Deronda. \"There will still\nremain the degrees of inevitableness in relation to our own will and\nacts, and the degrees of wisdom in hastening or retarding; there will\nstill remain the danger of mistaking a tendency which should be\nresisted for an inevitable law that we must adjust ourselves to,--which\nseems to me as bad a superstition or false god as any that has been set\nup without the ceremonies of philosophising.\"\n\n\"That is a truth,\" said Mordecai. \"Woe to the men who see no place for\nresistance in this generation! I believe in a growth, a passage, and a\nnew unfolding of life whereof the seed is more perfect, more charged\nwith the elements that are pregnant with diviner form. The life of a\npeople grows, it is knit together and yet expanded, in joy and sorrow,\nin thought and action; it absorbs the thought of other nations into its\nown forms, and gives back the thought as new wealth to the world; it is\na power and an organ in the great body of the nations. But there may\ncome a check, an arrest; memories may be stifled, and love may be faint\nfor the lack of them; or memories may shrink into withered relics--the\nsoul of a people, whereby they know themselves to be one, may seem to\nbe dying for want of common action. But who shall say, 'The fountain of\ntheir life is dried up, they shall forever cease to be a nation?' Who\nshall say it? Not he who feels the life of his people stirring within\nhis own. Shall he say, 'That way events are wending, I will not\nresist?' His very soul is resistance, and is as a seed of fire that may\nenkindle the souls of multitudes, and make a new pathway for events.\"\n\n\"I don't deny patriotism,\" said Gideon, \"but we all know you have a\nparticular meaning, Mordecai. You know Mordecai's way of thinking, I\nsuppose.\" Here Gideon had turned to Deronda, who sat next to him, but\nwithout waiting for an answer he went on. \"I'm a rational Jew myself. I\nstand by my people as a sort of family relations, and I am for keeping\nup our worship in a rational way. I don't approve of our people getting\nbaptised, because I don't believe in a Jew's conversion to the Gentile\npart of Christianity. And now we have political equality, there's no\nexcuse for a pretense of that sort. But I am for getting rid of all of\nour superstitions and exclusiveness. There's no reason now why we\nshouldn't melt gradually into the populations we live among. That's the\norder of the day in point of progress. I would as soon my children\nmarried Christians as Jews. And I'm for the old maxim, 'A man's country\nis where he's well off.'\"\n\n\"That country's not so easy to find, Gideon,\" said the rapid Pash, with\na shrug and grimace. \"You get ten shillings a-week more than I do, and\nhave only half the number of children. If somebody will introduce a\nbrisk trade in watches among the 'Jerusalem wares,' I'll go--eh,\nMordecai, what do you say?\"\n\nDeronda, all ear for these hints of Mordecai's opinion, was inwardly\nwondering at his persistence in coming to this club. For an\nenthusiastic spirit to meet continually the fixed indifference of men\nfamiliar with the object of his enthusiasm is the acceptance of a slow\nmartyrdom, beside which the fate of a missionary tomahawked without any\nconsiderate rejection of his doctrines seems hardly worthy of\ncompassion. But Mordecai gave no sign of shrinking: this was a moment\nof spiritual fullness, and he cared more for the utterance of his faith\nthan for its immediate reception. With a fervor which had no temper in\nit, but seemed rather the rush of feeling in the opportunity of speech,\nhe answered Pash:--\n\n\"What I say is, let every man keep far away from the brotherhood and\ninheritance he despises. Thousands on thousands of our race have mixed\nwith the Gentiles as Celt with Saxon, and they may inherit the blessing\nthat belongs to the Gentile. You cannot follow them. You are one of the\nmultitudes over this globe who must walk among the nations and be known\nas Jews, and with words on their lips which mean, 'I wish I had not\nbeen born a Jew, I disown any bond with the long travail of my race, I\nwill outdo the Gentile in mocking at our separateness,' they all the\nwhile feel breathing on them the breath of contempt because they are\nJews, and they will breathe it back poisonously. Can a fresh-made\ngarment of citizenship weave itself straightway into the flesh and\nchange the slow deposit of eighteen centuries? What is the citizenship\nof him who walks among a people he has no hardy kindred and fellowship\nwith, and has lost the sense of brotherhood with his own race? It is a\ncharter of selfish ambition and rivalry in low greed. He is an alien of\nspirit, whatever he may be in form; he sucks the blood of mankind, he\nis not a man, sharing in no loves, sharing in no subjection of the\nsoul, he mocks it all. Is it not truth I speak, Pash?\"\n\n\"Not exactly, Mordecai,\" said Pash, \"if you mean that I think the worse\nof myself for being a Jew. What I thank our fathers for is that there\nare fewer blockheads among us than among other races. But perhaps you\nare right in thinking the Christians don't like me so well for it.\"\n\n\"Catholics and Protestants have not liked each other much better,\" said\nthe genial Gideon. \"We must wait patiently for prejudices to die out.\nMany of our people are on a footing with the best, and there's been a\ngood filtering of our blood into high families. I am for making our\nexpectations rational.\"\n\n\"And so am I!\" said Mordecai, quickly, leaning forward with the\neagerness of one who pleads in some decisive crisis, his long, thin\nhands clasped together on his lap. \"I, too, claim to be a rational Jew.\nBut what is it to be rational--what is it to feel the light of the\ndivine reason growing stronger within and without? It is to see more\nand more of the hidden bonds that bind and consecrate change as a\ndependent growth--yea, consecrate it with kinship: the past becomes my\nparent and the future stretches toward me the appealing arms of\nchildren. Is it rational to drain away the sap of special kindred that\nmakes the families of men rich in interchanged wealth, and various as\nthe forests are various with the glory of the cedar and the palm? When\nit is rational to say, 'I know not my father or my mother, let my\nchildren be aliens to me, that no prayer of mine may touch them,' then\nit will be rational for the Jew to say, 'I will seek to know no\ndifference between me and the Gentile, I will not cherish the prophetic\nconsciousness of our nationality--let the Hebrew cease to be, and let\nall his memorials be antiquarian trifles, dead as the wall-paintings of\na conjectured race. Yet let his child learn by rote the speech of the\nGreek, where he abjures his fellow-citizens by the bravery of those who\nfought foremost at Marathon--let him learn to say that was noble in the\nGreek, that is the spirit of an immortal nation! But the Jew has no\nmemories that bind him to action; let him laugh that his nation is\ndegraded from a nation; let him hold the monuments of his law which\ncarried within its frame the breath of social justice, of charity, and\nof household sanctities--let him hold the energy of the prophets, the\npatient care of the Masters, the fortitude of martyred generations, as\nmere stuff for a professorship. The business of the Jew in all things\nis to be even as the rich Gentile.\"\n\nMordecai threw himself back in his chair, and there was a moment's\nsilence. Not one member of the club shared his point of view or his\nemotion; but his whole personality and speech had on them the effect of\na dramatic representation which had some pathos in it, though no\npractical consequences; and usually he was at once indulged and\ncontradicted. Deronda's mind went back upon what must have been the\ntragic pressure of outward conditions hindering this man, whose force\nhe felt to be telling on himself, from making any world for his thought\nin the minds of others--like a poet among people of a strange speech,\nwho may have a poetry of their own, but have no ear for his cadence, no\nanswering thrill to his discovery of the latent virtues in his mother\ntongue.\n\nThe cool Buchan was the first to speak, and hint the loss of time. \"I\nsubmit,\" said he, \"that ye're traveling away from the questions I put\nconcerning progress.\"\n\n\"Say they're levanting, Buchan,\" said Miller, who liked his joke, and\nwould not have objected to be called Voltairian. \"Never mind. Let us\nhave a Jewish night; we've not had one for a long while. Let us take\nthe discussion on Jewish ground. I suppose we've no prejudice here;\nwe're all philosophers; and we like our friends Mordecai, Pash, and\nGideon, as well as if they were no more kin to Abraham than the rest of\nus. We're all related through Adam, until further showing to the\ncontrary, and if you look into history we've all got some discreditable\nforefathers. So I mean no offence when I say I don't think any great\nthings of the part the Jewish people have played in the world. What\nthen? I think they were iniquitously dealt by in past times. And I\nsuppose we don't want any men to be maltreated, white, black, brown, or\nyellow--I know I've just given my half-crown to the contrary. And that\nreminds me, I've a curious old German book--I can't read it myself, but\na friend of mine was reading out of it to me the other day--about the\nprejudicies against the Jews, and the stories used to be told against\n'em, and what do you think one was? Why, that they're punished with a\nbad odor in their bodies; and _that_, says the author, date 1715 (I've\njust been pricing and marking the book this very morning)--that is\ntrue, for the ancients spoke of it. But then, he says, the other things\nare fables, such as that the odor goes away all at once when they're\nbaptized, and that every one of the ten tribes, mind you, all the ten\nbeing concerned in the crucifixion, has got a particular punishment\nover and above the smell:--Asher, I remember, has the right arm a\nhandbreadth shorter than the left, and Naphthali has pig's ears and a\nsmell of live pork. What do you think of that? There's been a good deal\nof fun made of rabbinical fables, but in point of fables my opinion is,\nthat all over the world it's six of one and half-a-dozen of the other.\nHowever, as I said before, I hold with the philosophers of the last\ncentury that the Jews have played no great part as a people, though\nPash will have it they're clever enough to beat all the rest of the\nworld. But if so, I ask, why haven't they done it?\"\n\n\"For the same reason that the cleverest men in the country don't get\nthemselves or their ideas into Parliament,\" said the ready Pash;\n\"because the blockheads are too many for 'em.\"\n\n\"That is a vain question,\" said Mordecai, \"whether our people would\nbeat the rest of the world. Each nation has its own work, and is a\nmember of the world, enriched by the work of each. But it is true, as\nJehuda-ha-Levi first said, that Israel is the heart of mankind, if we\nmean by heart the core of affection which binds a race and its families\nin dutiful love, and the reverence for the human body which lifts the\nneeds of our animal life into religion, and the tenderness which is\nmerciful to the poor and weak and to the dumb creature that wears the\nyoke for us.\"\n\n\"They're not behind any nation in arrogance,\" said Lily; \"and if they\nhave got in the rear, it has not been because they were over-modest.\"\n\n\"Oh, every nation brags in its turn,\" said Miller.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Pash, \"and some of them in the Hebrew text.\"\n\n\"Well, whatever the Jews contributed at one time, they are a\nstand-still people,\" said Lily. \"They are the type of obstinate\nadherence to the superannuated. They may show good abilities when they\ntake up liberal ideas, but as a race they have no development in them.\"\n\n\"That is false!\" said Mordecai, leaning forward again with his former\neagerness. \"Let their history be known and examined; let the seed be\nsifted, let its beginning be traced to the weed of the wilderness--the\nmore glorious will be the energy that transformed it. Where else is\nthere a nation of whom it may be as truly said that their religion and\nlaw and moral life mingled as the stream of blood in the heart and made\none growth--where else a people who kept and enlarged their spiritual\nstore at the very time when they are hated with a hatred as fierce as\nthe forest fires that chase the wild beast from his covert? There is a\nfable of the Roman, that swimming to save his life he held the roll of\nhis writings between his teeth and saved them from the waters. But how\nmuch more than that is true of our race? They struggled to keep their\nplace among the nations like heroes--yea, when the hand was hacked off,\nthey clung with their teeth; but when the plow and the harrow had\npassed over the last visible signs of their national covenant, and the\nfruitfulness of their land was stifled with the blood of the sowers and\nplanters, they said, 'The spirit is alive, let us make it a lasting\nhabitation--lasting because movable--so that it may be carried from\ngeneration to generation, and our sons unborn may be rich in the things\nthat have been, and possess a hope built on an unchangeable\nfoundation.' They said it and they wrought it, though often breathing\nwith scant life, as in a coffin, or as lying wounded amid a heap of\nslain. Hooted and scared like the unknown dog, the Hebrew made himself\nenvied for his wealth and wisdom, and was bled of them to fill the bath\nof Gentile luxury; he absorbed knowledge, he diffused it; his dispersed\nrace was a new Phoenicia working the mines of Greece and carrying their\nproducts to the world. The native spirit of our tradition was not to\nstand still, but to use records as a seed and draw out the compressed\nvirtues of law and prophecy; and while the Gentile, who had said, 'What\nis yours is ours, and no longer yours,' was reading the letter of our\nlaw as a dark inscription, or was turning its parchments into\nshoe-soles for an army rabid with lust and cruelty, our Masters were\nstill enlarging and illuminating with fresh-fed interpretation. But the\ndispersion was wide, the yoke of oppression was a spiked torture as\nwell as a load; the exile was forced afar among brutish people, where\nthe consciousness of his race was no clearer to him than the light of\nthe sun to our fathers in the Roman persecution, who had their\nhiding-place in a cave, and knew not that it was day save by the dimmer\nburning of their candles. What wonder that multitudes of our people are\nignorant, narrow, superstitious? What wonder?\"\n\nHere Mordecai, whose seat was next the fireplace, rose and leaned his\narm on the little shelf; his excitement had risen, though his voice,\nwhich had begun with unusual strength, was getting hoarser.\n\n\"What wonder? The night is unto them, that they have no vision; in\ntheir darkness they are unable to divine; the sun is gone down over the\nprophets, and the day is dark above them; their observances are as\nnameless relics. But which among the chief of the Gentile nations has\nnot an ignorant multitude? They scorn our people's ignorant observance;\nbut the most accursed ignorance is that which has no observance--sunk\nto the cunning greed of the fox, to which all law is no more than a\ntrap or the cry of the worrying hound. There is a degradation deep down\nbelow the memory that has withered into superstition. In the multitudes\nof the ignorant on three continents who observe our rites and make the\nconfession of the divine Unity, the soul of Judaism is not dead. Revive\nthe organic centre: let the unity of Israel which has made the growth\nand form of its religion be an outward reality. Looking toward a land\nand a polity, our dispersed people in all the ends of the earth may\nshare the dignity of a national life which has a voice among the\npeoples of the East and the West--which will plant the wisdom and skill\nof our race so that it may be, as of old, a medium of transmission and\nunderstanding. Let that come to pass, and the living warmth will spread\nto the weak extremities of Israel, and superstition will vanish, not in\nthe lawlessness of the renegade, but in the illumination of great facts\nwhich widen feeling, and make all knowledge alive as the young\noffspring of beloved memories.\"\n\nMordecai's voice had sunk, but with the hectic brilliancy of his gaze\nit was not the less impressive. His extraordinary excitement was\ncertainly due to Deronda's presence: it was to Deronda that he was\nspeaking, and the moment had a testamentary solemnity for him which\nrallied all his powers. Yet the presence of those other familiar men\npromoted expression, for they embodied the indifference which gave a\nresistant energy to his speech. Not that he looked at Deronda: he\nseemed to see nothing immediately around him, and if any one had\ngrasped him he would probably not have known it. Again the former words\ncame back to Deronda's mind,--\"You must hope my hopes--see the vision I\npoint to--behold a glory where I behold it.\" They came now with\ngathered pathos. Before him stood, as a living, suffering reality, what\nhitherto he had only seen as an effort of imagination, which, in its\ncomparative faintness, yet carried a suspicion, of being exaggerated: a\nman steeped in poverty and obscurity, weakened by disease, consciously\nwithin the shadow of advancing death, but living an intense life in an\ninvisible past and future, careless of his personal lot, except for its\npossible making some obstruction to a conceived good which he would\nnever share except as a brief inward vision--a day afar off, whose sun\nwould never warm him, but into which he threw his soul's desire, with a\npassion often wanting to the personal motives of healthy youth. It was\nsomething more than a grandiose transfiguration of the parental love\nthat toils, renounces, endures, resists the suicidal promptings of\ndespair--all because of the little ones, whose future becomes present\nto the yearning gaze of anxiety.\n\nAll eyes were fixed on Mordecai as he sat down again, and none with\nunkindness; but it happened that the one who felt the most kindly was\nthe most prompted to speak in opposition. This was the genial and\nrational Gideon, who also was not without a sense that he was\naddressing the guest of the evening. He said--\n\n\"You have your own way of looking at things, Mordecai, and as you say,\nyour own way seems to you rational. I know you don't hold with the\nrestoration of Judea by miracle, and so on; but you are as well aware\nas I am that the subject has been mixed with a heap of nonsense both by\nJews and Christians. And as to the connection of our race with\nPalestine, it has been perverted by superstition till it's as\ndemoralizing as the old poor-law. The raff and scum go there to be\nmaintained like able-bodied paupers, and to be taken special care of by\nthe angel Gabriel when they die. It's no use fighting against facts. We\nmust look where they point; that's what I call rationality. The most\nlearned and liberal men among us who are attached to our religion are\nfor clearing our liturgy of all such notions as a literal fulfillment\nof the prophecies about restoration, and so on. Prune it of a few\nuseless rites and literal interpretations of that sort, and our\nreligion is the simplest of all religions, and makes no barrier, but a\nunion, between us and the rest of the world.\"\n\n\"As plain as a pike-staff,\" said Pash, with an ironical laugh. \"You\npluck it up by the roots, strip off the leaves and bark, shave off the\nknots, and smooth it at top and bottom; put it where you will, it will\ndo no harm, it will never sprout. You may make a handle of it, or you\nmay throw it on the bonfire of scoured rubbish. I don't see why our\nrubbish is to be held sacred any more than the rubbish of Brahmanism or\nBuddhism.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mordecai, \"no, Pash, because you have lost the heart of the\nJew. Community was felt before it was called good. I praise no\nsuperstition, I praise the living fountains of enlarging belief. What\nis growth, completion, development? You began with that question, I\napply it to the history of our people. I say that the effect of our\nseparateness will not be completed and have its highest transformation\nunless our race takes on again the character of a nationality. That is\nthe fulfillment of the religious trust that moulded them into a people,\nwhose life has made half the inspiration of the world. What is it to me\nthat the ten tribes are lost untraceably, or that multitudes of the\nchildren of Judah have mixed themselves with the Gentile populations as\na river with rivers? Behold our people still! Their skirts spread afar;\nthey are torn and soiled and trodden on; but there is a jeweled\nbreastplate. Let the wealthy men, the monarchs of commerce, the learned\nin all knowledge, the skilful in all arts, the speakers, the political\ncounselors, who carry in their veins the Hebrew blood which has\nmaintained its vigor in all climates, and the pliancy of the Hebrew\ngenius for which difficulty means new device--let them say, 'we will\nlift up a standard, we will unite in a labor hard but glorious like\nthat of Moses and Ezra, a labor which shall be a worthy fruit of the\nlong anguish whereby our fathers maintained their separateness,\nrefusing the ease of falsehood.' They have wealth enough to redeem the\nsoil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skill of the\nstatesman to devise, the tongue of the orator to persuade. And is there\nno prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle\nwith shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk\ngazes at as at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena?\nThere is store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand,\nsimple, just, like the old--a republic where there is equality of\nprotection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our\nancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western\nfreedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an\norganic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute; the\noutraged Jew shall have a defense in the court of nations, as the\noutraged Englishman of America. And the world will gain as Israel\ngains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which\ncarries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its\nbosom: there will be a land set for a halting-place of enmities, a\nneutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I\nknow there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement\nmove in the great among our people, and the work will begin.\"\n\n\"Ay, we may safely admit that, Mordecai,\" said Pash. \"When there are\ngreat men on 'Change, and high-flying professors converted to your\ndoctrine, difficulties will vanish like smoke.\"\n\nDeronda, inclined by nature to take the side of those on whom the\narrows of scorn were falling, could not help replying to Pash's\noutfling, and said--\n\n\"If we look back to the history of efforts which have made great\nchanges, it is astonishing how many of them seemed hopeless to those\nwho looked on in the beginning.\n\n\"Take what we have all heard and seen something of--the effort after\nthe unity of Italy, which we are sure soon to see accomplished to the\nvery last boundary. Look into Mazzini's account of his first yearning,\nwhen he was a boy, after a restored greatness and a new freedom to\nItaly, and of his first efforts as a young man to rouse the same\nfeelings in other young men, and get them to work toward a united\nnationality. Almost everything seemed against him; his countrymen were\nignorant or indifferent, governments hostile, Europe incredulous. Of\ncourse the scorners often seemed wise. Yet you see the prophecy lay\nwith him. As long as there is a remnant of national consciousness, I\nsuppose nobody will deny that there may be a new stirring of memories\nand hopes which may inspire arduous action.\"\n\n\"Amen,\" said Mordecai, to whom Deronda's words were a cordial. \"What is\nneeded is the leaven--what is needed is the seed of fire. The heritage\nof Israel is beating in the pulses of millions; it lives in their veins\nas a power without understanding, like the morning exultation of herds;\nit is the inborn half of memory, moving as in a dream among writings on\nthe walls, which it sees dimly but cannot divide into speech. Let the\ntorch of visible community be lit! Let the reason of Israel disclose\nitself in a great outward deed, and let there be another great\nmigration, another choosing of Israel to be a nationality whose members\nmay still stretch to the ends of the earth, even as the sons of England\nand Germany, whom enterprise carries afar, but who still have a\nnational hearth and a tribunal of national opinion. Will any say 'It\ncannot be'? Baruch Spinoza had not a faithful Jewish heart, though he\nhad sucked the life of his intellect at the breasts of Jewish\ntradition. He laid bare his father's nakedness and said, 'They who\nscorn him have the higher wisdom.' Yet Baruch Spinoza confessed, he saw\nnot why Israel should not again be a chosen nation. Who says that the\nhistory and literature of our race are dead? Are they not as living as\nthe history and literature of Greece and Rome, which have inspired\nrevolutions, enkindled the thought of Europe, and made the unrighteous\npowers tremble? These were an inheritance dug from the tomb. Ours is an\ninheritance that has never ceased to quiver in millions of human\nframes.\"\n\nMordecai had stretched his arms upward, and his long thin hands\nquivered in the air for a moment after he had ceased to speak. Gideon\nwas certainly a little moved, for though there was no long pause before\nhe made a remark in objection, his tone was more mild and deprecatory\nthan before; Pash, meanwhile, pressing his lips together, rubbing his\nblack head with both his hands and wrinkling his brow horizontally,\nwith the expression of one who differs from every speaker, but does not\nthink it worth while to say so. There is a sort of human paste that\nwhen it comes near the fire of enthusiasm is only baked into harder\nshape.\n\n\"It may seem well enough on one side to make so much of our memories\nand inheritance as you do, Mordecai,\" said Gideon; \"but there's another\nside. It isn't all gratitude and harmless glory. Our people have\ninherited a good deal of hatred. There's a pretty lot of curses still\nflying about, and stiff settled rancor inherited from the times of\npersecution. How will you justify keeping one sort of memory and\nthrowing away the other? There are ugly debts standing on both sides.\"\n\n\"I justify the choice as all other choice is justified,\" said Mordecai.\n\"I cherish nothing for the Jewish nation, I seek nothing for them, but\nthe good which promises good to all the nations. The spirit of our\nreligious life, which is one with our national life, is not hatred of\naught but wrong. The Master has said, an offence against man is worse\nthan an offence against God. But what wonder if there is hatred in the\nbreasts of Jews, who are children of the ignorant and oppressed--what\nwonder, since there is hatred in the breasts of Christians? Our\nnational life was a growing light. Let the central fire be kindled\nagain, and the light will reach afar. The degraded and scorned of our\nrace will learn to think of their sacred land, not as a place for\nsaintly beggary to await death in loathsome idleness, but as a republic\nwhere the Jewish spirit manifests itself in a new order founded on the\nold, purified and enriched by the experience our greatest sons have\ngathered from the life of the ages. How long is it?--only two centuries\nsince a vessel carried over the ocean the beginning of the great North\nAmerican nation. The people grew like meeting waters--they were various\nin habit and sect--there came a time, a century ago, when they needed a\npolity, and there were heroes of peace among them. What had they to\nform a polity with but memories of Europe, corrected by the vision of a\nbetter? Let our wise and wealthy show themselves heroes. They have the\nmemories of the East and West, and they have the full vision of a\nbetter. A new Persia with a purified religion magnified itself in art\nand wisdom. So will a new Judaea, poised between East and West--a\ncovenant of reconciliation. Will any say, the prophetic vision of your\nrace has been hopelessly mixed with folly and bigotry: the angel of\nprogress has no message for Judaism--it is a half-buried city for the\npaid workers to lay open--the waters are rushing by it as a forsaken\nfield? I say that the strongest principle of growth lies in human\nchoice. The sons of Judah have to choose that God may again choose\nthem. The Messianic time is the time when Israel shall will the\nplanting of the national ensign. The Nile overflowed and rushed onward:\nthe Egyptian could not choose the overflow, but he chose to work and\nmake channels for the fructifying waters, and Egypt became the land of\ncorn. Shall man, whose soul is set in the royalty of discernment and\nresolve, deny his rank and say, I am an onlooker, ask no choice or\npurpose of me? That is the blasphemy of this time. The divine principle\nof our race is action, choice, resolved memory. Let us contradict the\nblasphemy, and help to will our own better future and the better future\nof the world--not renounce our higher gift and say, 'Let us be as if we\nwere not among the populations;' but choose our full heritage, claim\nthe brotherhood of our nation, and carry into it a new brotherhood with\nthe nations of the Gentiles. The vision is there; it will be fulfilled.\"\n\nWith the last sentence, which was no more than a loud whisper, Mordecai\nlet his chin sink on his breast and his eyelids fall. No one spoke. It\nwas not the first time that he had insisted on the same ideas, but he\nwas seen to-night in a new phase. The quiet tenacity of his ordinary\nself differed as much from his present exaltation of mood as a man in\nprivate talk, giving reasons for a revolution of which no sign is\ndiscernable, differs from one who feels himself an agent in a\nrevolution begun. The dawn of fulfillment brought to his hope by\nDeronda's presence had wrought Mordecai's conception into a state of\nimpassioned conviction, and he had found strength in his excitement to\npour forth the unlocked floods of emotive argument, with a sense of\nhaste as at a crisis which must be seized. But now there had come with\nthe quiescence of fatigue a sort of thankful wonder that he had\nspoken--a contemplation of his life as a journey which had come at last\nto this bourne. After a great excitement, the ebbing strength of\nimpulse is apt to leave us in this aloofness from our active self. And\nin the moments after Mordecai had sunk his head, his mind was wandering\nalong the paths of his youth, and all the hopes which had ended in\nbringing him hither.\n\nEvery one felt that the talk was ended, and the tone of phlegmatic\ndiscussion made unseasonable by Mordecai's high-pitched solemnity. It\nwas as if they had come together to hear the blowing of the _shophar_,\nand had nothing to do now but to disperse. The movement was unusually\ngeneral, and in less than ten minutes the room was empty of all except\nMordecai and Deronda. \"Good-nights\" had been given to Mordecai, but it\nwas evident he had not heard them, for he remained rapt and motionless.\nDeronda would not disturb this needful rest, but waited for a\nspontaneous movement.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIII.\n\n  \"My spirit is too weak; mortality\n  Weighs heavily on me like unwilling sleep,\n  And each imagined pinnacle and steep\n  Of godlike hardship tells me I must die\n  Like a sick eagle looking at the sky.\"\n                                    --KEATS.\n\n\nAfter a few minutes the unwonted stillness had penetrated Mordecai's\nconsciousness, and he looked up at Deronda, not in the least with\nbewilderment and surprise, but with a gaze full of reposing\nsatisfaction. Deronda rose and placed his chair nearer, where there\ncould be no imagined need for raising the voice. Mordecai felt the\naction as a patient feels the gentleness that eases his pillow. He\nbegan to speak in a low tone, as if he were only thinking articulately,\nnot trying to reach an audience.\n\n\"In the doctrine of the Cabbala, souls are born again and again in new\nbodies till they are perfected and purified, and a soul liberated from\na worn-out body may join the fellow-soul that needs it, that they may\nbe perfected together, and their earthly work accomplished. Then they\nwill depart from the mortal region, and leave place for new souls to be\nborn out of the store in the eternal bosom. It is the lingering\nimperfection of the souls already born into the mortal region that\nhinders the birth of new souls and the preparation of the Messianic\ntime:--thus the mind has given shape to what is hidden, as the shadow\nof what is known, and has spoken truth, though it were only in parable.\nWhen my long-wandering soul is liberated from this weary body, it will\njoin yours, and its work will be perfected.\"\n\nMordecai's pause seemed an appeal which Deronda's feeling would not let\nhim leave unanswered. He tried to make it truthful; but for Mordecai's\near it was inevitably filled with unspoken meaning. He only said--\n\n\"Everything I can in conscience do to make your life effective I will\ndo.\"\n\n\"I know it,\" said Mordecai, in a tone of quiet certainty which\ndispenses with further assurance. \"I heard it. You see it all--you are\nby my side on the mount of vision, and behold the paths of fulfillment\nwhich others deny.\"\n\nHe was silent a moment or two, and then went on meditatively--\n\n\"You will take up my life where it was broken. I feel myself back in\nthat day when my life was broken. The bright morning sun was on the\nquay--it was at Trieste--the garments of men from all nations shone\nlike jewels--the boats were pushing off--the Greek vessel that would\nland us at Beyrout was to start in an hour. I was going with a merchant\nas his clerk and companion. I said, I shall behold the lands and people\nof the East, and I shall speak with a fuller vision. I breathed then as\nyou do, without labor; I had the light step and the endurance of youth,\nI could fast, I could sleep on the hard ground. I had wedded poverty,\nand I loved my bride--for poverty to me was freedom. My heart exulted\nas if it had been the heart of Moses ben Maimon, strong with the\nstrength of three score years, and knowing the work that was to fill\nthem. It was the first time I had been south; the soul within me felt\nits former sun; and standing on the quay, where the ground I stood on\nseemed to send forth light, and the shadows had an azure glory as of\nspirits become visible, I felt myself in the flood of a glorious life,\nwherein my own small year-counted existence seemed to melt, so that I\nknew it not; and a great sob arose within me as at the rush of waters\nthat were too strong a bliss. So I stood there awaiting my companion;\nand I saw him not till he said: 'Ezra, I have been to the post and\nthere is your letter.'\"\n\n\"Ezra!\" exclaimed Deronda, unable to contain himself.\n\n\"Ezra,\" repeated Mordecai, affirmatively, engrossed in memory. \"I was\nexpecting a letter; for I wrote continually to my mother. And that\nsound of my name was like the touch of a wand that recalled me to the\nbody wherefrom I had been released as it were to mingle with the ocean\nof human existence, free from the pressure of individual bondage. I\nopened the letter; and the name came again as a cry that would have\ndisturbed me in the bosom of heaven, and made me yearn to reach where\nthat sorrow was--'Ezra, my son!'\"\n\nMordecai paused again, his imagination arrested by the grasp of that\nlong-passed moment. Deronda's mind was almost breathlessly suspended on\nwhat was coming. A strange possibility had suddenly presented itself.\nMordecai's eyes were cast down in abstracted contemplation, and in a\nfew moments he went on--\n\n\"She was a mother of whom it might have come--yea, might have come to\nbe said, 'Her children arise up and call her blessed.' In her I\nunderstood the meaning of that Master who, perceiving the footsteps of\nhis mother, rose up and said, 'The Majesty of the Eternal cometh near!'\nAnd that letter was her cry from the depths of anguish and\ndesolation--the cry of a mother robbed of her little ones. I was her\neldest. Death had taken four babes one after the other. Then came,\nlate, my little sister, who was, more than all the rest, the desire of\nmy mother's eyes; and the letter was a piercing cry to me--'Ezra, my\nson, I am robbed of her. He has taken her away and left disgrace\nbehind. They will never come again.'\"--Here Mordecai lifted his eyes\nsuddenly, laid his hand on Deronda's arm, and said, \"Mine was the lot\nof Israel. For the sin of the father my soul must go into exile. For\nthe sin of the father the work was broken, and the day of fulfilment\ndelayed. She who bore me was desolate, disgraced, destitute. I turned\nback. On the instant I turned--her spirit and the spirit of her\nfathers, who had worthy Jewish hearts, moved within me, and drew me.\nGod, in whom dwells the universe, was within me as the strength of\nobedience. I turned and traveled with hardship--to save the scant money\nwhich she would need. I left the sunshine, and traveled into freezing\ncold. In the last stage I spent a night in exposure to cold and snow.\nAnd that was the beginning of this slow death.\"\n\nMordecai let his eyes wander again and removed his hand. Deronda\nresolutely repressed the questions which urged themselves within him.\nWhile Mordecai was in this state of emotion, no other confidence must\nbe sought than what came spontaneously: nay, he himself felt a kindred\nemotion which made him dread his own speech as too momentous.\n\n\"But I worked. We were destitute--every thing had been seized. And she\nwas ill: the clutch of anguish was too strong for her, and wrought with\nsome lurking disease. At times she could not stand for the beating of\nher heart, and the images in her brain became as chambers of terror,\nwhere she beheld my sister reared in evil. In the dead of night I heard\nher crying for her child. Then I rose, and we stretched forth our arms\ntogether and prayed. We poured forth our souls in desire that Mirah\nmight be delivered from evil.\"\n\n\"Mirah?\" Deronda repeated, wishing to assure, himself that his ears had\nnot been deceived by a forecasting imagination. \"Did you say Mirah?\"\n\n\"That was my little sister's name. After we had prayed for her, my\nmother would rest awhile. It lasted hardly four years, and in the\nminute before she died, we were praying the same prayer--I aloud, she\nsilently. Her soul went out upon its wings.\"\n\n\"Have you never since heard of your sister?\" said Deronda, as quietly\nas he could.\n\n\"Never. Never have I heard whether she was delivered according to our\nprayer. I know not, I know not. Who shall say where the pathways lie?\nThe poisonous will of the wicked is strong. It poisoned my life--it is\nslowly stifling this breath. Death delivered my mother, and I felt it a\nblessedness that I was alone in the winters of suffering. But what are\nthe winters now?--they are far off\"--here Mordecai again rested his\nhand on Deronda's arm, and looked at him with that joy of the hectic\npatient which pierces us to sadness--\"there is nothing to wail in the\nwithering of my body. The work will be the better done. Once I said the\nwork of this beginning was mine, I am born to do it. Well, I shall do\nit. I shall live in you. I shall live in you.\"\n\nHis grasp had become convulsive in its force, and Deronda, agitated as\nhe had never been before--the certainty that this was Mirah's brother\nsuffusing his own strange relation to Mordecai with a new solemnity and\ntenderness--felt his strong young heart beating faster and his lips\npaling. He shrank from speech. He feared, in Mordecai's present state\nof exaltation (already an alarming strain on his feeble frame), to\nutter a word of revelation about Mirah. He feared to make an answer\nbelow that high pitch of expectation which resembled a flash from a\ndying fire, making watchers fear to see it die the faster. His dominant\nimpulse was to do as he had once done before: he laid his firm, gentle\nhand on the hand that grasped him. Mordecai's, as if it had a soul of\nits own--for he was not distinctly willing to do what he did--relaxed\nits grasp, and turned upward under Deronda's. As the two palms met and\npressed each other Mordecai recovered some sense of his surroundings,\nand said--\n\n\"Let us go now. I cannot talk any longer.\"\n\nAnd in fact they parted at Cohen's door without having spoken to each\nother again--merely with another pressure of the hands.\n\nDeronda felt a weight on him which was half joy, half anxiety. The joy\nof finding in Mirah's brother a nature even more than worthy of that\nrelation to her, had the weight of solemnity and sadness; the reunion\nof brother and sister was in reality the first stage of a supreme\nparting--like that farewell kiss which resembles greeting, that last\nglance of love which becomes the sharpest pang of sorrow. Then there\nwas the weight of anxiety about the revelation of the fact on both\nsides, and the arrangements it would be desirable to make beforehand. I\nsuppose we should all have felt as Deronda did, without sinking into\nsnobbishness or the notion that the primal duties of life demand a\nmorning and an evening suit, that it was an admissible desire to free\nMirah's first meeting with her brother from all jarring outward\nconditions. His own sense of deliverance from the dreaded relationship\nof the other Cohens, notwithstanding their good nature, made him\nresolve if possible to keep them in the background for Mirah, until her\nacquaintance with them would be an unmarred rendering of gratitude for\nany kindness they had shown to her brother. On all accounts he wished\nto give Mordecai surroundings not only more suited to his frail bodily\ncondition, but less of a hindrance to easy intercourse, even apart from\nthe decisive prospect of Mirah's taking up her abode with her brother,\nand tending him through the precious remnant of his life. In the heroic\ndrama, great recognitions are not encumbered with these details; and\ncertainly Deronda had as reverential an interest in Mordecai and Mirah\nas he could have had in the offspring of Agamemnon; but he was caring\nfor destinies still moving in the dim streets of our earthly life, not\nyet lifted among the constellations, and his task presented itself to\nhim as difficult and delicate, especially in persuading Mordecai to\nchange his abode and habits. Concerning Mirah's feeling and resolve he\nhad no doubt: there would be a complete union of sentiment toward the\ndeparted mother, and Mirah would understand her brother's greatness.\nYes, greatness: that was the word which Deronda now deliberately chose\nto signify the impression that Mordecai had made on him. He said to\nhimself, perhaps rather defiantly toward the more negative spirit\nwithin him, that this man, however erratic some of his interpretations\nmight be--this consumptive Jewish workman in threadbare clothing,\nlodged by charity, delivering himself to hearers who took his thoughts\nwithout attaching more consequences to them than the Flemings to the\nethereal chimes ringing above their market-places--had the chief\nelements of greatness; a mind consciously, energetically moving with\nthe larger march of human destinies, but not the less full of\nconscience and tender heart for the footsteps that tread near and need\na leaning-place; capable of conceiving and choosing a life's task with\nfar-off issues, yet capable of the unapplauded heroism which turns off\nthe road of achievement at the call of the nearer duty whose effect\nlies within the beatings of the hearts that are close to us, as the\nhunger of the unfledged bird to the breast of its parent.\n\nDeronda to-night was stirred with, the feeling that the brief remnant\nof this fervid life had become his charge. He had been peculiarly\nwrought on by what he had seen at the club of the friendly indifference\nwhich Mordecai must have gone on encountering. His own experience of\nthe small room that ardor can make for itself in ordinary minds had had\nthe effect of increasing his reserve; and while tolerance was the\neasiest attitude to him, there was another bent in him also capable of\nbecoming a weakness--the dislike to appear exceptional or to risk an\nineffective insistance on his own opinion. But such caution appeared\ncontemptible to him just now, when he, for the first time, saw in a\ncomplete picture and felt as a reality the lives that burn themselves\nout in solitary enthusiasm: martyrs of obscure circumstance, exiled in\nthe rarity of their own minds, whose deliverances in other ears are no\nmore than a long passionate soliloquy--unless perhaps at last, when\nthey are nearing the invisible shores, signs of recognition and\nfulfilment may penetrate the cloud of loneliness; or perhaps it may be\nwith them as with the dying Copernicus made to touch the first printed\ncopy of his book when the sense of touch was gone, seeing it only as a\ndim object through the deepening dusk.\n\nDeronda had been brought near to one of those spiritual exiles, and it\nwas in his nature to feel the relation as a strong chain, nay, to feel\nhis imagination moving without repugnance in the direction of\nMordecai's desires. With all his latent objection to schemes only\ndefinite in their generality and nebulous in detail--in the poise of\nhis sentiments he felt at one with this man who had made a visionary\nselection of him: the lines of what may be called their emotional\ntheory touched. He had not the Jewish consciousness, but he had a\nyearning, grown the stronger for the denial which had been his\ngrievance, after the obligation of avowed filial and social ties. His\nfeeling was ready for difficult obedience. In this way it came that he\nset about his new task ungrudgingly; and again he thought of Mrs.\nMeyrick as his chief helper. To her first he must make known the\ndiscovery of Mirah's brother, and with her he must consult on all\npreliminaries of bringing the mutually lost together. Happily the best\nquarter for a consumptive patient did not lie too far off the small\nhouse at Chelsea, and the first office Deronda had to perform for this\nHebrew prophet who claimed him as a spiritual inheritor, was to get him\na healthy lodging. Such is the irony of earthly mixtures, that the\nheroes have not always had carpets and teacups of their own; and, seen\nthrough the open window by the mackerel-vender, may have been invited\nwith some hopefulness to pay three hundred per cent, in the form of\nfourpence. However, Deronda's mind was busy with a prospective\narrangement for giving a furnished lodging some faint likeness to a\nrefined home by dismantling his own chambers of his best old books in\nvellum, his easiest chair, and the bas-reliefs of Milton and Dante.\n\nBut was not Mirah to be there? What furniture can give such finish to a\nroom as a tender woman's face?--and is there any harmony of tints that\nhas such stirrings of delight as the sweet modulation of her voice?\nHere is one good, at least, thought Deronda, that comes to Mordecai\nfrom his having fixed his imagination on me. He has recovered a perfect\nsister, whose affection is waiting for him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIV.\n\n  Fairy folk a-listening\n  Hear the seed sprout in the spring.\n  And for music to their dance\n  Hear the hedgerows wake from trance,\n  Sap that trembles into buds\n  Sending little rhythmic floods\n  Of fairy sound in fairy ears.\n  Thus all beauty that appears\n  Has birth as sound to finer sense\n  And lighter-clad intelligence.\n\n\nAnd Gwendolen? She was thinking of Deronda much more than he was\nthinking of her--often wondering what were his ideas \"about things,\"\nand how his life was occupied. But a lap-dog would be necessarily at a\nloss in framing to itself the motives and adventures of doghood at\nlarge; and it was as far from Gwendolen's conception that Deronda's\nlife could be determined by the historical destiny of the Jews, as that\nhe could rise into the air on a brazen horse, and so vanish from her\nhorizon in the form of a twinkling star.\n\nWith all the sense of inferiority that had been forced upon her, it was\ninevitable that she should imagine a larger place for herself in his\nthoughts than she actually possessed. They must be rather old and wise\npersons who are not apt to see their own anxiety or elation about\nthemselves reflected in other minds; and Gwendolen, with her youth and\ninward solitude, may be excused for dwelling on signs of special\ninterest in her shown by the one person who had impressed her with the\nfeeling of submission, and for mistaking the color and proportion of\nthose signs in the mind of Deronda.\n\nMeanwhile, what would he tell her that she ought to do? \"He said, I\nmust get more interest in others, and more knowledge, and that I must\ncare about the best things--but how am I to begin?\" She wondered what\nbooks he would tell her to take up to her own room, and recalled the\nfamous writers that she had either not looked into or had found the\nmost unreadable, with a half-smiling wish that she could mischievously\nask Deronda if they were not the books called \"medicine for the mind.\"\nThen she repented of her sauciness, and when she was safe from\nobservation carried up a miscellaneous selection--Descartes, Bacon,\nLocke, Butler, Burke, Guizot--knowing, as a clever young lady of\neducation, that these authors were ornaments of mankind, feeling sure\nthat Deronda had read them, and hoping that by dipping into them all in\nsuccession, with her rapid understanding she might get a point of view\nnearer to his level.\n\nBut it was astonishing how little time she found for these vast mental\nexcursions. Constantly she had to be on the scene as Mrs. Grandcourt,\nand to feel herself watched in that part by the exacting eyes of a\nhusband who had found a motive to exercise his tenacity--that of making\nhis marriage answer all the ends he chose, and with the more\ncompleteness the more he discerned any opposing will in her. And she\nherself, whatever rebellion might be going on within her, could not\nhave made up her mind to failure in her representation. No feeling had\nyet reconciled her for a moment to any act, word, or look that would be\na confession to the world: and what she most dreaded in herself was any\nviolent impulse that would make an involuntary confession: it was the\nwill to be silent in every other direction that had thrown the more\nimpetuosity into her confidences toward Deronda, to whom her thought\ncontinually turned as a help against herself. Her riding, her hunting,\nher visiting and receiving of visits, were all performed in a spirit of\nachievement which served instead of zest and young gladness, so that\nall around Diplow, in those weeks of the new year, Mrs. Grandcourt was\nregarded as wearing her honors with triumph.\n\n\"She disguises it under an air of taking everything as a matter of\ncourse,\" said Mrs. Arrowpoint. \"A stranger might suppose that she had\ncondescended rather than risen. I always noticed that doubleness in\nher.\"\n\nTo her mother most of all Gwendolen was bent on acting complete\nsatisfaction, and poor Mrs. Davilow was so far deceived that she took\nthe unexpected distance at which she was kept, in spite of what she\nfelt to be Grandcourt's handsome behavior in providing for her, as a\ncomparative indifference in her daughter, now that marriage had created\nnew interests. To be fetched to lunch and then to dinner along with the\nGascoignes, to be driven back soon after breakfast the next morning,\nand to have brief calls from Gwendolen in which her husband waited for\nher outside either on horseback or sitting in the carriage, was all the\nintercourse allowed to her mother.\n\nThe truth was, that the second time Gwendolen proposed to invite her\nmother with Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne, Grandcourt had at first been\nsilent, and then drawled, \"We can't be having _those people_ always.\nGascoigne talks too much. Country clergy are always bores--with their\nconfounded fuss about everything.\"\n\nThat speech was full of foreboding for Gwendolen. To have her mother\nclassed under \"those people\" was enough to confirm the previous dread\nof bringing her too near. Still, she could not give the true\nreasons--she could not say to her mother, \"Mr. Grandcourt wants to\nrecognize you as little as possible; and besides it is better you\nshould not see much of my married life, else you might find out that I\nam miserable.\" So she waived as lightly as she could every allusion to\nthe subject; and when Mrs. Davilow again hinted the possibility of her\nhaving a house close to Ryelands, Gwendolen said, \"It would not be so\nnice for you as being near the rectory here, mamma. We shall perhaps be\nvery little at Ryelands. You would miss my aunt and uncle.\"\n\nAnd all the while this contemptuous veto of her husband's on any\nintimacy with her family, making her proudly shrink from giving them\nthe aspect of troublesome pensioners, was rousing more inward\ninclination toward them. She had never felt so kindly toward her uncle,\nso much disposed to look back on his cheerful, complacent activity and\nspirit of kind management, even when mistaken, as more of a comfort\nthan the neutral loftiness which was every day chilling her. And here\nperhaps she was unconsciously finding some of that mental enlargement\nwhich it was hard to get from her occasional dashes into difficult\nauthors, who instead of blending themselves with her daily agitations\nrequired her to dismiss them.\n\nIt was a delightful surprise one day when Mr. and Mrs. Gascoigne were\nat Offendene to see Gwendolen ride up without her husband--with the\ngroom only. All, including the four girls and Miss Merry, seated in the\ndining-room at lunch, could see the welcome approach; and even the\nelder ones were not without something of Isabel's romantic sense that\nthe beautiful sister on the splendid chestnut, which held its head as\nif proud to bear her, was a sort of Harriet Byron or Miss Wardour\nreappearing out of her \"happiness ever after.\"\n\nHer uncle went to the door to give her his hand, and she sprang from\nher horse with an air of alacrity which might well encourage that\nnotion of guaranteed happiness; for Gwendolen was particularly bent\nto-day on setting her mother's heart at rest, and her unusual sense of\nfreedom in being able to make this visit alone enabled her to bear up\nunder the pressure of painful facts which were urging themselves anew.\nThe seven family kisses were not so tiresome as they used to be.\n\n\"Mr. Grandcourt is gone out, so I determined to fill up the time by\ncoming to you, mamma,\" said Gwendolen, as she laid down her hat and\nseated herself next to her mother; and then looking at her with a\nplayfully monitory air, \"That is a punishment to you for not wearing\nbetter lace on your head. You didn't think I should come and detect\nyou--you dreadfully careless-about-yourself mamma!\" She gave a\ncaressing touch to the dear head.\n\n\"Scold me, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, her delicate worn face flushing\nwith delight. \"But I wish there was something you could eat after your\nride--instead of these scraps. Let Jocosa make you a cup of chocolate\nin your old way. You used to like that.\"\n\nMiss Merry immediately rose and went out, though Gwendolen said, \"Oh,\nno, a piece of bread, or one of those hard biscuits. I can't think\nabout eating. I am come to say good-bye.\"\n\n\"What! going to Ryelands again?\" said Mr. Gascoigne.\n\n\"No, we are going to town,\" said Gwendolen, beginning to break up a\npiece of bread, but putting no morsel into her mouth.\n\n\"It is rather early to go to town,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne, \"and Mr.\nGrandcourt not in Parliament.\"\n\n\"Oh, there is only one more day's hunting to be had, and Henleigh has\nsome business in town with lawyers, I think,\" said Gwendolen. \"I am\nvery glad. I shall like to go to town.\"\n\n\"You will see your house in Grosvenor Square,\" said Mrs. Davilow. She\nand the girls were devouring with their eyes every movement of their\ngoddess, soon to vanish.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gwendolen, in a tone of assent to the interest of that\nexpectation. \"And there is so much to be seen and done in town.\"\n\n\"I wish, my dear Gwendolen,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, in a kind of cordial\nadvice, \"that you would use your influence with Mr. Grandcourt to\ninduce him to enter Parliament. A man of his position should make his\nweight felt in politics. The best judges are confident that the\nministry will have to appeal to the country on this question of further\nReform, and Mr. Grandcourt should be ready for the opportunity. I am\nnot quite sure that his opinions and mine accord entirely; I have not\nheard him express himself very fully. But I don't look at the matter\nfrom that point of view. I am thinking of your husband's standing in\nthe country. And he has now come to that stage of life when a man like\nhim should enter into public affairs. A wife has great influence with\nher husband. Use yours in that direction, my dear.\"\n\nThe rector felt that he was acquitting himself of a duty here, and\ngiving something like the aspect of a public benefit to his niece's\nmatch. To Gwendolen the whole speech had the flavor of bitter comedy.\nIf she had been merry, she must have laughed at her uncle's explanation\nto her that he had not heard Grandcourt express himself very fully on\npolitics. And the wife's great influence! General maxims about husbands\nand wives seemed now of a precarious usefulness. Gwendolen herself had\nonce believed in her future influence as an omnipotence in\nmanaging--she did not know exactly what. But her chief concern at\npresent was to give an answer that would be felt appropriate.\n\n\"I should be very glad, uncle. But I think Mr. Grandcourt would not\nlike the trouble of an election--at least, unless it could be without\nhis making speeches. I thought candidates always made speeches.\"\n\n\"Not necessarily--to any great extent,\" said Mr. Gascoigne. \"A man of\nposition and weight can get on without much of it. A county member need\nhave very little trouble in that way, and both out of the House and in\nit is liked the better for not being a speechifier. Tell Mr. Grandcourt\nthat I say so.\"\n\n\"Here comes Jocosa with my chocolate after all,\" said Gwendolen,\nescaping from a promise to give information that would certainly have\nbeen received in a way inconceivable to the good rector, who, pushing\nhis chair a little aside from the table and crossing his leg, looked as\nwell as if he felt like a worthy specimen of a clergyman and magistrate\ngiving experienced advice. Mr. Gascoigne had come to the conclusion\nthat Grandcourt was a proud man, but his own self-love, calmed through\nlife by the consciousness of his general value and personal advantages,\nwas not irritable enough to prevent him from hoping the best about his\nniece's husband because her uncle was kept rather haughtily at a\ndistance. A certain aloofness must be allowed to the representative of\nan old family; you would not expect him to be on intimate terms even\nwith abstractions. But Mrs. Gascoigne was less dispassionate on her\nhusband's account, and felt Grandcourt's haughtiness as something a\nlittle blameable in Gwendolen.\n\n\"Your uncle and Anna will very likely be in town about Easter,\" she\nsaid, with a vague sense of expressing a slight discontent. \"Dear Rex\nhopes to come out with honors and a fellowship, and he wants his father\nand Anna to meet him in London, that they may be jolly together, as he\nsays. I shouldn't wonder if Lord Brackenshaw invited them, he has been\nso very kind since he came back to the Castle.\"\n\n\"I hope my uncle will bring Ann to stay in Grosvenor Square,\" said\nGwendolen, risking herself so far, for the sake of the present moment,\nbut in reality wishing that she might never be obliged to bring any of\nher family near Grandcourt again. \"I am very glad of Rex's good\nfortune.\"\n\n\"We must not be premature, and rejoice too much beforehand,\" said the\nrector, to whom this topic was the happiest in the world, and\naltogether allowable, now that the issue of that little affair about\nGwendolen had been so satisfactory. \"Not but that I am in\ncorrespondence with impartial judges, who have the highest hopes about\nmy son, as a singularly clear-headed young man. And of his excellent\ndisposition and principle I have had the best evidence.\"\n\n\"We shall have him a great lawyer some time,\" said Mrs. Gascoigne.\n\n\"How very nice!\" said Gwendolen, with a concealed scepticism as to\nniceness in general, which made the word quite applicable to lawyers.\n\n\"Talking of Lord Brackenshaw's kindness,\" said Mrs. Davilow, \"you don't\nknow how delightful he has been, Gwendolen. He has begged me to\nconsider myself his guest in this house till I can get another that I\nlike--he did it in the most graceful way. But now a house has turned\nup. Old Mr. Jodson is dead, and we can have his house. It is just what\nI want; small, but with nothing hideous to make you miserable thinking\nabout it. And it is only a mile from the Rectory. You remember the low\nwhite house nearly hidden by the trees, as we turn up the lane to the\nchurch?\"\n\n\"Yes, but you have no furniture, poor mamma,\" said Gwendolen, in a\nmelancholy tone.\n\n\"Oh, I am saving money for that. You know who has made me rather rich,\ndear,\" said Mrs. Davilow, laying her hand on Gwendolen's. \"And Jocosa\nreally makes so little do for housekeeping--it is quite wonderful.\"\n\n\"Oh, please let me go up-stairs with you and arrange my hat, mamma,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, suddenly putting up her hand to her hair and perhaps\ncreating a desired disarrangement. Her heart was swelling, and she was\nready to cry. Her mother _must_ have been worse off, if it had not been\nfor Grandcourt. \"I suppose I shall never see all this again,\" said\nGwendolen, looking round her, as they entered the black and yellow\nbedroom, and then throwing herself into a chair in front of the glass\nwith a little groan as of bodily fatigue. In the resolve not to cry she\nhad become very pale.\n\n\"You are not well, dear?\" said Mrs. Davilow.\n\n\"No; that chocolate has made me sick,\" said Gwendolen, putting up her\nhand to be taken.\n\n\"I should be allowed to come to you if you were ill, darling,\" said\nMrs. Davilow, rather timidly, as she pressed the hand to her bosom.\nSomething had made her sure today that her child loved her--needed her\nas much as ever.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Gwendolen, leaning her head against her mother, though\nspeaking as lightly as she could. \"But you know I never am ill. I am as\nstrong as possible; and you must not take to fretting about me, but\nmake yourself as happy as you can with the girls. They are better\nchildren to you than I have been, you know.\" She turned up her face\nwith a smile.\n\n\"You have always been good, my darling. I remember nothing else.\"\n\n\"Why, what did I ever do that was good to you, except marry Mr.\nGrandcourt?\" said Gwendolen, starting up with a desperate resolve to be\nplayful, and keep no more on the perilous edge of agitation. \"And I\nshould not have done that unless it had pleased myself.\" She tossed up\nher chin, and reached her hat.\n\n\"God forbid, child! I would not have had you marry for my sake. Your\nhappiness by itself is half mine.\"\n\n\"Very well,\" said Gwendolen, arranging her hat fastidiously, \"then you\nwill please to consider that you are half happy, which is more than I\nam used to seeing you.\" With the last words she again turned with her\nold playful smile to her mother. \"Now I am ready; but oh, mamma, Mr.\nGrandcourt gives me a quantity of money, and expects me to spend it,\nand I can't spend it; and you know I can't bear charity children and\nall that; and here are thirty pounds. I wish the girls would spend it\nfor me on little things for themselves when you go to the new house.\nTell them so.\" Gwendolen put the notes into her mother's hands and\nlooked away hastily, moving toward the door.\n\n\"God bless you, dear,\" said Mrs. Davilow. \"It will please them so that\nyou should have thought of them in particular.\"\n\n\"Oh, they are troublesome things; but they don't trouble me now,\" said\nGwendolen, turning and nodding playfully. She hardly understood her own\nfeeling in this act toward her sisters, but at any rate she did not\nwish it to be taken as anything serious. She was glad to have got out\nof the bedroom without showing more signs of emotion, and she went\nthrough the rest of her visit and all the good-byes with a quiet\npropriety that made her say to herself sarcastically as she rode away,\n\"I think I am making a very good Mrs. Grandcourt.\"\n\nShe believed that her husband had gone to Gadsmere that day--had\ninferred this, as she had long ago inferred who were the inmates of\nwhat he had described as \"a dog-hutch of a place in a black country;\"\nand the strange conflict of feeling within her had had the\ncharacteristic effect of sending her to Offendene with a tightened\nresolve--a form of excitement which was native to her.\n\nShe wondered at her own contradictions. Why should she feel it bitter\nto her that Grandcourt showed concern for the beings on whose account\nshe herself was undergoing remorse? Had she not before her marriage\ninwardly determined to speak and act on their behalf?--and since he had\nlately implied that he wanted to be in town because he was making\narrangements about his will, she ought to have been glad of any sign\nthat he kept a conscience awake toward those at Gadsmere; and yet, now\nthat she was a wife, the sense that Grandcourt was gone to Gadsmere was\nlike red heat near a burn. She had brought on herself this indignity in\nher own eyes--this humiliation of being doomed to a terrified silence\nlest her husband should discover with what sort of consciousness she\nhad married him; and as she had said to Deronda, she \"must go on.\"\nAfter the intense moments of secret hatred toward this husband who from\nthe very first had cowed her, there always came back the spiritual\npressure which made submission inevitable. There was no effort at\nfreedoms that would not bring fresh and worse humiliation. Gwendolen\ncould dare nothing except an impulsive action--least of all could she\ndare premeditatedly a vague future in which the only certain condition\nwas indignity. In spite of remorse, it still seemed the worst result of\nher marriage that she should in any way make a spectacle of herself;\nand her humiliation was lightened by her thinking that only Mrs.\nGlasher was aware of the fact which caused it. For Gwendolen had never\nreferred the interview at the Whispering Stones to Lush's agency; her\ndisposition to vague terror investing with shadowy omnipresence any\nthreat of fatal power over her, and so hindering her from imagining\nplans and channels by which news had been conveyed to the woman who had\nthe poisoning skill of a sorceress. To Gwendolen's mind the secret lay\nwith Mrs. Glasher, and there were words in the horrible letter which\nimplied that Mrs. Glasher would dread disclosure to the husband, as\nmuch as the usurping Mrs. Grandcourt.\n\nSomething else, too, she thought of as more of a secret from her\nhusband than it really was--namely that suppressed struggle of\ndesperate rebellion which she herself dreaded. Grandcourt could not\nindeed fully imagine how things affected Gwendolen: he had no\nimagination of anything in her but what affected the gratification of\nhis own will; but on this point he had the sensibility which seems like\ndivination. What we see exclusively we are apt to see with some mistake\nof proportions; and Grandcourt was not likely to be infallible in his\njudgments concerning this wife who was governed by many shadowy powers,\nto him nonexistent. He magnified her inward resistance, but that did\nnot lessen his satisfaction in the mastery of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLV.\n\n  Behold my lady's carriage stop the way.\n  With powdered lacquey and with charming bay;\n  She sweeps the matting, treads the crimson stair.\n  Her arduous function solely \"to be there.\"\n  Like Sirius rising o'er the silent sea.\n  She hides her heart in lustre loftily.\n\n\nSo the Grandcourts were in Grosvenor Square in time to receive a card\nfor the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, there being reasons of\nbusiness which made Sir Hugo know beforehand that his ill-beloved\nnephew was coming up. It was only the third evening after their\narrival, and Gwendolen made rather an absent-minded acquaintance with\nher new ceilings and furniture, preoccupied with the certainty that she\nwas going to speak to Deronda again, and also to see the Miss Lapidoth\nwho had gone through so much, and was \"capable of submitting to\nanything in the form of duty.\" For Gwendolen had remembered nearly\nevery word that Deronda had said about Mirah, and especially that\nphrase, which she repeated to herself bitterly, having an ill-defined\nconsciousness that her own submission was something very different. She\nwould have been obliged to allow, if any one had said it to her, that\nwhat she submitted to could not take the shape of duty, but was\nsubmission to a yoke drawn on her by an action she was ashamed of, and\nworn with a strength of selfish motives that left no weight for duty to\ncarry.\n\nThe drawing-rooms in Park Lane, all white, gold, and pale crimson, were\nagreeably furnished, and not crowded with guests, before Mr. and Mrs.\nGrandcourt entered; and more than half an hour of instrumental music\nwas being followed by an interval of movement and chat. Klesmer was\nthere with his wife, and in his generous interest for Mirah he proposed\nto accompany her singing of Leo's \"_O patria mia_,\" which he had before\nrecommended her to choose, as more distinctive of her than better known\nmusic. He was already at the piano, and Mirah was standing there\nconspicuously, when Gwendolen, magnificent in her pale green velvet and\npoisoned diamonds, was ushered to a seat of honor well in view of them.\nWith her long sight and self-command she had the rare power of quickly\ndistinguishing persons and objects on entering a full room, and while\nturning her glance toward Mirah she did not neglect to exchange a bow\nwith Klesmer as she passed. The smile seemed to each a lightning-flash\nback on that morning when it had been her ambition to stand as the\n\"little Jewess\" was standing, and survey a grand audience from the\nhigher rank of her talent--instead of which she was one of the ordinary\ncrowd in silk and gems, whose utmost performance it must be to admire\nor find fault. \"He thinks I am in the right road now,\" said the lurking\nresentment within her.\n\nGwendolen had not caught sight of Deronda in her passage, and while she\nwas seated acquitting herself in chat with Sir Hugo, she glanced round\nher with careful ease, bowing a recognition here and there, and fearful\nlest an anxious-looking exploration in search of Deronda might be\nobserved by her husband, and afterward rebuked as something \"damnably\nvulgar.\" But all traveling, even that of a slow gradual glance round a\nroom, brings a liability to undesired encounters, and amongst the eyes\nthat met Gwendolen's, forcing her into a slight bow, were those of the\n\"amateur too fond of Meyerbeer,\" Mr. Lush, whom Sir Hugo continued to\nfind useful as a half-caste among gentlemen. He was standing near her\nhusband, who, however, turned a shoulder toward him, and was being\nunderstood to listen to Lord Pentreath. How was it that at this moment,\nfor the first time, there darted through Gwendolen, like a disagreeable\nsensation, the idea that this man knew all about her husband's life? He\nhad been banished from her sight, according to her will, and she had\nbeen satisfied; he had sunk entirely into the background of her\nthoughts, screened away from her by the agitating figures that kept up\nan inward drama in which Lush had no place. Here suddenly he reappeared\nat her husband's elbow, and there sprang up in her, like an\ninstantaneously fabricated memory in a dream, the sense of his being\nconnected with the secrets that made her wretched. She was conscious of\neffort in turning her head away from him, trying to continue her\nwandering survey as if she had seen nothing of more consequence than\nthe picture on the wall, till she discovered Deronda. But he was not\nlooking toward her, and she withdrew her eyes from him, without having\ngot any recognition, consoling herself with the assurance that he must\nhave seen her come in. In fact, he was not standing far from the door\nwith Hans Meyrick, whom he had been careful to bring into Lady\nMallinger's list. They were both a little more anxious than was\ncomfortable lest Mirah should not be heard to advantage. Deronda even\nfelt himself on the brink of betraying emotion, Mirah's presence now\nbeing linked with crowding images of what had gone before and was to\ncome after--all centering in the brother he was soon to reveal to her;\nand he had escaped as soon as he could from the side of Lady Pentreath,\nwho had said in her violoncello voice--\n\n\"Well, your Jewess is pretty--there's no denying that. But where is her\nJewish impudence? She looks as demure as a nun. I suppose she learned\nthat on the stage.\"\n\nHe was beginning to feel on Mirah's behalf something of what he had\nfelt for himself in his seraphic boyish time, when Sir Hugo asked him\nif he would like to be a great singer--an indignant dislike to her\nbeing remarked on in a free and easy way, as if she were an imported\ncommodity disdainfully paid for by the fashionable public, and he\nwinced the more because Mordecai, he knew, would feel that the name\n\"Jewess\" was taken as a sort of stamp like the lettering of Chinese\nsilk. In this susceptible mood he saw the Grandcourts enter, and was\nimmediately appealed to by Hans about \"that Vandyke duchess of a\nbeauty.\" Pray excuse Deronda that in this moment he felt a transient\nrenewal of his first repulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty\nand her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of Mirah as a\nwoman--a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for\nwhat is not fully recognized by others, whether in persons or in\npoetry, rarely allows us to escape. To Hans admiring Gwendolen with his\nhabitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite\ngood-natured--\n\n\"I thought you could admire no style of woman but your Berenice.\"\n\n\"That is the style I worship--not admire,\" said Hans. \"Other styles of\nwomen I might make myself wicked for, but for Berenice I could make\nmyself--well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult.\"\n\n\"Hush,\" said Deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to\nbegin. He was not so delighted with the answer as might have been\nexpected, and was relieved by Hans's movement to a more advanced spot.\n\nDeronda had never before heard Mirah sing \"_O patria mia_.\" He knew\nwell Leopardi's fine Ode to Italy (when Italy sat like a disconsolate\nmother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the\nfew selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole,\nwhich seemed to breath an inspiration through the music. Mirah singing\nthis, made Mordecai more than ever one presence with her. Certain words\nnot included in the song nevertheless rang within Deronda as harmonies\nfrom the invisible--\n\n        \"Non ti difende\n  Nessun dè tuoi! L'armi, qua l'armi: io solo\n  Combatteró, procomberó sol io\"--\n[Footnote: Do none of thy children defend thee? Arms! bring me arms!\nalone I will fight, alone I will fall.]\n\nthey seemed the very voice of that heroic passion which is falsely said\nto devote itself in vain when it achieves the god-like end of\nmanifesting unselfish love. And that passion was present to Deronda now\nas the vivid image of a man dying helplessly away from the possibility\nof battle.\n\nMirah was equal to his wishes. While the general applause was sounding,\nKlesmer gave a more valued testimony, audible to her only--\"Good,\ngood--the crescendo better than before.\" But her chief anxiety was to\nknow that she had satisfied Mr. Deronda: any failure on her part this\nevening would have pained her as an especial injury to him. Of course\nall her prospects were due to what he had done for her; still, this\noccasion of singing in the house that was his home brought a peculiar\ndemand. She looked toward him in the distance, and he saw that she did;\nbut he remained where he was, and watched the streams of emulous\nadmirers closing round her, till presently they parted to make way for\nGwendolen, who was taken up to be introduced by Mrs. Klesmer. Easier\nnow about \"the little Jewess,\" Daniel relented toward poor Gwendolen in\nher splendor, and his memory went back, with some penitence for his\nmomentary hardness, over all the signs and confessions that she too\nneeded a rescue, and one much more difficult than that of the wanderer\nby the river--a rescue for which he felt himself helpless. The silent\nquestion--\"But is it not cowardly to make that a reason for turning\naway?\" was the form in which he framed his resolve to go near her on\nthe first opportunity, and show his regard for her past confidence, in\nspite of Sir Hugo's unwelcome hints.\n\nKlesmer, having risen to Gwendolen as she approached, and being\nincluded by her in the opening conversation with Mirah, continued near\nthem a little while, looking down with a smile, which was rather in his\neyes than on his lips, at the piquant contrast of the two charming\nyoung creatures seated on the red divan. The solicitude seemed to be\nall on the side of the splendid one.\n\n\"You must let me say how much I am obliged to you,\" said Gwendolen. \"I\nhad heard from Mr. Deronda that I should have a great treat in your\nsinging, but I was too ignorant to imagine how great.\"\n\n\"You are very good to say so,\" answered Mirah, her mind chiefly\noccupied in contemplating Gwendolen. It was like a new kind of\nstage-experience to her to be close to genuine grand ladies with\ngenuine brilliants and complexions, and they impressed her vaguely as\ncoming out of some unknown drama, in which their parts perhaps got more\ntragic as they went on.\n\n\"We shall all want to learn of you--I, at least,\" said Gwendolen. \"I\nsing very badly, as Herr Klesmer will tell you,\"--here she glanced\nupward to that higher power rather archly, and continued--\"but I have\nbeen rebuked for not liking to middling, since I can be nothing more. I\nthink that is a different doctrine from yours?\" She was still looking\nat Klesmer, who said quickly--\n\n\"Not if it means that it would be worth while for you to study further,\nand for Miss Lapidoth to have the pleasure of helping you.\" With that\nhe moved away, and Mirah taking everything with _naïve_ seriousness,\nsaid--\n\n\"If you think I could teach you, I shall be very glad. I am anxious to\nteach, but I have only just begun. If I do it well, it must be by\nremembering how my master taught me.\"\n\nGwendolen was in reality too uncertain about herself to be prepared for\nthis simple promptitude of Mirah's, and in her wish to change the\nsubject, said, with some lapse from the good taste of her first\naddress--\n\n\"You have not been long in London, I think?--but you were perhaps\nintroduced to Mr. Deronda abroad?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Mirah; \"I never saw him before I came to England in the\nsummer.\"\n\n\"But he has seen you often and heard you sing a great deal, has he\nnot?\" said Gwendolen, led on partly by the wish to hear anything about\nDeronda, and partly by the awkwardness which besets the readiest\nperson, in carrying on a dialogue when empty of matter. \"He spoke of\nyou to me with the highest praise. He seemed to know you quite well.\"\n\n\"Oh, I was poor and needed help,\" said Mirah, in a new tone of feeling,\n\"and Mr. Deronda has given me the best friends in the world. That is\nthe only way he came to know anything about me--because he was sorry\nfor me. I had no friends when I came. I was in distress. I owe\neverything to him.\"\n\nPoor Gwendolen, who had wanted to be a struggling artist herself, could\nnevertheless not escape the impression that a mode of inquiry which\nwould have been rather rude toward herself was an amiable condescension\nto this Jewess who was ready to give her lessons. The only effect on\nMirah, as always on any mention of Deronda, was to stir reverential\ngratitude and anxiety that she should be understood to have the deepest\nobligation to him.\n\nBut both he and Hans, who were noticing the pair from a distance, would\nhave felt rather indignant if they had known that the conversation had\nled up to Mirah's representation of herself in this light of neediness.\nIn the movement that prompted her, however, there was an exquisite\ndelicacy, which perhaps she could not have stated explicitly--the\nfeeling that she ought not to allow any one to assume in Deronda a\nrelation of more equality or less generous interest toward her than\nactually existed. Her answer was delightful to Gwendolen: she thought\nof nothing but the ready compassion which in another form she had\ntrusted in and found herself; and on the signals that Klesmer was about\nto play she moved away in much content, entirely without presentiment\nthat this Jewish _protégé_ would ever make a more important difference\nin her life than the possible improvement of her singing--if the\nleisure and spirits of a Mrs. Grandcourt would allow of other lessons\nthan such as the world was giving her at rather a high charge.\n\nWith her wonted alternation from resolute care of appearances to some\nrash indulgence of an impulse, she chose, under the pretext of getting\nfarther from the instrument, not to go again to her former seat, but\nplaced herself on a settee where she could only have one neighbor. She\nwas nearer to Deronda than before: was it surprising that he came up in\ntime to shake hands before the music began--then, that after he had\nstood a little while by the elbow of the settee at the empty end, the\ntorrent-like confluences of bass and treble seemed, like a convulsion\nof nature, to cast the conduct of petty mortals into insignificance,\nand to warrant his sitting down?\n\nBut when at the end of Klesmer's playing there came the outburst of\ntalk under which Gwendolen had hoped to speak as she would to Deronda,\nshe observed that Mr. Lush was within hearing, leaning against the wall\nclose by them. She could not help her flush of anger, but she tried to\nhave only an air of polite indifference in saying--\n\n\"Miss Lapidoth is everything you described her to be.\"\n\n\"You have been very quick in discovering that,\" said Deronda,\nironically.\n\n\"I have not found out all the excellencies you spoke of--I don't mean\nthat,\" said Gwendolen; \"but I think her singing is charming, and\nherself, too. Her face is lovely--not in the least common; and she is\nsuch a complete little person. I should think she will be a great\nsuccess.\"\n\nThis speech was grating on Deronda, and he would not answer it, but\nlooked gravely before him. She knew that he was displeased with her,\nand she was getting so impatient under the neighborhood of Mr. Lush,\nwhich prevented her from saying any word she wanted to say, that she\nmeditated some desperate step to get rid of it, and remained silent,\ntoo. That constraint seemed to last a long while, neither Gwendolen nor\nDeronda looking at the other, till Lush slowly relieved the wall of his\nweight, and joined some one at a distance.\n\nGwendolen immediately said, \"You despise me for talking artificially.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Deronda, looking at her coolly; \"I think that is quite\nexcusable sometimes. But I did not think what you were last saying was\naltogether artificial.\"\n\n\"There was something in it that displeased you,\" said Gwendolen. \"What\nwas it?\"\n\n\"It is impossible to explain such things,\" said Deronda. \"One can never\ncommunicate niceties of feeling about words and manner.\"\n\n\"You think I am shut out from understanding them,\" said Gwendolen, with\na slight tremor in her voice, which she was trying to conquer. \"Have I\nshown myself so very dense to everything you have said?\" There was an\nindescribable look of suppressed tears in her eyes, which were turned\non him.\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Deronda, with some softening of voice. \"But\nexperience differs for different people. We don't all wince at the same\nthings. I have had plenty of proof that you are not dense.\" He smiled\nat her.\n\n\"But one may feel things and are not able to do anything better for all\nthat,\" said Gwendolen, not smiling in return--the distance to which\nDeronda's words seemed to throw her chilling her too much. \"I begin to\nthink we can only get better by having people about us who raise good\nfeelings. You must not be surprised at anything in me. I think it is\ntoo late for me to alter. I don't know how to set about being wise, as\nyou told me to be.\"\n\n\"I seldom find I do any good by my preaching. I might as well have kept\nfrom meddling,\" said Deronda, thinking rather sadly that his\ninterference about that unfortunate necklace might end in nothing but\nan added pain to him in seeing her after all hardened to another sort\nof gambling than roulette.\n\n\"Don't say that,\" said Gwendolen, hurriedly, feeling that this might be\nher only chance of getting the words uttered, and dreading the increase\nof her own agitation. \"If you despair of me, I shall despair. Your\nsaying that I should not go on being selfish and ignorant has been some\nstrength to me. If you say you wish you had not meddled--that means you\ndespair of me and forsake me. And then you will decide for me that I\nshall not be good. It is you who will decide; because you might have\nmade me different by keeping as near to me as you could, and believing\nin me.\"\n\nShe had not been looking at him as she spoke, but at the handle of the\nfan which she held closed. With the last words she rose and left him,\nreturning to her former place, which had been left vacant; while every\none was settling into quietude in expectation of Mirah's voice, which\npresently, with that wonderful, searching quality of subdued song in\nwhich the melody seems simply an effect of the emotion, gave forth,\n_Per pietà non dirmi addio_.\n\nIn Deronda's ear the strain was for the moment a continuance of\nGwendolen's pleading--a painful urging of something vague and\ndifficult, irreconcilable with pressing conditions, and yet cruel to\nresist. However strange the mixture in her of a resolute pride and a\nprecocious air of knowing the world, with a precipitate, guileless\nindiscretion, he was quite sure now that the mixture existed. Sir\nHugo's hints had made him alive to dangers that his own disposition\nmight have neglected; but that Gwendolen's reliance on him was\nunvisited by any dream of his being a man who could misinterpret her\nwas as manifest as morning, and made an appeal which wrestled with his\nsense of present dangers, and with his foreboding of a growing\nincompatible claim on him in her mind. There was a foreshadowing of\nsome painful collision: on the one side the grasp of Mordecai's dying\nhand on him, with all the ideals and prospects it aroused; on the other\nthe fair creature in silk and gems, with her hidden wound and her\nself-dread, making a trustful effort to lean and find herself\nsustained. It was as if he had a vision of himself besought with\noutstretched arms and cries, while he was caught by the waves and\ncompelled to mount the vessel bound for a far-off coast. That was the\nstrain of excited feeling in him that went along with the notes of\nMirah's song; but when it ceased he moved from his seat with the\nreflection that he had been falling into an exaggeration of his own\nimportance, and a ridiculous readiness to accept Gwendolen's view of\nhimself, as if he could really have any decisive power over her.\n\n\"What an enviable fellow you are,\" said Hans to him, \"sitting on a sofa\nwith that young duchess, and having an interesting quarrel with her!\"\n\n\"Quarrel with her?\" repeated Deronda, rather uncomfortably.\n\n\"Oh, about theology, of course; nothing personal. But she told you what\nyou ought to think, and then left you with a grand air which was\nadmirable. Is she an Antinomian--if so, tell her I am an Antinomian\npainter, and introduce me. I should like to paint her and her husband.\nHe has the sort of handsome _physique_ that the Duke ought to have in\n_Lucrezia Borgia_--if it could go with a fine baritone, which it can't.\"\n\nDeronda devoutly hoped that Hans's account of the impression his\ndialogue with Gwendolen had made on a distant beholder was no more than\na bit of fantastic representation, such as was common with him.\n\nAnd Gwendolen was not without her after-thoughts that her husband's\neyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove--some\noffence against her dignity as his wife; her consciousness telling her\nthat she had not kept up the perfect air of equability in public which\nwas her own ideal. But Grandcourt made no observation on her behavior.\nAll he said as they were driving home was--\n\n\"Lush will dine with us among the other people to-morrow. You will\ntreat him civilly.\"\n\nGwendolen's heart began to beat violently. The words that she wanted to\nutter, as one wants to return a blow, were. \"You are breaking your\npromise to me--the first promise you made me.\" But she dared not utter\nthem. She was as frightened at a quarrel as if she had foreseen that it\nwould end with throttling fingers on her neck. After a pause, she said\nin the tone rather of defeat than resentment--\n\n\"I thought you did not intend him to frequent the house again.\"\n\n\"I want him just now. He is useful to me; and he must be treated\ncivilly.\"\n\nSilence. There may come a moment when even an excellent husband who has\ndropped smoking under more or less of a pledge during courtship, for\nthe first time will introduce his cigar-smoke between himself and his\nwife, with the tacit understanding that she will have to put up with\nit. Mr. Lush was, so to speak, a very large cigar.\n\nIf these are the sort of lovers' vows at which Jove laughs, he must\nhave a merry time of it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVI.\n\n    \"If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I\n    feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer,\n    'Because it was he, because it was I.' There is, beyond what I am able\n    to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this\n    union.\"--MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_.\n\n\nThe time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the\nrestored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before\nMirah's meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had\nconfided everything except Mordecai's peculiar relation to himself, had\nbeen active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not\nmany minutes' walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister\nwould be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of\nScottish fervor and Gallic liveliness had enabled her to keep the\nsecret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them\nbeing likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating\nsuspicion, and spoil the important opening of that work which was to\nsecure her independence, as we rather arbitrarily call one of the more\narduous and dignified forms of our dependence. And both Mrs. Meyrick\nand Deronda had more reasons than they could have expressed for\ndesiring that Mirah should be able to maintain herself. Perhaps \"the\nlittle mother\" was rather helped in her secrecy by some dubiousness in\nher sentiment about the remarkable brother described to her; and\ncertainly if she felt any joy and anticipatory admiration, it was due\nto her faith in Deronda's judgment. The consumption was a sorrowful\nfact that appealed to her tenderness; but how was she to be very glad\nof an enthusiasm which, to tell the truth, she could only contemplate\nas Jewish pertinacity, and as rather an undesirable introduction among\nthem all of a man whose conversation would not be more modern and\nencouraging than that of Scott's Covenanters? Her mind was anything but\nprosaic, and had her soberer share of Mab's delight in the romance of\nMirah's story and of her abode with them; but the romantic or unusual\nin real life requires some adaptation. We sit up at night to read about\nSakya-Mouni, St. Francis, or Oliver Cromwell; but whether we should be\nglad for any one at all like them to call on us the next morning, still\nmore, to reveal himself as a new relation, is quite another affair.\nBesides, Mrs. Meyrick had hoped, as her children did, that the\nintensity of Mirah's feeling about Judaism would slowly subside, and be\nmerged in the gradually deepening current of loving interchange with\nher new friends. In fact, her secret favorite continuation of the\nromance had been no discovery of Jewish relations, but something much\nmore favorable to the hopes she discerned in Hans. And now--here was a\nbrother who would dip Mirah's mind over again in the deepest dye of\nJewish sentiment. She could not help saying to Deronda--\n\n\"I am as glad as you are that the pawnbroker is not her brother: there\nare Ezras and Ezras in the world; and really it is a comfort to think\nthat all Jews are not like those shopkeepers who _will not_ let you get\nout of their shops: and besides, what he said to you about his mother\nand sister makes me bless him. I am sure he's good. But I never did\nlike anything fanatical. I suppose I heard a little too much preaching\nin my youth and lost my palate for it.\"\n\n\"I don't think you will find that Mordecai obtrudes any preaching,\"\nsaid Deronda. \"He is not what I should call fanatical. I call a man\nfanatical when his enthusiasm is narrow and hoodwinked, so that he has\nno sense of proportions, and becomes unjust and unsympathetic to men\nwho are out of his own track. Mordecai is an enthusiast; I should like\nto keep that word for the highest order of minds--those who care\nsupremely for grand and general benefits to mankind. He is not a\nstrictly orthodox Jew, and is full of allowances for others; his\nconformity in many things is an allowance for the condition of other\nJews. The people he lives with are as fond of him as possible, and they\ncan't in the least understand his ideas.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, I can live up to the level of the pawnbroker's mother, and\nlike him for what I see to be good in him; and for what I don't see the\nmerits of I will take your word. According to your definition, I\nsuppose one might be fanatical in worshipping common-sense; for my poor\nhusband used to say the world would be a poor place if there were\nnothing but common-sense in it. However, Mirah's brother will have good\nbedding--that I have taken care of; and I shall have this extra window\npasted up with paper to prevent draughts.\" (The conversation was taking\nplace in the destined lodging.) \"It is a comfort to think that the\npeople of the house are no strangers to me--no hypocritical harpies.\nAnd when the children know, we shall be able to make the rooms much\nprettier.\"\n\n\"The next stage of the affair is to tell all to Mordecai, and get him\nto move--which may be a more difficult business,\" said Deronda.\n\n\"And will you tell Mirah before I say anything to the children?\" said\nMrs. Meyrick. But Deronda hesitated, and she went on in a tone of\npersuasive deliberation--\"No, I think not. Let me tell Hans and the\ngirls the evening before, and they will be away the next morning?\"\n\n\"Yes, that will be best. But do justice to my account of Mordecai--or\nEzra, as I suppose Mirah will wish to call him: don't assist their\nimagination by referring to Habakkuk Mucklewrath,\" said Deronda,\nsmiling--Mrs. Meyrick herself having used the comparison of the\nCovenanters.\n\n\"Trust me, trust me,\" said the little mother. \"I shall have to persuade\nthem so hard to be glad, that I shall convert myself. When I am\nfrightened I find it a good thing to have somebody to be angry with for\nnot being brave: it warms the blood.\"\n\nDeronda might have been more argumentative or persuasive about the view\nto be taken of Mirah's brother, if he had been less anxiously\npreoccupied with the more important task immediately before him, which\nhe desired to acquit himself of without wounding the Cohens. Mordecai,\nby a memorable answer, had made it evident that he would be keenly\nalive to any inadvertance in relation to their feelings. In the\ninterval, he had been meeting Mordecai at the _Hand and Banner_, but\nnow after due reflection he wrote to him saying that he had particular\nreasons for wishing to see him in his own home the next evening, and\nwould beg to sit with him in his workroom for an hour, if the Cohens\nwould not regard it as an intrusion. He would call with the\nunderstanding that if there were any objection, Mordecai would\naccompany him elsewhere. Deronda hoped in this way to create a little\nexpectation that would have a preparatory effect.\n\nHe was received with the usual friendliness, some additional costume in\nthe women and children, and in all the elders a slight air of wondering\nwhich even in Cohen was not allowed to pass the bounds of silence--the\nguest's transactions with Mordecai being a sort of mystery which he was\nrather proud to think lay outside the sphere of light which enclosed\nhis own understanding. But when Deronda said, \"I suppose Mordecai is at\nhome and expecting me,\" Jacob, who had profited by the family remarks,\nwent up to his knee and said, \"What do you want to talk to Mordecai\nabout?\"\n\n\"Something that is very interesting to him,\" said Deronda, pinching the\nlad's ear, \"but that you can't understand.\"\n\n\"Can you say this?\" said Jacob, immediately giving forth a string of\nhis rote-learned Hebrew verses with a wonderful mixture of the throaty\nand the nasal, and nodding his small head at his hearer, with a sense\nof giving formidable evidence which might rather alter their mutual\nposition.\n\n\"No, really,\" said Deronda, keeping grave; \"I can't say anything like\nit.\"\n\n\"I thought not,\" said Jacob, performing a dance of triumph with his\nsmall scarlet legs, while he took various objects out of the deep\npockets of his knickerbockers and returned them thither, as a slight\nhint of his resources; after which, running to the door of the\nworkroom, he opened it wide, set his back against it, and said,\n\"Mordecai, here's the young swell\"--a copying of his father's phrase,\nwhich seemed to him well fitted to cap the recitation of Hebrew.\n\nHe was called back with hushes by mother and grandmother, and Deronda,\nentering and closing the door behind him, saw that a bit of carpet had\nbeen laid down, a chair placed, and the fire and lights attended to, in\nsign of the Cohens' respect. As Mordecai rose to greet him, Deronda was\nstruck with the air of solemn expectation in his face, such as would\nhave seemed perfectly natural if his letter had declared that some\nrevelation was to be made about the lost sister. Neither of them spoke,\ntill Deronda, with his usual tenderness of manner, had drawn the vacant\nchair from the opposite side of the hearth and had seated himself near\nto Mordecai, who then said, in a tone of fervid certainty--\n\n\"You are coming to tell me something that my soul longs for.\"\n\n\"It is true I have something very weighty to tell you--something I\ntrust that you will rejoice in,\" said Deronda, on his guard against the\nprobability that Mordecai had been preparing himself for something\nquite different from the fact.\n\n\"It is all revealed--it is made clear to you,\" said Mordecai, more\neagerly, leaning forward with clasped hands. \"You are even as my\nbrother that sucked the breasts of my mother--the heritage is\nyours--there is no doubt to divide us.\"\n\n\"I have learned nothing new about myself,\" said Deronda. The\ndisappointment was inevitable: it was better not to let the feeling be\nstrained longer in a mistaken hope.\n\nMordecai sank back in his chair, unable for the moment to care what was\nreally coming. The whole day his mind had been in a state of tension\ntoward one fulfillment. The reaction was sickening and he closed his\neyes.\n\n\"Except,\" Deronda went on gently, after a pause,--\"except that I had\nreally some time ago come into another sort of hidden connection with\nyou, besides what you have spoken of as existing in your own feeling.\"\n\nThe eyes were not opened, but there was a fluttering in the lids.\n\n\"I had made the acquaintance of one in whom you are interested.\"\n\n\"One who is closely related to your departed mother,\" Deronda went on\nwishing to make the disclosure gradual; but noticing a shrinking\nmovement in Mordecai, he added--\"whom she and you held dear above all\nothers.\"\n\nMordecai, with a sudden start, laid a spasmodic grasp on Deronda's\nwrist; there was a great terror in him. And Deronda divined it. A\ntremor was perceptible in his clear tones as he said--\n\n\"What was prayed for has come to pass: Mirah has been delivered from\nevil.\"\n\nMordecai's grasp relaxed a little, but he was panting with a tearless\nsob.\n\nDeronda went on: \"Your sister is worthy of the mother you honored.\"\n\nHe waited there, and Mordecai, throwing himself backward in his chair,\nagain closed his eyes, uttering himself almost inaudibly for some\nminutes in Hebrew, and then subsiding into a happy-looking silence.\nDeronda, watching the expression in his uplifted face, could have\nimagined that he was speaking with some beloved object: there was a new\nsuffused sweetness, something like that on the faces of the beautiful\ndead. For the first time Deronda thought he discerned a family\nresemblance to Mirah.\n\nPresently when Mordecai was ready to listen, the rest was told. But in\naccounting for Mirah's flight he made the statement about the father's\nconduct as vague as he could, and threw the emphasis on her yearning to\ncome to England as the place where she might find her mother. Also he\nkept back the fact of Mirah's intention to drown herself, and his own\npart in rescuing her; merely describing the home she had found with\nfriends of his, whose interest in her and efforts for her he had\nshared. What he dwelt on finally was Mirah's feeling about her mother\nand brother; and in relation to this he tried to give every detail.\n\n\"It was in search of them,\" said Deronda, smiling, \"that I turned into\nthis house: the name Ezra Cohen was just then the most interesting name\nin the world to me. I confess I had fear for a long while. Perhaps you\nwill forgive me now for having asked you that question about the elder\nMrs. Cohen's daughter. I cared very much what I should find Mirah's\nfriends to be. But I had found a brother worthy of her when I knew that\nher Ezra was disguised under the name of Mordecai.\"\n\n\"Mordecai is really my name--Ezra Mordecai Cohen.\"\n\n\"Is there any kinship between this family and yours?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"Only the kinship of Israel. My soul clings to these people, who have\nsheltered me and given me succor out of the affection that abides in\nJewish hearts, as sweet odor in things long crushed and hidden from the\nouter air. It is good for me to bear with their ignorance and be bound\nto them in gratitude, that I may keep in mind the spiritual poverty of\nthe Jewish million, and not put impatient knowledge in the stead of\nloving wisdom.\"\n\n\"But you don't feel bound to continue with them now there is a closer\ntie to draw you?\" said Deronda, not without fear that he might find an\nobstacle to overcome. \"It seems to me right now--is it not?--that you\nshould live with your sister; and I have prepared a home to take you to\nin the neighborhood of her friends, that she may join you there. Pray\ngrant me this wish. It will enable me to be with you often in the hours\nwhen Mirah is obliged to leave you. That is my selfish reason. But the\nchief reason is, that Mirah will desire to watch over you, and that you\nought to give her the guardianship of a brother's presence. You shall\nhave books about you. I shall want to learn of you, and to take you out\nto see the river and trees. And you will have the rest and comfort that\nyou will be more and more in need of--nay, that I need for you. This is\nthe claim I make on you, now that we have found each other.\"\n\nDeronda spoke in a tone of earnest, affectionate pleading, such as he\nmight have used to a venerated elder brother. Mordecai's eyes were\nfixed on him with a listening contemplation, and he was silent for a\nlittle while after Deronda had ceased to speak. Then he said, with an\nalmost reproachful emphasis--\n\n\"And you would have me hold it doubtful whether you were born a Jew!\nHave we not from the first touched each other with invisible\nfibres--have we not quivered together like the leaves from a common\nstem with stirring from a common root? I know what I am outwardly, I am\none among the crowd of poor--I am stricken, I am dying. But our souls\nknow each other. They gazed in silence as those who have long been\nparted and meet again, but when they found voice they were assured, and\nall their speech is understanding. The life of Israel is in your veins.\"\n\nDeronda sat perfectly still, but felt his face tingling. It was\nimpossible either to deny or assent. He waited, hoping that Mordecai\nwould presently give him a more direct answer. And after a pause of\nmeditation he did say, firmly--\n\n\"What you wish of me I will do. And our mother--may the blessing of the\nEternal be with her in our souls!--would have wished it too. I will\naccept what your loving kindness has prepared, and Mirah's home shall\nbe mine.\" He paused a moment, and then added in a more melancholy tone,\n\"But I shall grieve to part from these parents and the little ones. You\nmust tell them, for my heart would fail me.\"\n\n\"I felt that you would want me to tell them. Shall we go now at once?\"\nsaid Deronda, much relieved by this unwavering compliance.\n\n\"Yes; let us not defer it. It must be done,\" said Mordecai, rising with\nthe air of a man who has to perform a painful duty. Then came, as an\nafterthought, \"But do not dwell on my sister more than is needful.\"\n\nWhen they entered the parlor he said to the alert Jacob, \"Ask your\nfather to come, and tell Sarah to mind the shop. My friend has\nsomething to say,\" he continued, turning to the elder Mrs. Cohen. It\nseemed part of Mordecai's eccentricity that he should call this\ngentleman his friend; and the two women tried to show their better\nmanners by warm politeness in begging Deronda to seat himself in the\nbest place.\n\nWhen Cohen entered with a pen behind his ear, he rubbed his hands and\nsaid with loud satisfaction, \"Well, sir! I'm glad you're doing us the\nhonor to join our family party again. We are pretty comfortable, I\nthink.\"\n\nHe looked round with shiny gladness. And when all were seated on the\nhearth the scene was worth peeping in upon: on one side Baby under her\nscarlet quilt in the corner being rocked by the young mother, and\nAdelaide Rebekah seated on the grandmother's knee; on the other, Jacob\nbetween his father's legs; while the two markedly different figures of\nDeronda and Mordecai were in the middle--Mordecai a little backward in\nthe shade, anxious to conceal his agitated susceptibility to what was\ngoing on around him. The chief light came from the fire, which brought\nout the rich color on a depth of shadow, and seemed to turn into speech\nthe dark gems of eyes that looked at each other kindly.\n\n\"I have just been telling Mordecai of an event that makes a great\nchange in his life,\" Deronda began, \"but I hope you will agree with me\nthat it is a joyful one. Since he thinks of you as his best friends, he\nwishes me to tell you for him at once.\"\n\n\"Relations with money, sir?\" burst in Cohen, feeling a power of\ndivination which it was a pity to nullify by waiting for the fact.\n\n\"No; not exactly,\" said Deronda, smiling. \"But a very precious relation\nwishes to be reunited to him--a very good and lovely young sister, who\nwill care for his comfort in every way.\"\n\n\"Married, sir?\"\n\n\"No, not married.\"\n\n\"But with a maintenance?\"\n\n\"With talents which will secure her a maintenance. A home is already\nprovided for Mordecai.\"\n\nThere was silence for a moment or two before the grandmother said in a\nwailing tone--\n\n\"Well, well! and so you're going away from us, Mordecai.\"\n\n\"And where there's no children as there is here,\" said the mother,\ncatching the wail.\n\n\"No Jacob, and no Adelaide, and no Eugenie!\" wailed the grandmother\nagain.\n\n\"Ay, ay, Jacob's learning 'ill all wear out of him. He must go to\nschool. It'll be hard times for Jacob,\" said Cohen, in a tone of\ndecision.\n\nIn the wide-open ears of Jacob his father's words sounded like a doom,\ngiving an awful finish to the dirge-like effect of the whole\nannouncement. His face had been gathering a wondering incredulous\nsorrow at the notion of Mordecai's going away: he was unable to imagine\nthe change as anything lasting; but at the mention of \"hard times for\nJacob\" there was no further suspense of feeling, and he broke forth in\nloud lamentation. Adelaide Rebekah always cried when her brother cried,\nand now began to howl with astonishing suddenness, whereupon baby\nawaking contributed angry screams, and required to be taken out of the\ncradle. A great deal of hushing was necessary, and Mordecai feeling the\ncries pierce him, put out his arms to Jacob, who in the midst of his\ntears and sobs was turning his head right and left for general\nobservation. His father, who had been--saying, \"Never mind, old man;\nyou shall go to the riders,\" now released him, and he went to Mordecai,\nwho clasped him, and laid his cheek on the little black head without\nspeaking. But Cohen, sensible that the master of the family must make\nsome apology for all this weakness, and that the occasion called for a\nspeech, addressed Deronda with some elevation of pitch, squaring his\nelbows and resting a hand on each knee:--\n\n\"It's not as we're the people to grudge anybody's good luck, sir, or\nthe portion of their cup being made fuller, as I may say. I'm not an\nenvious man, and if anybody offered to set up Mordecai in a shop of my\nsort two doors lower down, _I_ shouldn't make wry faces about it. I'm\nnot one of them that had need have a poor opinion of themselves, and be\nfrightened at anybody else getting a chance. If I'm offal, let a wise\nman come and tell me, for I've never heard it yet. And in point of\nbusiness, I'm not a class of goods to be in danger. If anybody takes to\nrolling me, I can pack myself up like a caterpillar, and find my feet\nwhen I'm let alone. And though, as I may say, you're taking some of our\ngood works from us, which is property bearing interest, I'm not saying\nbut we can afford that, though my mother and my wife had the good will\nto wish and do for Mordecai to the last; and a Jew must not be like a\nservant who works for reward--though I see nothing against a reward if\nI can get it. And as to the extra outlay in schooling, I'm neither poor\nnor greedy--I wouldn't hang myself for sixpence, nor half a crown\nneither. But the truth of it is, the women and children are fond of\nMordecai. You may partly see how it is, sir, by your own sense. A\nJewish man is bound to thank God, day by day, that he was not made a\nwoman; but a woman has to thank God that He has made her according to\nHis will. And we all know what He has made her--a child-bearing,\ntender-hearted thing is the woman of our people. Her children are\nmostly stout, as I think you'll say Addy's are, and she's not mushy,\nbut her heart is tender. So you must excuse present company, sir, for\nnot being glad all at once. And as to this young lady--for by what you\nsay 'young lady' is the proper term\"--Cohen here threw some additional\nemphasis into his look and tone--\"we shall all be glad for Mordecai's\nsake by-and-by, when we cast up our accounts and see where we are.\"\n\nBefore Deronda could summon any answer to this oddly mixed speech,\nMordecai exclaimed--\n\n\"Friends, friends! For food and raiment and shelter I would not have\nsought better than you have given me. You have sweetened the morsel\nwith love; and what I thought of as a joy that would be left to me even\nin the last months of my waning strength was to go on teaching the lad.\nBut now I am as one who had clad himself beforehand in his shroud, and\nused himself to making the grave his bed, when the divine command\nsounded in his ears, 'Arise, and go forth; the night is not yet come.'\nFor no light matter would I have turned away from your kindness to take\nanother's. But it has been taught us, as you know, that _the reward of\none duty is the power to fulfill another_--so said Ben Azai. You have\nmade your duty to one of the poor among your brethren a joy to you and\nme; and your reward shall be that you will not rest without the joy of\nlike deeds in the time to come. And may not Jacob come and visit me?\"\n\nMordecai had turned with this question to Deronda, who said--\n\n\"Surely that can be managed. It is no further than Brompton.\"\n\nJacob, who had been gradually calmed by the need to hear what was going\nforward, began now to see some daylight on the future, the word \"visit\"\nhaving the lively charm of cakes and general relaxation at his\ngrandfather's, the dealer in knives. He danced away from Mordecai, and\ntook up a station of survey in the middle of the hearth with his hands\nin his knickerbockers.\n\n\"Well,\" said the grandmother, with a sigh of resignation, \"I hope\nthere'll be nothing in the way of your getting _kosher_ meat, Mordecai.\nFor you'll have to trust to those you live with.\"\n\n\"That's all right, that's all right, you may be sure, mother,\" said\nCohen, as if anxious to cut off inquiry on matters in which he was\nuncertain of the guest's position. \"So, sir,\" he added, turning with a\nlook of amused enlightenment to Deronda, \"it was better than learning\nyou had to talk to Mordecai about! I wondered to myself at the time. I\nthought somehow there was a something.\"\n\n\"Mordecai will perhaps explain to you how it was that I was seeking\nhim,\" said Deronda, feeling that he had better go, and rising as he\nspoke.\n\nIt was agreed that he should come again and the final move be made on\nthe next day but one; but when he was going Mordecai begged to walk\nwith him to the end of the street, and wrapped himself in coat and\ncomforter. It was a March evening, and Deronda did not mean to let him\ngo far, but he understood the wish to be outside the house with him in\ncommunicative silence, after the exciting speech that had been filling\nthe last hour. No word was spoken until Deronda had proposed parting,\nwhen he said--\n\n\"Mirah would wish to thank the Cohens for their goodness. You would\nwish her to do so--to come and see them, would you not?\"\n\nMordecai did not answer immediately, but at length said--\n\n\"I cannot tell. I fear not. There is a family sorrow, and the sight of\nmy sister might be to them as the fresh bleeding of wounds. There is a\ndaughter and sister who will never be restored as Mirah is. But who\nknows the pathways? We are all of us denying or fulfilling prayers--and\nmen in their careless deeds walk amidst invisible outstretched arms and\npleadings made in vain. In my ears I have the prayers of generations\npast and to come. My life is as nothing to me but the beginning of\nfulfilment. And yet I am only another prayer--which you will fulfil.\"\n\nDeronda pressed his hand, and they parted.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVII.\n\n  \"And you must love him ere to you\n  He will seem worthy of your love.\"\n                        --WORDSWORTH.\n\n\nOne might be tempted to envy Deronda providing new clothes for\nMordecai, and pleasing himself as if he were sketching a picture in\nimagining the effect of the fine gray flannel shirts and a\ndressing-gown very much like a Franciscan's brown frock, with\nMordecai's head and neck above them. Half his pleasure was the sense of\nseeing Mirah's brother through her eyes, and securing her fervid joy\nfrom any perturbing impression. And yet, after he had made all things\nready, he was visited with doubt whether he were not mistaking her, and\nputting the lower effect for the higher: was she not just as capable as\nhe himself had been of feeling the impressive distinction in her\nbrother all the more for that aspect of poverty which was among the\nmemorials of his past? But there were the Meyricks to be propitiated\ntoward this too Judaic brother; and Deronda detected himself piqued\ninto getting out of sight everything that might feed the ready\nrepugnance in minds unblessed with that precious \"seeing,\" that bathing\nof all objects in a solemnity as of sun-set glow, which is begotten of\na loving reverential emotion.\n\nAnd his inclination would have been the more confirmed if he had heard\nthe dialogue round Mrs. Meyrick's fire late in the evening, after Mirah\nhad gone to her room. Hans, settled now in his Chelsea rooms, had\nstayed late, and Mrs. Meyrick, poking the fire into a blaze, said--\n\n\"Now, Kate, put out your candle, and all come round the fire cosily.\nHans, dear, do leave off laughing at those poems for the ninety-ninth\ntime, and come too. I have something wonderful to tell.\"\n\n\"As if I didn't know that, ma. I have seen it in the corner of your eye\never so long, and in your pretense of errands,\" said Kate, while the\ngirls came up to put their feet on the fender, and Hans, pushing his\nchair near them, sat astride it, resting his fists and chin on the back.\n\n\"Well, then, if you are so wise, perhaps you know that Mirah's brother\nis found!\" said Mrs. Meyrick, in her clearest accents.\n\n\"Oh, confound it!\" said Hans, in the same moment.\n\n\"Hans, that is wicked,\" said Mab. \"Suppose we had lost you?\"\n\n\"I _cannot_ help being rather sorry,\" said Kate. \"And her\nmother?--where is she?\"\n\n\"Her mother is dead.\"\n\n\"I hope the brother is not a bad man,\" said Amy.\n\n\"Nor a fellow all smiles and jewelry--a Crystal Palace Assyrian with a\nhat on,\" said Hans, in the worst humor.\n\n\"Were there ever such unfeeling children?\" said Mrs. Meyrick, a little\nstrengthened by the need for opposition. \"You don't think the least bit\nof Mirah's joy in the matter.\"\n\n\"You know, ma, Mirah hardly remembers her brother,\" said Kate.\n\n\"People who are lost for twelve years should never come back again,\"\nsaid Hans. \"They are always in the way.\"\n\n\"Hans!\" said Mrs. Meyrick, reproachfully. \"If you had lost me for\n_twenty_ years, I should have thought--\"\n\n\"I said twelve years,\" Hans broke in. \"Anywhere about twelve years is\nthe time at which lost relations should keep out of the way.\"\n\n\"Well, but it's nice finding people--there is something to tell,\" said\nMab, clasping her knees. \"Did Prince Camaralzaman find him?\"\n\nThen Mrs. Meyrick, in her neat, narrative way, told all she knew\nwithout interruption. \"Mr. Deronda has the highest admiration for him,\"\nshe ended--\"seems quite to look up to him. And he says Mirah is just\nthe sister to understand this brother.\"\n\n\"Deronda is getting perfectly preposterous about those Jews,\" said Hans\nwith disgust, rising and setting his chair away with a bang. \"He wants\nto do everything he can to encourage Mirah in her prejudices.\"\n\n\"Oh, for shame, Hans!--to speak in that way of Mr. Deronda,\" said Mab.\nAnd Mrs. Meyrick's face showed something like an under-current of\nexpression not allowed to get to the surface.\n\n\"And now we shall never be all together,\" Hans went on, walking about\nwith his hands thrust into the pockets of his brown velveteen coat,\n\"but we must have this prophet Elijah to tea with us, and Mirah will\nthink of nothing but sitting on the ruins of Jerusalem. She will be\nspoiled as an artist--mind that--she will get as narrow as a nun.\nEverything will be spoiled--our home and everything. I shall take to\ndrinking.\"\n\n\"Oh, really, Hans,\" said Kate, impatiently. \"I do think men are the\nmost contemptible animals in all creation. Every one of them must have\neverything to his mind, else he is unbearable.\"\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh, it's very dreadful!\" cried Mab. \"I feel as if ancient\nNineveh were come again.\"\n\n\"I should like to know what is the good of having gone to the\nuniversity and knowing everything, if you are so childish, Hans,\" said\nAmy. \"You ought to put up with a man that Providence sends you to be\nkind to. _We_ shall have to put up with him.\"\n\n\"I hope you will all of you like the new Lamentations of Jeremiah--'to\nbe continued in our next'--that's all,\" said Hans, seizing his\nwide-awake. \"It's no use being one thing more than another if one has\nto endure the company of those men with a fixed idea, staring blankly\nat you, and requiring all your remarks to be small foot-notes to their\ntext. If you're to be under a petrifying wall, you'd better be an old\nboot. I don't feel myself an old boot.\" Then abruptly, \"Good night,\nlittle mother,\" bending to kiss her brow in a hasty, desperate manner,\nand condescendingly, on his way to the door, \"Good-night, girls.\"\n\n\"Suppose Mirah knew how you are behaving,\" said Kate. But her answer\nwas a slam of the door. \"I _should_ like to see Mirah when Mr. Deronda\ntells her,\" she went on to her mother. \"I know she will look so\nbeautiful.\"\n\nBut Deronda, on second thoughts, had written a letter, which Mrs.\nMeyrick received the next morning, begging her to make the revelation\ninstead of waiting for him, not giving the real reason--that he shrank\nfrom going again through a narrative in which he seemed to be making\nhimself important and giving himself a character of general\nbeneficence--but saying that he wished to remain with Mordecai while\nMrs. Meyrick would bring Mirah on what was to be understood as a visit,\nso that there might be a little interval before that change of abode\nwhich he expected that Mirah herself would propose.\n\nDeronda secretly felt some wondering anxiety how far Mordecai, after\nyears of solitary preoccupation with ideas likely to have become the\nmore exclusive from continual diminution of bodily strength, would\nallow him to feel a tender interest in his sister over and above the\nrendering of pious duties. His feeling for the Cohens, and especially\nfor little Jacob, showed a persistent activity of affection; but these\nobjects had entered into his daily life for years; and Deronda felt it\nnoticeable that Mordecai asked no new questions about Mirah,\nmaintaining, indeed, an unusual silence on all subjects, and appearing\nsimply to submit to the changes that were coming over his personal\nlife. He donned the new clothes obediently, but said afterward to\nDeronda, with a faint smile, \"I must keep my old garments by me for a\nremembrance.\" And when they were seated, awaiting Mirah, he uttered no\nword, keeping his eyelids closed, but yet showing restless feeling in\nhis face and hands. In fact, Mordecai was undergoing that peculiar\nnervous perturbation only known to those whose minds, long and\nhabitually moving with strong impetus in one current, are suddenly\ncompelled into a new or reopened channel. Susceptible people, whose\nstrength has been long absorbed by dormant bias, dread an interview\nthat imperiously revives the past, as they would dread a threatening\nillness. Joy may be there, but joy, too, is terrible.\n\nDeronda felt the infection of excitement, and when he heard the ring at\nthe door, he went out, not knowing exactly why, that he might see and\ngreet Mirah beforehand. He was startled to find that she had on the hat\nand cloak in which he had first seen her--the memorable cloak that had\nonce been wetted for a winding-sheet. She had come down-stairs equipped\nin this way; and when Mrs. Meyrick said, in a tone of question, \"You\nlike to go in that dress, dear?\" she answered, \"My brother is poor, and\nI want to look as much like him as I can, else he may feel distant from\nme\"--imagining that she should meet him in the workman's dress. Deronda\ncould not make any remark, but felt secretly rather ashamed of his own\nfastidious arrangements. They shook hands silently, for Mirah looked\npale and awed.\n\nWhen Deronda opened the door for her, Mordecai had risen, and had his\neyes turned toward it with an eager gaze. Mirah took only two or three\nsteps, and then stood still. They looked at each other, motionless. It\nwas less their own presence that they felt than another's; they were\nmeeting first in memories, compared with which touch was no union.\nMirah was the first to break the silence, standing where she was.\n\n\"Ezra,\" she said, in exactly the same tone as when she was telling of\nher mother's call to him.\n\nMordecai with a sudden movement advanced and laid his hand on her\nshoulders. He was the head taller, and looked down at her tenderly\nwhile he said, \"That was our mother's voice. You remember her calling\nme?\"\n\n\"Yes, and how you answered her--'Mother!'--and I knew you loved her.\"\nMirah threw her arms round her brother's neck, clasped her little hands\nbehind it, and drew down his face, kissing it with childlike\nlavishness, Her hat fell backward on the ground and disclosed all her\ncurls.\n\n\"Ah, the dear head, the dear head?\" said Mordecai, in a low loving\ntone, laying his thin hand gently on the curls.\n\n\"You are very ill, Ezra,\" said Mirah, sadly looking at him with more\nobservation.\n\n\"Yes, dear child, I shall not be long with you in the body,\" was the\nquiet answer.\n\n\"Oh, I will love you and we will talk to each other,\" said Mirah, with\na sweet outpouring of her words, as spontaneous as bird-notes. \"I will\ntell you everything, and you will teach me:--you will teach me to be a\ngood Jewess--what she would have liked me to be. I shall always be with\nyou when I am not working. For I work now. I shall get money to keep\nus. Oh, I have had such good friends.\"\n\nMirah until now had quite forgotten that any one was by, but here she\nturned with the prettiest attitude, keeping one hand on her brother's\narm while she looked at Mrs. Meyrick and Deronda. The little mother's\nhappy emotion in witnessing this meeting of brother and sister had\nalready won her to Mordecai, who seemed to her really to have more\ndignity and refinement than she had felt obliged to believe in from\nDeronda's account.\n\n\"See this dear lady!\" said Mirah. \"I was a stranger, a poor wanderer,\nand she believed in me, and has treated me as a daughter. Please give\nmy brother your hand,\" she added, beseechingly, taking Mrs. Meyrick's\nhand and putting it in Mordecai's, then pressing them both with her own\nand lifting them to her lips.\n\n\"The Eternal Goodness has been with you,\" said Mordecai. \"You have\nhelped to fulfill our mother's prayer.\"\n\n\"I think we will go now, shall we?--and return later,\" said Deronda,\nlaying a gentle pressure on Mrs. Meyrick's arm, and she immediately\ncomplied. He was afraid of any reference to the facts about himself\nwhich he had kept back from Mordecai, and he felt no uneasiness now in\nthe thought of the brother and sister being alone together.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLVIII.\n\n    'Tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule\n    of our own security, as is well hinted by Machiavelli concerning\n    Caesar Borgia, who, saith he, had thought of all that might occur on\n    his father's death, and had provided against every evil chance save\n    only one: it had never come into his mind that when his father died,\n    his own death would quickly follow.\n\n\nGrandcourt's importance as a subject of this realm was of the grandly\npassive kind which consists in the inheritance of land. Political and\nsocial movements touched him only through the wire of his rental, and\nhis most careful biographer need not have read up on\nSchleswig-Holstein, the policy of Bismarck, trade-unions, household\nsuffrage, or even the last commercial panic. He glanced over the best\nnewspaper columns on these topics, and his views on them can hardly be\nsaid to have wanted breadth, since he embraced all Germans, all\ncommercial men, and all voters liable to use the wrong kind of soap,\nunder the general epithet of \"brutes;\" but he took no action on these\nmuch-agitated questions beyond looking from under his eyelids at any\nman who mentioned them, and retaining a silence which served to shake\nthe opinions of timid thinkers.\n\nBut Grandcourt, within his own sphere of interest, showed some of the\nqualities which have entered into triumphal diplomacy of the wildest\ncontinental sort.\n\nNo movement of Gwendolen in relation to Deronda escaped him. He would\nhave denied that he was jealous; because jealousy would have implied\nsome doubt of his own power to hinder what he had determined against.\nThat his wife should have more inclination to another man's society\nthan to his own would not pain him: what he required was that she\nshould be as fully aware as she would have been of a locked hand-cuff,\nthat her inclination was helpless to decide anything in contradiction\nwith his resolve. However much of vacillating whim there might have\nbeen in his entrance on matrimony, there was no vacillating in his\ninterpretation of the bond. He had not repented of his marriage; it had\nreally brought more of aim into his life, new objects to exert his will\nupon; and he had not repented of his choice. His taste was fastidious,\nand Gwendolen satisfied it: he would not have liked a wife who had not\nreceived some elevation of rank from him; nor one who did not command\nadmiration by her mien and beauty; nor one whose nails were not of the\nright shape; nor one the lobe of whose ear was at all too large and\nred; nor one who, even if her nails and ears were right, was at the\nsame time a ninny, unable to make spirited answers. These requirements\nmay not seem too exacting to refined contemporaries whose own ability\nto fall in love has been held in suspense for lack of indispensable\ndetails; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment that his\nwife should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if she\ndared, and that she should have been urged into marrying him by other\nfeelings than passionate attachment. Still, for those who prefer\ncommand to love, one does not see why the habit of mind should change\nprecisely at the point of matrimony.\n\nGrandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having\ntaken on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be\nfooled, or allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded\nas pitiable. This was his state of mind--not jealousy; still, his\nbehavior in some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yellow,\nwhich color we know may be the effect of very different causes.\n\nHe had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on\nthe spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the\ntransference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about\nthe succession to Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly\ndangled without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. But\nanother acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the\npresentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to\nmarry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. It is\ntrue that Grandcourt went about with the sense that he did not care a\nlanguid curse for any one's admiration: but this state of not-caring,\njust as much as desire, required its related object--namely, a world of\nadmiring or envying spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily\nat smiling persons--the persons must be and they must smile--a\nrudimentary truth which is surely forgotten by those who complain of\nmankind as generally contemptible, since any other aspect of the race\nmust disappoint the voracity of their contempt. Grandcourt, in town for\nthe first time with his wife, had his non-caring abstinence from curses\nenlarged and diversified by splendid receptions, by conspicuous rides\nand drives, by presentations of himself with her on all distinguished\noccasions. He wished her to be sought after; he liked that \"fellows\"\nshould be eager to talk with her and escort her within his observation;\nthere was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her part that he would not\nhave objected to. But what he did not like were her ways in relation to\nDeronda.\n\nAfter the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, when Grandcourt had\nobserved the dialogue on the settee as keenly as Hans had done, it was\ncharacteristic of him that he named Deronda for invitation along with\nthe Mallingers, tenaciously avoiding the possible suggestion to\nanybody concerned that Deronda's presence or absence could be of the\nleast importance to him; and he made no direct observation to Gwendolen\non her behavior that evening, lest the expression of his disgust should\nbe a little too strong to satisfy his own pride. But a few days\nafterward he remarked, without being careful of the _à propos_--\n\n\"Nothing makes a woman more of a gawky than looking out after people\nand showing tempers in public. A woman ought to have good manners. Else\nit's intolerable to appear with her.\"\n\nGwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at\nthe notion of being a gawky. For she, too, with her melancholy distaste\nfor things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. But\nthe sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of\nexpectation toward any meeting with Deronda. The novelty and excitement\nof her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign\ntravel; whatever might be the inward despondency, there was a programme\nto be fulfilled, not without gratification to many-sided self. But, as\nalways happens with a deep interest, the comparatively rare occasions\non which she could exchange any words with Deronda had a diffusive\neffect in her consciousness, magnifying their communication with each\nother, and therefore enlarging the place she imagined it to have in his\nmind. How could Deronda help this? He certainly did not avoid her;\nrather he wished to convince her by every delicate indirect means that\nher confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it had not lowered\nhis respect. Moreover he liked being near her--how could it be\notherwise? She was something more than a problem: she was a lovely\nwoman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however\nfutile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps\nall the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it\nlying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he\nhad once been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might\nhave seized her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where\nthere was danger, had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need.\n\nOne instance in which Grandcourt stimulated a feeling in Gwendolen that\nhe would have liked to suppress without seeming to care about it, had\nrelation to Mirah. Gwendolen's inclination lingered over the project of\nthe singing lessons as a sort of obedience to Deronda's advice, but day\nfollowed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives\nwhere there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual\nliability to Grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten\nevery effort to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed;\nhis negative mind was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, and\nspoiling all contact.\n\nBut one morning when they were breakfasting, Gwendolen, in a recurrent\nfit of determination to exercise the old spirit, said, dallying\nprettily over her prawns without eating them--\n\n\"I think of making myself accomplished while we are in town, and having\nsinging lessons.\"\n\n\"Why?\" said Grandcourt, languidly.\n\n\"Why?\" echoed Gwendolen, playing at sauciness; \"because I can't eat\n_pâté de foie gras_ to make me sleepy, and I can't smoke, and I can't\ngo to the club to make me like to come away again--I want a variety of\n_ennui_. What would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with\nyour lawyers and people, for me to have lessons from that little\nJewess, whose singing is getting all the rage.\"\n\n\"Whenever you like,\" said Grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and\nleaning back in his chair while he looked at her with his most\nlizard-like expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on\nhis lap (Gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned\non him).\n\nThen he said, languidly, \"I don't see why a lady should sing. Amateurs\nmake fools of themselves. A lady can't risk herself in that way in\ncompany. And one doesn't want to hear squalling in private.\"\n\n\"I like frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm,\" said\nGwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned\nher eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the\nboiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. \"But;\"\nshe added, having devoured her mortification, \"I suppose you don't\nobject to Miss Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought\nof engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds,\nwho are very particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a\nmusician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in\nsuch good taste as hers for a drawing-room. I think his opinion is an\nauthority.\"\n\nShe meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way.\n\n\"It's very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl,\" said\nGrandcourt in a tone of indifference.\n\n\"Indecent!\" exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again,\novercome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable\nfalsity of the phrase--\"to go about praising.\"\n\n\"Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought\nto hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her.\"\n\n\"Men who judge of others by themselves,\" said Gwendolen, turning white\nafter her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own\nwords.\n\n\"Of course. And a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely\nto run her head into the wrong place,\" said Grandcourt, conscious of\nusing pinchers on that white creature. \"I suppose you take Deronda for\na saint.\"\n\n\"Oh dear no!\" said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost\nmiraculous power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone.\n\"Only a little less of a monster.\"\n\nShe rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the\nroom with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing\nthat he has taken more wine than usual. She turned the keys inside her\ndressing-room doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet\nas when she was leaving the breakfast-room. Even in the moments after\nreading the poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations\nthan now; for emotion was at the acute point, where it is not\ndistinguishable from sensation. Deronda unlike what she had believed\nhim to be, was an image which affected her as a hideous apparition\nwould have done, quite apart from the way in which it was produced. It\nhad taken hold of her as pain before she could consider whether it were\nfiction or truth; and further to hinder her power of resistance came\nthe sudden perception, how very slight were the grounds of her faith in\nDeronda--how little she knew of his life--how childish she had been in\nher confidence. His rebukes and his severity to her began to seem\nodious, along with all the poetry and lofty doctrine in the world,\nwhatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his face seemed the most\nunpleasant mask that the common habits of men could put on.\n\nAll this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her\nstart into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out\nthe gray sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her\nin warmth and light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently\nand looked round her--there was a world outside this bad dream, and the\ndream proved nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping\nher hands with her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from\noppressive feeling, and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams.\n\n\"It is not true! What does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?\"\nThis is what she repeated to herself--but this was not her faith come\nback again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation\nintolerable. And how could she go on through the day in this state?\nWith one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild\nactions by which she would convince herself of what she wished: she\nwould go to Lady Mallinger and question her about Mirah; she would\nwrite to Deronda and upbraid him with making the world all false and\nwicked and hopeless to her--to him she dared pour out all the bitter\nindignation of her heart. No; she would go to Mirah. This last form\ntaken by her need was more definitely practicable, and quickly became\nimperious. No matter what came of it. She had the pretext of asking\nMirah to sing at her party on the fourth. What was she going to say\nbeside? How satisfy? She did not foresee--she could not wait to\nforesee. If that idea which was maddening her had been a living thing,\nshe would have wanted to throttle it without waiting to foresee what\nwould come of the act. She rang her bell and asked if Mr. Grandcourt\nwere gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the carriage, and began\nto dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked about the large\ndrawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not recognizing herself\nin the glass panels, not noting any object around her in the painted\ngilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where she had been,\nand punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could neither\ndesire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had not\nbeen deluding herself in her trust.\n\nShe was provided with Mirah's address. Soon she was on the way with all\nthe fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart,\ndepending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning\nwhich she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what\nhappened before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of\nlobbies and passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of\neverything till she was in a room where there were folding-doors, and\nshe heard Deronda's voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was\nhelped by forecast, but she was as certain of it as if she had seen\nhim. She was frightened at her own agitation, and began to unbutton her\ngloves that she might button them again, and bite her lips over the\npretended difficulty, while the door opened, and Mirah presented\nherself with perfect quietude and a sweet smile of recognition. There\nwas relief in the sight of her face, and Gwendolen was able to smile in\nreturn, while she put out her hand in silence; and as she seated\nherself, all the while hearing the voice, she felt some reflux of\nenergy in the confused sense that the truth could not be anything that\nshe dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she felt that the\nsound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at her visitor\nwith placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone, with\nsomething that seemed like bashfulness--\n\n\"Perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps I ought to have written--but I\nwished to make a particular request.\"\n\n\"I am glad to see you instead of having a letter,\" said Mirah,\nwondering at the changed expression and manner of the \"Vandyke\nduchess,\" as Hans had taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and\nthe calmness of her own face were in strong contrast with the pale\nagitated beauty under the plumed hat.\n\n\"I thought,\" Gwendolen went on--\"at least I hoped, you would not object\nto sing at our house on the 4th--in the evening--at a party like Lady\nBrackenshaw's. I should be so much obliged.\"\n\n\"I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?\" said Mirah, while\nGwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed.\n\n\"At ten, please,\" she answered; then paused, and felt that she had\nnothing more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and\nsay good-bye. Deronda's voice was in her ears. She must say it--she\ncould contrive no other sentence--\n\n\"Mr. Deronda is in the next room.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mirah, in her former tone. \"He is reading Hebrew with my\nbrother.\"\n\n\"You have a brother?\" said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady\nMallinger, but had not minded it then.\n\n\"Yes, a dear brother who is ill-consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the\nbest of friends to him, as he has been to me,\" said Mirah, with the\nimpulse that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person\nindifferently.\n\n\"Tell me,\" said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah's, and speaking\nhardly above a whisper--\"tell me--tell me the truth. You are sure he is\nquite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is\nfalse.\"\n\nCould the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the\nstrange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity\nand indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her\nvoice, she said--\n\n\"Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil\nof him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so\nmiserable--I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken;\nyou would have thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me\nas if I had been a king's daughter. He took me to the best of women. He\nfound my brother for me. And he honors my brother--though he too was\npoor--oh, almost as poor as he could be. And my brother honors him.\nThat is no light thing to say\"--here Mirah's tone changed to one of\nprofound emphasis, and she shook her head backward: \"for my brother is\nvery learned and great-minded. And Mr. Deronda says there are few men\nequal to him.\" Some Jewish defiance had flamed into her indignant\ngratitude and her anger could not help including Gwendolen since she\nseemed to have doubted Deronda's goodness.\n\nBut Gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh\nwater that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. She did not\nnotice that Mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious\nof anything but of the penetrating sense that Deronda and his life were\nno more like her husband's conception than the morning in the horizon\nwas like the morning mixed with street gas. Even Mirah's words sank\ninto the indefiniteness of her relief. She could hardly have repeated\nthem, or said how her whole state of feeling was changed. She pressed\nMirah's hand, and said, \"Thank you, thank you,\" in a hurried whisper,\nthen rose, and added, with only a hazy consciousness, \"I must go, I\nshall see you--on the fourth--I am so much obliged\"--bowing herself out\nautomatically, while Mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what\nseemed a sudden retreat into chill loftiness.\n\nGwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward\nthe creature who had brought her relief. The passionate need of\ncontradiction to Grandcourt's estimate of Deronda, a need which had\nblunted her sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied\nthan she wanted to be gone. She began to be aware that she was out of\nplace, and to dread Deronda's seeing her. And once in the carriage\nagain, she had the vision of what awaited her at home. When she drew up\nbefore the door in Grosvenor Square, her husband was arriving with a\ncigar between his fingers. He threw it away and handed her out,\naccompanying her up-stairs. She turned into the drawing-room, lest he\nshould follow her farther and give her no place to retreat to; then she\nsat down with a weary air, taking off her gloves, rubbing her hand over\nher forehead, and making his presence as much of a cipher as possible.\nBut he sat, too, and not far from her--just in front, where to avoid\nlooking at him must have the emphasis of effort.\n\n\"May I ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?\" said\nGrandcourt.\n\n\"Oh, yes; I have been to Miss Lapidoth's, to ask her to come and sing\nfor us,\" said Gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside\nher, and looking down at them.\n\n\"And to ask her about her relations with Deronda?\" said Grandcourt,\nwith the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor\nGwendolen's ear was diabolical.\n\nFor the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him\nwithout inward check. Turning her eyes full on his she said, in a\nbiting tone--\n\n\"Yes; and what you said is false--a low, wicked falsehood.\"\n\n\"She told you so--did she?\" returned Grandcourt, with a more thoroughly\ndistilled sneer.\n\nGwendolen was mute. The daring anger within her was turned into the\nrage of dumbness. What reasons for her belief could she give? All the\nreasons that seemed so strong and living within her--she saw them\nsuffocated and shrivelled up under her husband's breath. There was no\nproof to give, but her own impression, which would seem to him her own\nfolly. She turned her head quickly away from him and looked angrily\ntoward the end of the room: she would have risen, but he was in her way.\n\nGrandcourt saw his advantage. \"It's of no consequence so far as her\nsinging goes,\" he said, in his superficial drawl. \"You can have her to\nsing, if you like.\" Then, after a pause, he added in his lowest\nimperious tone, \"But you will please to observe that you are not to go\nnear that house again. As my wife, you must take my word about what is\nproper for you. When you undertook to be Mrs. Grandcourt, you undertook\nnot to make a fool of yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself\nthis morning; and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might\nsoon get yourself talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like.\nWhat do _you_ know about the world? You have married _me_, and must be\nguided by my opinion.\"\n\nEvery slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for\nGwendolen's nature. If the low tones had come from a physician telling\nher that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and\nprognosticating its course, she could not have been more helpless\nagainst the argument that lay in it. But she was permitted to move now,\nand her husband never again made any reference to what had occurred\nthis morning. He knew the force of his own words. If this white-handed\nman with the perpendicular profile had been sent to govern a difficult\ncolony, he might have won reputation among his contemporaries. He had\ncertainly ability, would have understood that it was safer to\nexterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and would not have\nflinched from making things safe in that way.\n\nGwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered\nfaith;--rather, she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a\nProtestant of old kept his bible hidden or a Catholic his crucifix,\naccording to the side favored by the civil arm; and it was\ncharacteristic of her that apart from the impression gained concerning\nDeronda in that visit, her imagination was little occupied with Mirah\nor the eulogised brother. The one result established for her was, that\nDeronda had acted simply as a generous benefactor, and the phrase\n\"reading Hebrew\" had fleeted unimpressively across her sense of\nhearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar flight across\nher landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on its natural\nhistory.\n\nBut the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a\nstrongly active part in the process which made an habitual conflict\nwithin her, and was the cause of some external change perhaps not\nobserved by any one except Deronda. As the weeks went on bringing\noccasional transient interviews with her, he thought that he perceived\nin her an intensifying of her superficial hardness and resolute\ndisplay, which made her abrupt betrayals of agitation the more marked\nand disturbing to him.\n\nIn fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory\nwhich, as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with\na terrible strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half.\nGrandcourt had an active divination rather than discernment of\nrefractoriness in her, and what had happened about Mirah quickened his\nsuspicion that there was an increase of it dependent on the occasions\nwhen she happened to see Deronda: there was some \"confounded nonsense\"\nbetween them: he did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his\nimagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it was\nnonsense that evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind--an\ninward action which might become disagreeable outward. Husbands in the\nold time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in\ntheir wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending\nin that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague\nperception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which the unity between\nthem in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. Among\nthe means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than\nthe speeches we have just heard.\n\nHe determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was\nmaking, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved\nthe fact of his relation to Mrs. Glasher and her children; and that\nthere should be any overt recognition of this between Gwendolen and\nhimself was supremely repugnant to him. Like all proud, closely-wrapped\nnatures, he shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities,\nif they were personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him\non the subject of shoes and stockings. And clashing was intolerable to\nhim; his habitual want was to put collision out of the question by the\nquiet massive pressure of his rule. But he wished Gwendolen to know\nthat before he made her an offer it was no secret to him that she was\naware of his relations with Lydia, her previous knowledge being the\napology for bringing the subject before her now. Some men in his place\nmight have thought of writing what he wanted her to know, in the form\nof a letter. But Grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a\nbore to him, and he had long been accustomed to have all his writing\ndone by Lush. We know that there are persons who will forego their own\nobvious interest rather than do anything so disagreeable as to write\nletters; and it is not probable that these imperfect utilitarians would\nrush into manuscript and syntax on a difficult subject in order to save\nanother's feelings. To Grandcourt it did not even occur that he should,\nwould, or could write to Gwendolen the information in question; and the\nonly medium of communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind,\nwas as much of an implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt\nhad his reserves, and would not have uttered a word likely to encourage\nLush in an impudent sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage\nwhich had been discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes\nbelieving too little in his penetration, and too much in his\ndiscretion? Grandcourt had always allowed Lush to know his external\naffairs indiscriminately--irregularities, debts, want of ready money;\nhe had only used discrimination about what he would allow his confidant\nto say to him; and he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that\nthe having him at call in London was a recovery of lost ease. It\nfollowed that Lush knew all the provisions of the will more exactly\nthan they were known to the testator himself.\n\nGrandcourt did not doubt that Gwendolen, since she was a woman who\ncould put two and two together, knew or suspected Lush to be the\ncontriver of her interview with Lydia, and that this was the reason why\nher first request was for his banishment. But the bent of a woman's\ninferences on mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not\ndetermined by her capacity for simple addition; and here Grandcourt\nlacked the only organ of thinking that could have saved him from\nmistake--namely, some experience of the mixed passions concerned. He\nhad correctly divined one-half of Gwendolen's dread--all that related\nto her personal pride, and her perception that his will must conquer\nhers; but the remorseful half, even if he had known of her broken\npromise, was as much out of his imagination as the other side of the\nmoon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia was solely a tongue-tied\njealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have written with the jewels\nwas the fact that she had once been used to wearing them, with other\namenities such as he imputed to the intercourse with jealous women. He\nhad the triumphant certainty that he could aggravate the jealousy and\nyet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. His object was to engage\nall his wife's egoism on the same side as his own, and in his\nemployment of Lush he did not intend an insult to her: she ought to\nunderstand that he was the only possible envoy. Grandcourt's view of\nthings was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what\nsuited him others must put up with. There is no escaping the fact that\nwant of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. Mephistopheles\nthrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would\ninevitably make blunders.\n\nOne morning he went to Gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back\ndrawing-room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered,\nmost persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as\nshe sat with a book on her lap--\n\n\"A--Gwendolen, there's some business about property to be explained. I\nhave told Lush to come and explain it to you. He knows all about these\nthings. I am going out. He can come up now. He's the only person who\ncan explain. I suppose you'll not mind.\"\n\n\"You know that I do mind,\" said Gwendolen, angrily, starting up. \"I\nshall not see him.\" She showed the intention to dart away to the door.\nGrandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. He was prepared for\nher anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of\nremonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining\nout--\n\n\"It's no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world\nthat one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a\nfuss about such things. Some business must be done. You can't expect\nagreeable people to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you\nis to take it as a matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not\nto toss your head and bite your lips about people of that sort.\"\n\nThe drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave\ntime for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance.\nWhat was there to be told her about property? This word had certain\ndominant associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs.\nGlasher and her children. What would be the use if she refused to see\nLush? Could she ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be\nintolerable, even if he consented, which it was certain he would not,\nif he had made up his mind to the contrary. The humiliation of standing\nan obvious prisoner, with her husband barring the door, was not to be\nborne any longer, and she turned away to lean against a cabinet, while\nGrandcourt again moved toward her.\n\n\"I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out,\" he said,\nafter a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. \"Shall I\ntell him he may come?\"\n\nYet another pause before she could say \"Yes\"--her face turned obliquely\nand her eyes cast down.\n\n\"I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready,\" said\nGrandcourt. No answer. \"She is in a desperate rage,\" thought he. But\nthe rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed\nthat he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her\neyelids down, and she did not move them until he was on the other side\nof the door.\n\nWhat was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she\nfound no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic illusions she had had\nin marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked.\nHe was using her as he liked.\n\nShe sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing\noperation that she had to go through. The facts that galled her\ngathered a burning power when she thought of their lying in his mind.\nIt was all a part of that new gambling, in which the losing was not\nsimply a _minus_, but a terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her\nreckoning.\n\nLush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task.\nGrandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, \"Don't make yourself\nmore disagreeable than nature obliges you.\"\n\n\"That depends,\" thought Lush. But he said, \"I will write a brief\nabstract for Mrs. Grandcourt to read.\" He did not suggest that he\nshould make the whole communication in writing, which was a proof that\nthe interview did not wholly displease him.\n\nSome provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no\nreason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with\nhim. He was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets\nof the situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. He had only\nthe small movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning\nthat this marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as\nsatisfactory as the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and\nas Grandcourt wished to feign that it was. He had no persistent spite\nmuch stronger than what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to\nthose who repeat it and exaggerate it by their conjectures. With no\nactive compassion or good-will, he had just as little active\nmalevolence, being chiefly occupied in liking his particular pleasures,\nand not disliking anything but what hindered those\npleasures--everything else ranking with the last murder and the last\n_opéra bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about. Nevertheless,\nhe was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated uncivilly by a\nbeautiful woman, or to the counter-balancing fact that his present\ncommission put into his hands an official power of humiliating her. He\ndid not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so gifted\nin relation to us that their \"How do you do?\" seems charged with\noffense.\n\nBy the time that Mr. Lush was announced, Gwendolen had braced herself\nto a bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal\nof her feeling, whatever he might have to tell. She invited him to sit\ndown with stately quietude. After all, what was this man to her? He was\nnot in the least like her husband. Her power of hating a coarse,\nfamiliar-mannered man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the\nintensity with which she hated his contrast.\n\nHe held a small paper folded in his hand while he spoke.\n\n\"I need hardly say that I should not have presented myself if Mr.\nGrandcourt had not expressed a strong wish to that effect--as no doubt\nhe has mentioned to you.\"\n\nFrom some voices that speech might have sounded entirely reverential,\nand even timidly apologetic. Lush had no intention to the contrary, but\nto Gwendolen's ear his words had as much insolence in them as his\nprominent eyes, and the pronoun \"you\" was too familiar. He ought to\nhave addressed the folding-screen, and spoke of her as Mrs. Grandcourt.\nShe gave the smallest sign of a bow, and Lush went on, with a little\nawkwardness, getting entangled in what is elegantly called tautology.\n\n\"My having been in Mr. Grandcourt's confidence for fifteen years or\nmore--since he was a youth, in fact--of course gives me a peculiar\nposition. He can speak to me of affairs that he could not mention to\nany one else; and, in fact, he could not have employed any one else in\nthis affair. I have accepted the task out of friendship for him. Which\nis my apology for accepting the task--if you would have preferred some\none else.\"\n\nHe paused, but she made no sign, and Lush, to give himself a\ncountenance in an apology which met no acceptance, opened the folded\npaper, and looked at it vaguely before he began to speak again.\n\n\"This paper contains some information about Mr. Grandcourt's will, an\nabstract of a part he wished you to know--if you'll be good enough to\ncast your eyes over it. But there is something I had to say by way of\nintroduction--which I hope you'll pardon me for, if it's not quite\nagreeable.\" Lush found that he was behaving better than he had\nexpected, and had no idea how insulting he made himself with his \"not\nquite agreeable.\"\n\n\"Say what you have to say without apologizing, please,\" said Gwendolen,\nwith the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a\nreward for finding the dog he had stolen.\n\n\"I have only to remind you of something that occurred before your\nengagement to Mr. Grandcourt,\" said Lush, not without the rise of some\nwilling insolence in exchange for her scorn. \"You met a lady in Cardell\nChase, if you remember, who spoke to you of her position with regard to\nMr. Grandcourt. She had children with her--one a very fine boy.\"\n\nGwendolen's lips were almost as pale as her cheeks; her passion had no\nweapons--words were no better than chips. This man's speech was like a\nsharp knife-edge drawn across her skin: but even her indignation at the\nemployment of Lush was getting merged in a crowd of other feelings, dim\nand alarming as a crowd of ghosts.\n\n\"Mr. Grandcourt was aware that you were acquainted with this\nunfortunate affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his\nposition and intentions should be made quite clear to you. It is an\naffair of property and prospects; and if there were any objection you\nhad to make, if you would mention it to me--it is a subject which of\ncourse he would rather not speak about himself--if you will be good\nenough just to read this.\" With the last words Lush rose and presented\nthe paper to her.\n\nWhen Gwendolen resolved that she would betray no feeling in the\npresence of this man, she had not prepared herself to hear that her\nhusband knew the silent consciousness, the silently accepted terms on\nwhich she had married him. She dared not raise her hand to take the\npaper, least it should visibly tremble. For a moment Lush stood holding\nit toward her, and she felt his gaze on her as ignominy, before she\ncould say even with low-toned haughtiness--\n\n\"Lay it on the table. And go into the next room, please.\"\n\nLush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back\ndrawing-room, \"My lady winces considerably. She didn't know what would\nbe the charge for that superfine article, Henleigh Grandcourt.\" But it\nseemed to him that a penniless girl had done better than she had any\nright to expect, and that she had been uncommonly knowing for her years\nand opportunities: her words to Lydia meant nothing, and her running\naway had probably been part of her adroitness. It had turned out a\nmaster-stroke.\n\nMeanwhile Gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the\npaper. She must read it. Her whole being--pride, longing for rebellion,\ndreams of freedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh\nvisitation--all made one need to know what the paper contained. But at\nfirst it was not easy to take in the meaning of the words. When she had\nsucceeded, she found that in the case of there being no son as issue of\nher marriage, Grandcourt had made the small Henleigh his heir; that was\nall she cared to extract from the paper with any distinctness. The\nother statement as to what provision would be made for her in the same\ncase, she hurried over, getting only a confused perception of thousands\nand Gadsmere. It was enough. She could dismiss the man in the next room\nwith the defiant energy which had revived in her at the idea that this\nquestion of property and inheritance was meant as a finish to her\nhumiliations and her thraldom.\n\nShe thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in\nher hand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where\nLush immediately arose, awaiting her approach. When she was four yards\nfrom him, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high\ntone, while she swept him with her eyelashes--\n\n\"Tell Mr. Grandcourt that his arrangements are just what I\ndesired\"--passing on without haste, and leaving Lush time to mingle\nsome admiration of her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her\nspirit and impertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and\njust thrusting his tongue between his teeth. He really did not want her\nto be worse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go\nand lunch at the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad.\n\nWhat did Gwendolen look forward to? When her husband returned he found\nher equipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. She was\nnot again going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was\nill. That was the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she\ncould have framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving\nLush behind her. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and\nnot to give herself time to reflect. She rang the bell for her maid,\nand went with the usual care through her change of toilet. Doubtless\nher husband had meant to produce a great effect on her: by-and-by\nperhaps she would let him see an effect the very opposite of what he\nintended; but at present all that she could show was a defiant\nsatisfaction in what had been presumed to be disagreeable. It came as\nan instinct rather than a thought, that to show any sign which could be\ninterpreted as jealousy, when she had just been insultingly reminded\nthat the conditions were what she had accepted with her eyes open,\nwould be the worst self-humiliation. She said to herself that she had\nnot time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all she could be\nclear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring any ground\nfor excitement. She not only rode, but went out with him to dine,\ncontributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that\nof rapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected a\nhandkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent--a\nscent that Grandcourt had once objected to. Gwendolen would not have\nliked to be an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she\nliked all disgust to be on her side.\n\nBut to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk\nwithout singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our\npassion is as penetrative as air--everything is porous to it; bows,\nsmiles, conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts\nrushes freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting\nherself up in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten\nhours to have gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already\nthe same succession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious\noutlets rejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every\ncourse. Already she was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling\nthat she was under eyes which saw her past actions solely in the light\nof her lowest motives. She lived back in the scenes of her courtship,\nwith the new bitter consciousness of what had been in Grandcourt's\nmind--certain now, with her present experience of him, that he had a\npeculiar triumph in conquering her dumb repugnance, and that ever since\ntheir marriage he had had a cold exultation in knowing her fancied\nsecret. Her imagination exaggerated every tyrannical impulse he was\ncapable of. \"I will insist on being separated from him\"--was her first\ndarting determination; then, \"I will leave him whether he consents or\nnot. If this boy becomes his heir, I have made an atonement.\" But\nneither in darkness nor in daylight could she imagine the scenes which\nmust carry out those determinations with the courage to feel them\nendurable. How could she run away to her own family--carry distress\namong them, and render herself an object of scandal in the society she\nhad left behind her? What future lay before her as Mrs. Grandcourt gone\nback to her mother, who would be made destitute again by the rupture of\nthe marriage for which one chief excuse had been that it had brought\nthat mother a maintenance? She had lately been seeing her uncle and\nAnna in London, and though she had been saved from any difficulty about\ninviting them to stay in Grosvenor Square by their wish to be with Rex,\nwho would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visit she had had\nfrom them helped now in giving stronger color to the picture of what it\nwould be for her to take refuge in her own family. What could she say\nto justify her flight? Her uncle would tell her to go back. Her mother\nwould cry. Her aunt and Anna would look at her with wondering alarm.\nHer husband would have power to compel her. She had absolutely nothing\nthat she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears. And to\n\"insist on separation!\" That was an easy combination of words; but\nconsidered as an action to be executed against Grandcourt, it would be\nabout as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread of\nother people's unwillingness. How was she to begin? What was she to say\nthat would not be a condemnation of herself? \"If I am to have misery\nanyhow,\" was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, \"I had better\nhave the misery that I can keep to myself.\" Moreover, her capability of\nrectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain of\nher contract, or to withdraw from it.\n\nAnd always among the images that drove her back to submission was\nDeronda. The idea of herself separated from her husband, gave Deronda a\nchanged, perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively\nshe felt that the separation would be from him too, and in the\nprospective vision of herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman,\nshe felt some tingling bashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior\ntowards him. The association of Deronda with a dubious position for\nherself was intolerable. And what would he say if he knew everything?\nProbably that she ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless\nshe were sure that she could make herself a better woman by taking any\nother course. And what sort of woman was she to be--solitary, sickened\nof life, looked at with a suspicious kind of pity?--even if she could\ndream of success in getting that dreary freedom. Mrs. Grandcourt \"run\naway\" would be a more pitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth\ncondemned to teach the bishop's daughters, and to be inspected by Mrs.\nMompert.\n\nOne characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. She would\nnot look a second time at the paper Lush had given her; and before\nringing for her maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at\nhand, proudly resolved against curiosity about what was allotted to\nherself in connection with Gadsmere--feeling herself branded in the\nminds of her husband and his confidant with the meanness that would\naccept marriage and wealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and\nhumiliating.\n\nDay after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There came\nnothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only a\nrecurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and\nstill Mrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting\nherself as she was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the\naccustomed grace, beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the\nweek, through all the scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the\nother. Church was not markedly distinguished in her mind from the other\nforms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction\nthat enabled her to connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of\nthe world than that of unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social\nfashions. While a laudable zeal was laboring to carry the light of\nspiritual law up the alleys where law is chiefly known as the\npoliceman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt, condescending a little to a\nfashionable rector and conscious of a feminine advantage over a learned\ndean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were\nconcerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse.\n\nCan we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive\nrebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number\nof persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous\nunwearied statement of the reasons against their submitting to a\nsituation which, on inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable\nwithin their reach. Poor Gwendolen had both too much and too little\nmental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. No wonder that\nDeronda now marked some hardening in a look and manner which were\nschooled daily to the suppression of feeling.\n\nFor example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by her\nside, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing\nthem, a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at\nonce recognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her\nto behold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk;\nhe being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and\nGwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from\nthe dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled\npast the group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition.\n\nImmediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame\nfor herself, and the words, \"You might at least have raised your hat to\nher,\" flew impetuously to her lips--but did not pass them. If as her\nhusband, in her company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she\nherself had excluded from the place she was filling, how could she be\nthe person to reproach him? She was dumb.\n\nIt was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher\nthere with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making\npurchases--really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and\nhad had interviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her\nuneasy mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her\nultimate triumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the\nmarriage dissolve itself in one way or other--Lush hinted at several\nways--leaving the succession assured to her boy. She had had an\ninterview with Grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave\nlike a reasonable woman, and threatened punishment if she were\ntroublesome; but had, also as usual, vindicated himself from any wish\nto be stingy, the money he was receiving from Sir Hugo on account of\nDiplow encouraging him to be lavish. Lydia, feeding on the\nprobabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless wrath along with that\npleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her discretion go\nentirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparition before\nGwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet of\nvenom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the\nother side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush\nthe likely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that\npost, daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh\ninto the Park?\n\nThe Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia's conception by\nthe shock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this\nwoman who had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the\nchildren she had borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast\non the lot of a woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread\nitself over her visions of a future that might be her own, and made\npart of her dread on her own behalf. She shrank all the more from any\nlonely action. What possible release could there be for her from this\nhated vantage ground, which yet she dared not quit, any more than if\nfire had been raining outside it? What release, but death? Not her own\ndeath. Gwendolen was not a woman who could easily think of her own\ndeath as a near reality, or front for herself the dark entrance on the\nuntried and invisible. It seemed more possible that Grandcourt should\ndie:--and yet not likely. The power of tyranny in him seemed a power of\nliving in the presence of any wish that he should die. The thought that\nhis death was the only possible deliverance for her was one with the\nthought that deliverance would never come--the double deliverance from\nthe injury with which other beings might reproach her and from the yoke\nshe had brought on her own neck. No! she foresaw him always living, and\nher own life dominated by him; the \"always\" of her young experience not\nstretching beyond the few immediate years that seemed immeasurably long\nwith her passionate weariness. The thought of his dying would not\nsubsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terror that she\nshould die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging that\nthought. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in her\nmore acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: dark\nrays doing their work invisibly in the broad light.\n\nOnly an evening or two after that encounter in the Park, there was a\ngrand concert at Klesmer's, who was living rather magnificently now in\none of the large houses in Grosvenor Place, a patron and prince among\nmusical professors. Gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as\none on which she was sure to meet Deronda, and she had been meditating\nhow to put a question to him which, without containing a word that she\nwould feel a dislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to\nunderstand it. The struggle of opposite feelings would not let her\nabide by her instinct that the very idea of Deronda's relation to her\nwas a discouragement to any desperate step towards freedom. The next\nwave of emotion was a longing for some word of his to enforce a\nresolve. The fact that her opportunities of conversation with him had\nalways to be snatched in the doubtful privacy of large parties, caused\nher to live through them many times beforehand, imagining how they\nwould take place and what she would say. The irritation was\nproportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at Klesmer's\nshe included Deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as\npossible at a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying\nher impatience to every one who spoke to her. She found her only safety\nin a chill haughtiness which made Mr. Vandernoodt remark that Mrs.\nGrandcourt was becoming a perfect match for her husband. When at last\nthe chances of the evening brought Deronda near her, Sir Hugo and Mrs.\nRaymond were close by and could hear every word she said. No matter:\nher husband was not near, and her irritation passed without check into\na fit of daring which restored the security of her self-possession.\nDeronda was there at last, and she would compel him to do what she\npleased. Already and without effort rather queenly in her air as she\nstood in her white lace and green leaves she threw a royal\npermissiveness into her way of saying, \"I wish you would come and see\nme to-morrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda.\"\n\nThere could be but one answer at that moment: \"Certainly,\" with a tone\nof obedience.\n\nAfterward it occurred to Deronda that he would write a note to excuse\nhimself. He had always avoided making a call at Grandcourt's. He could\nnot persuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his\nexcuse were taken for indifference or for the affectation of\nindifference it would be equally wounding. He kept his promise.\nGwendolen had declined to ride out on the plea of not feeling well\nenough having left her refusal to the last moment when the horses were\nsoon to be at the door--not without alarm lest her husband should say\nthat he too would stay at home. Become almost superstitious about his\npower of suspicious divination, she had a glancing forethought of what\nshe would do in that case--namely, have herself denied as not well. But\nGrandcourt accepted her excuse without remark, and rode off.\n\nNevertheless when Gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down the\norder that only Mr. Deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed\nat what she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought\nthat he would soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not\nof trivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come:\nand yet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seem\nimpossible. For the first time the impulse of appeal to him was being\nchecked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by the\npossibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. If so, she\nwould have sunk in his esteem. But immediately she resisted this\nintolerable fear as an infection from her husband's way of thinking.\nThat _he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a\nreason why such a judgment would be remote from Deronda's mind. But\nthat she could not rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly\nreticence was manifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to\nher before. In her struggle between agitation and the effort to\nsuppress it, she was walking up and down the length of the two\ndrawing-rooms, where at one end a long mirror reflected her in her\nblack dress, chosen in the early morning with a half-admitted reference\nto this hour. But above this black dress her head on its white pillar\nof a neck showed to advantage. Some consciousness of this made her turn\nhastily and hurry to the boudoir, where again there was a glass, but\nalso, tossed over a chair, a large piece of black lace which she\nsnatched and tied over her crown of hair so as completely to conceal\nher neck, and leave only her face looking out from the black frame. In\nthis manifest contempt of appearance, she thought it possible to be\nfreer from nervousness, but the black lace did not take away the\nuneasiness from her eyes and lips.\n\nShe was standing in the middle of the room when Deronda was announced,\nand as he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was\nnot his usual self. She could not have defined the change except by\nsaying that he looked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under\nsome effort in speaking to her. And yet the speaking was the slightest\npossible. They both said, \"How do you do?\" quite curtly; and Gwendolen,\ninstead of sitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms\nslightly on the tall back of a chair, while Deronda stood where he\nwas,--both feeling it difficult to say any more, though the\npreoccupation in his mind could hardly have been more remote than it\nwas from Gwendolen's conception. She naturally saw in his embarrassment\nsome reflection of her own. Forced to speak, she found all her training\nin concealment and self-command of no use to her and began with timid\nawkwardness--\n\n\"You will wonder why I begged you to come. I wanted to ask you\nsomething. You said I was ignorant. That is true. And what can I do but\nask you?\"\n\nAnd at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put the\nquestions she had intended. Something new in her nervous manner roused\nDeronda's anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. He said with the\nsadness of affection in his voice--\n\n\"My only regret is, that I can be of so little use to you.\" The words\nand the tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more\nsense of freedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to\nsay, and beginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right\nwords.\n\n\"I wanted to tell you that I have always been thinking of your advice,\nbut is it any use?--I can't make myself different, because things about\nme raise bad feelings--and I must go on--I can alter nothing--it is no\nuse.\"\n\nShe paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding\nthe right words, but began again hurriedly, \"But if I go on I shall get\nworse. I want not to get worse. I should like to be what you wish.\nThere are people who are good and enjoy great things--I know there are.\nI am a contemptible creature. I feel as if I should get wicked with\nhating people. I have tried to think that I would go away from\neverybody. But I can't. There are so many things to hinder me. You\nthink, perhaps, that I don't mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of\neverything. I am afraid of getting wicked. Tell me what I can do.\"\n\nShe had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery\nwhich she was trying to make present to Deronda in broken allusive\nspeech--wishing to convey but not express all her need. Her eyes were\ntearless, and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there\nwas a subdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it\nwas hardly above a whisper. She was hurting herself with the jewels\nthat glittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart.\n\nThe feeling Deronda endured in these moments he afterward called\nhorrible. Words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had\nbeen beholding a vessel in peril of wreck--the poor ship with its\nmany-lived anguish beaten by the inescapable storm. How could he grasp\nthe long-growing process of this young creature's wretchedness?--how\narrest and change it with a sentence? He was afraid of his own voice.\nThe words that rushed into his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing\nbetter than despair made audible, or than that insensibility to\nanother's hardship which applies precept to soothe pain. He felt\nhimself holding a crowd of words imprisoned within his lips, as if the\nletting them escape would be a violation of awe before the mysteries of\nour human lot. The thought that urged itself foremost was--\"Confess\neverything to your husband; have nothing concealed:\"--the words carried\nin his mind a vision of reasons which would have needed much fuller\nexpressions for Gwendolen to apprehend them, but before he had begun\nthose brief sentences, the door opened and the husband entered.\n\nGrandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy a\nsuspicion. What he saw was Gwendolen's face of anguish framed black\nlike a nun's, and Deronda standing three yards from her with a look of\nsorrow such as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a\nbeloved object. Without any show of surprise Grandcourt nodded to\nDeronda, gave a second look at Gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself\neasily at a little distance crossing his legs, taking out his\nhandkerchief and trifling with it elegantly.\n\nGwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she\ndid not turn or move from her place. It was not a moment in which she\ncould feign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: the\npassionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her.\nWhat she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview\nwith Deronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. But he, naturally,\nwas urged into self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what\nmight follow for her from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of\nagitation; and feeling that any pretence of ease in prolonging his\nvisit would only exaggerate Grandcourt's possible conjectures of\nduplicity, he merely said--\n\n\"I will not stay longer now. Good bye.\"\n\nHe put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill\nfingers; but she said no good-bye.\n\nWhen he had left the room, Gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with an\nexpectation as dull as her despair--the expectation that she was going\nto be punished. But Grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have\nlet her know that she had not deceived him, and to keep a silence which\nwas formidable with omniscience. He went out that evening, and her plea\nof feeling ill was accepted without even a sneer.\n\nThe next morning at breakfast he said, \"I am going yachting to the\nMediterranean.\"\n\n\"When?\" said Gwendolen, with a leap of heart which had hope in it.\n\n\"The day after to-morrow. The yacht is at Marseilles. Lush is gone to\nget everything ready.\"\n\n\"Shall I have mamma to stay with me, then?\" said Gwendolen, the new\nsudden possibility of peace and affection filling her mind like a burst\nof morning light.\n\n\"No; you will go with me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XLIX.\n\n        Ever in his soul\n  That larger justice which makes gratitude\n  Triumphed above resentment. 'Tis the mark\n  Of regal natures, with the wider life.\n  And fuller capability of joy:--\n  Not wits exultant in the strongest lens\n  To show you goodness vanished into pulp\n  Never worth \"thank you\"--they're the devil's friars,\n  Vowed to be poor as he in love and trust,\n  Yet must go begging of a world that keeps\n  Some human property.\n\n\nDeronda, in parting from Gwendolen, had abstained from saying, \"I shall\nnot see you again for a long while: I am going away,\" lest Grandcourt\nshould understand him to imply that the fact was of importance to her.\n\nHe was actually going away under circumstances so momentous to himself\nthat when he set out to fulfill his promise of calling on her, he was\nalready under the shadow of a solemn emotion which revived the deepest\nexperience of his life.\n\nSir Hugo had sent for him to his chambers with the note--\"Come\nimmediately. Something has happened:\" a preparation that caused him\nsome relief when, on entering the baronet's study, he was received with\ngrave affection instead of the distress which he had apprehended.\n\n\"It is nothing to grieve you, sir?\" said Deronda, in a tone rather of\nrestored confidence than question, as he took the hand held out to him.\nThere was an unusual meaning in Sir Hugo's look, and a subdued emotion\nin his voice, as he said--\n\n\"No, Dan, no. Sit down. I have something to say.\"\n\nDeronda obeyed, not without presentiment. It was extremely rare for Sir\nHugo to show so much serious feeling.\n\n\"Not to grieve me, my boy, no. At least, if there is nothing in it that\nwill grieve you too much. But I hardly expected that this--just\nthis--would ever happen. There have been reasons why I have never\nprepared you for it. There have been reasons why I have never told you\nanything about your parentage. But I have striven in every way not to\nmake that an injury to you.\"\n\nSir Hugo paused, but Deronda could not speak. He could not say, \"I have\nnever felt it an injury.\" Even if that had been true, he could not have\ntrusted his voice to say anything. Far more than any one but himself\ncould know of was hanging on this moment when the secrecy was to be\nbroken. Sir Hugo had never seen the grand face he delighted in so\npale--the lips pressed together with such a look of pain. He went on\nwith a more anxious tenderness, as if he had a new fear of wounding.\n\n\"I have acted in obedience to your mother's wishes. The secrecy was her\nwish. But now she desires to remove it. She desires to see you. I will\nput this letter into your hands, which you can look at by-and-by. It\nwill merely tell you what she wishes you to do, and where you will find\nher.\"\n\nSir Hugo held out a letter written on foreign paper, which Deronda\nthrust into his breast-pocket, with a sense of relief that he was not\ncalled on to read anything immediately. The emotion on Daniel's face\nhad gained on the baronet, and was visibly shaking his composure. Sir\nHugo found it difficult to say more. And Deronda's whole soul was\npossessed by a question which was the hardest in the world to utter.\nYet he could not bear to delay it. This was a sacramental moment. If he\nlet it pass, he could not recover the influences under which it was\npossible to utter the words and meet the answer. For some moments his\neyes were cast down, and it seemed to both as if thoughts were in the\nair between them. But at last Deronda looked at Sir Hugo, and said,\nwith a tremulous reverence in his voice--dreading to convey indirectly\nthe reproach that affection had for years been stifling--\n\n\"Is my father also living?\"\n\nThe answer came immediately in a low emphatic tone--\"No.\"\n\nIn the mingled emotions which followed that answer it was impossible to\ndistinguish joy from pain.\n\nSome new light had fallen on the past for Sir Hugo too in this\ninterview. After a silence in which Deronda felt like one whose creed\nis gone before he has religiously embraced another, the baronet said,\nin a tone of confession--\n\n\"Perhaps I was wrong, Dan, to undertake what I did. And perhaps I liked\nit a little too well--having you all to myself. But if you have had any\npain which I might have helped, I ask you to forgive me.\"\n\n\"The forgiveness has long been there,\" said Deronda \"The chief pain has\nalways been on account of some one else--whom I never knew--whom I am\nnow to know. It has not hindered me from feeling an affection for you\nwhich has made a large part of all the life I remember.\"\n\nIt seemed one impulse that made the two men clasp each other's hand for\na moment.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VII.--THE MOTHER AND THE SON\n\n\nCHAPTER L.\n\n        \"If some mortal, born too soon,\n  Were laid away in some great trance--the ages\n  Coming and going all the while--till dawned\n  His true time's advent; and could then record\n  The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed,\n  Then I might tell more of the breath so light\n  Upon my eyelids, and the fingers warm\n  Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never\n  So dull was I but, when that spirit passed,\n  I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns\n  A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep.\"\n                    --BROWNING: _Paracelsus_.\n\n\nThis was the letter which Sir Hugo put into Deronda's hands:--\n\n    TO MY SON, DANIEL DERONDA.\n\n    My good friend and yours, Sir Hugo Mallinger, will have told you that\n    I wish to see you. My health is shaken, and I desire there should be\n    no time lost before I deliver to you what I have long withheld. Let\n    nothing hinder you from being at the _Albergo dell' Italia_ in\n    Genoa by the fourteenth of this month. Wait for me there. I am\n    uncertain when I shall be able to make the journey from Spezia, where\n    I shall be staying. That will depend on several things. Wait for\n    me--the Princess Halm-Eberstein. Bring with you the diamond ring that\n    Sir Hugo gave you. I shall like to see it again.--Your unknown mother,\n\n    LEONORA HALM-EBERSTEIN.\n\nThis letter with its colorless wording gave Deronda no clue to what was\nin reserve for him; but he could not do otherwise than accept Sir\nHugo's reticence, which seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate\nthe mother's disclosures; and the discovery that his life-long\nconjectures had been mistaken checked further surmise. Deronda could\nnot hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed\npossibilities, but he refused to contemplate any of them as more likely\nthan another, lest he should be nursing it into a dominant desire or\nrepugnance, instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet\nthe fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be.\n\nIn this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the\nreason for the absence which in some quarters he was obliged to mention\nbeforehand, least of all to Mordecai, whom it would affect as\npowerfully as it did himself, only in rather a different way. If he\nwere to say, \"I am going to learn the truth about my birth,\" Mordecai's\nhope would gather what might prove a painful, dangerous excitement. To\nexclude suppositions, he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by\nSir Hugo's wish, and threw as much indifference as he could into his\nmanner of announcing it, saying he was uncertain of its duration, but\nit would perhaps be very short.\n\n\"I will ask to have the child Jacob to stay with me,\" said Mordecai,\ncomforting himself in this way, after the first mournful glances.\n\n\"I will drive round and ask Mrs. Cohen to let him come,\" said Mirah.\n\n\"The grandmother will deny you nothing,\" said Deronda. \"I'm glad you\nwere a little wrong as well as I,\" he added, smiling at Mordecai. \"You\nthought that old Mrs. Cohen would not bear to see Mirah.\"\n\n\"I undervalued her heart,\" said Mordecai. \"She is capable of rejoicing\nthat another's plant blooms though her own be withered.\"\n\n\"Oh, they are dear good people; I feel as if we all belonged to each\nother,\" said Mirah, with a tinge of merriment in her smile.\n\n\"What should you have felt if that Ezra had been your brother?\" said\nDeronda, mischievously--a little provoked that she had taken kindly at\nonce to people who had caused him so much prospective annoyance on her\naccount.\n\nMirah looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment, and then said,\n\"He is not a bad man--I think he would never forsake any one.\" But when\nshe uttered the words she blushed deeply, and glancing timidly at\nMordecai, turned away to some occupation. Her father was in her mind,\nand this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful\nmutual consciousness. \"If he should come and find us!\" was a thought\nwhich to Mirah sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a\nhaunted forest where each turn screened for her an imaginary apparition.\n\nDeronda felt what was her involuntary allusion, and understood the\nblush. How could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed\nnearer than ever to his own? for the words of his mother's letter\nimplied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful\nconditions; indeed, singularly enough that letter which had brought his\nmother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more remoteness\nfor his affections. The tender yearning after a being whose life might\nhave been the worse for not having his care and love, the image of a\nmother who had not had all her dues, whether of reverence or\ncompassion, had long been secretly present with him in his observation\nof all the women he had come near. But it seemed now that this\npicturing of his mother might fit the facts no better than his former\nconceptions about Sir Hugo. He wondered to find that when this mother's\nvery hand-writing had come to him with words holding her actual\nfeeling, his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative\nneutrality toward her. A veiled figure with enigmatic speech had thrust\naway that image which, in spite of uncertainty, his clinging thought\nhad gradually modeled and made the possessor of his tenderness and\nduteous longing. When he set off to Genoa, the interest really\nuppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to\nMordecai and Mirah.\n\n\"God bless you, Dan!\" Sir Hugo had said, when they shook hands.\n\"Whatever else changes for you, it can't change my being the oldest\nfriend you have known, and the one who has all along felt the most for\nyou. I couldn't have loved you better if you'd been my own-only I\nshould have been better pleased with thinking of you always as the\nfuture master of the Abbey instead of my fine nephew; and then you\nwould have seen it necessary for you to take a political line.\nHowever--things must be as they may.\" It was a defensive movement of\nthe baronet's to mingle purposeless remarks with the expression of\nserious feeling.\n\nWhen Deronda arrived at the _Italia_ in Genoa, no Princess\nHalm-Eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for\nhim, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be\ndeferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made\nit impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she\nentreated him to wait as patiently as he could.\n\nWith this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment\nto him, Deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on\nphilosophic grounds, as a means of quieting excited feeling and giving\npatience a lift over a weary road. His former visit to the superb city\nhad been only cursory, and left him much to learn beyond the prescribed\nround of sight-seeing, by spending the cooler hours in observant\nwandering about the streets, the quay, and the environs; and he often\ntook a boat that he might enjoy the magnificent view of the city and\nharbor from the sea. All sights, all subjects, even the expected\nmeeting with his mother, found a central union in Mordecai and Mirah,\nand the ideas immediately associated with them; and among the thoughts\nthat most filled his mind while his boat was pushing about within view\nof the grand harbor was that of the multitudinous Spanish Jews\ncenturies ago driven destitute from their Spanish homes, suffered to\nland from the crowded ships only for a brief rest on this grand quay of\nGenoa, overspreading it with a pall of famine and plague--dying mothers\nand dying children at their breasts--fathers and sons a-gaze at each\nother's haggardness, like groups from a hundred Hunger-towers turned\nout beneath the midday sun. Inevitably dreamy constructions of a\npossible ancestry for himself would weave themselves with historic\nmemories which had begun to have a new interest for him on his\ndiscovery of Mirah, and now, under the influence of Mordecai, had\nbecome irresistibly dominant. He would have sealed his mind against\nsuch constructions if it had been possible, and he had never yet fully\nadmitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify Mordecai's\nconviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter,\nand that wishing was folly--nay, on the question of parentage, wishing\nseemed part of that meanness which disowns kinship: it was a disowning\nby anticipation. What he had to do was simply to accept the fact; and\nhe had really no strong presumption to go upon, now that he was assured\nof his mistake about Sir Hugo. There had been a resolved concealment\nwhich made all inference untrustworthy, and the very name he bore might\nbe a false one. If Mordecai was wrong--if he, the so-called Daniel\nDeronda, were held by ties entirely aloof from any such course as his\nfriend's pathetic hope had marked out?--he would not say \"I wish\"; but\nhe could not help feeling on which side the sacrifice lay.\n\nAcross these two importunate thoughts, which he resisted as much as one\ncan resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to\nsuspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to\nbanish--dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to\nus the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable\nto meet. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. In the wonderful mixtures of\nour nature there is a feeling distinct from that exclusive passionate\nlove of which some men and women (by no means all) are capable, which\nyet is not the same with friendship, nor with a merely benevolent\nregard, whether admiring or compassionate: a man, say--for it is a man\nwho is here concerned--hardly represents to himself this shade of\nfeeling toward a woman more nearly than in words, \"I should have loved\nher, if----\": the \"if\" covering some prior growth in the inclinations,\nor else some circumstances which have made an inward prohibitory law as\na stay against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance. The \"if\" in\nDeronda's case carried reasons of both kinds; yet he had never\nthroughout his relations with Gwendolen been free from the nervous\nconsciousness that there was something to guard against not only on her\naccount but on his own--some precipitancy in the manifestations of\nimpulsive feeling--some ruinous inroad of what is but momentary on the\npermanent chosen treasure of the heart--some spoiling of her trust,\nwhich wrought upon him now as if it had been the retreating cry of a\ncreature snatched and carried out of his reach by swift horsemen or\nswifter waves, while his own strength was only a stronger sense of\nweakness. How could his feelings for Gwendolen ever be exactly like his\nfeelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he\ndesired to stand apart from them? Strangely the figure entered into the\npictures of his present and future; strangely (and now it seemed sadly)\ntheir two lots had come in contact, hers narrowly personal, his charged\nwith far-reaching sensibilities, perhaps with durable purposes, which\nwere hardly more present to her than the reasons why men migrate are\npresent to the birds that come as usual for the crumbs and find them no\nmore. Not that Deronda was too ready to imagine himself of supreme\nimportance to a woman; but her words of insistance that he must \"remain\nnear her--must not forsake her\"--continually recurred to him with the\nclearness and importunity of imagined sounds, such as Dante has said\npierce us like arrows whose points carry the sharpness of pity--\n\n  \"Lamenti saettaron me diversi\n  Cà che di piefermti avean gli strali?\"\n\nDay after day passed, and the very air of Italy seemed to carry the\nconsciousness that war had been declared against Austria, and every day\nwas a hurrying march of crowded Time toward the world-changing battle\nof Sadowa. Meanwhile, in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the\nconverging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in\nthe tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued\nholiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office--scattering\nabroad those whom the midday had sent under shelter, and sowing all\npaths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and\nwhirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not\nleisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the\nencircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and\ngardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fullness of beauty after\ntheir long siesta, till all strong color melted in the stream of\nmoonlight which made the Streets a new spectacle with shadows, both\nstill and moving, on cathedral steps and against the façades of massive\npalaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep\nnight and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great\nLanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the\nblackness above. Deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of\nthe days as he might have watched a wonderful clock where the striking\nof the hours was made solemn with antique figures advancing and\nretreating in monitory procession, while he still kept his ear open for\nanother kind of signal which would have its solemnity too: He was\nbeginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all\nactivity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. In his\nletters to Mordecai and Hans, he had avoided writing about himself, but\nhe was really getting into that state of mind to which all subjects\nbecome personal; and the few books he had brought to make him a refuge\nin study were becoming unreadable, because the point of view that life\nwould make for him was in that agitating moment of uncertainty which is\nclose upon decision.\n\nMany nights were watched through by him in gazing from the open window\nof his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the\nheavens; often in struggling under the oppressive skepticism which\nrepresented his particular lot, with all the importance he was allowing\nMordecai to give it, as of no more lasting effect than a dream--a set\nof changes which made passion to him, but beyond his consciousness were\nno more than an imperceptible difference of mass and shadow; sometimes\nwith a reaction of emotive force which gave even to sustained\ndisappointment, even to the fulfilled demand of sacrifice, the nature\nof a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it\nmight be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet\nirresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities\nmight befall him--the blending of a complete personal love in one\ncurrent with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion\n(what human creature escapes it?) against things in general because\nthey are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which Gwendolen and her\nequivocal fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world\nalong with the concealments which he had felt as a hardship in his own\nlife, and which were acting in him now under the form of an afflicting\ndoubtfulness about the mother who had announced herself coldly and\nstill kept away.\n\nBut at last she was come. One morning in his third week of waiting\nthere was a new kind of knock at the door. A servant in Chasseurs\nlivery entered and delivered in French the verbal message that, the\nPrincess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during\nthe day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would dine early, so as to be\nat liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LI.\n\n    She held the spindle as she sat,\n    Errina with the thick-coiled mat\n    Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes,\n    Gazing with a sad surprise\n    At surging visions of her destiny--\n    To spin the byssus drearily\n    In insect-labor, while the throng\n  Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song.\n\n\nWhen Deronda presented himself at the door of his mother's apartment in\nthe _Italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature\nagitations. The two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly,\na little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was\nthis striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe\nlines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. But Deronda could\nnotice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in\nthe presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood\nawaiting his approach.\n\nShe was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black\nlace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long\ntrain stretching from her tall figure. Her arms, naked to the elbow,\nexcept for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine\npoise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. But\nDeronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of\nher, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips.\nShe still kept her hand in his and looked at him examiningly; while his\nchief consciousness was that her eyes were piercing and her face so\nmobile that the next moment she might look like a different person. For\neven while she was examining him there was a play of the brow and\nnostril which made a tacit language. Deronda dared no movement, not\nable to conceive what sort of manifestation her feeling demanded; but\nhe felt himself changing color like a girl, and yet wondering at his\nown lack of emotion; he had lived through so many ideal meetings with\nhis mother, and they had seemed more real than this! He could not even\nconjecture in what language she would speak to him. He imagined it\nwould not be English. Suddenly, she let fall his hand, and placed both\nhers on his shoulders, while her face gave out a flash of admiration in\nwhich every worn line disappeared and seemed to leave a restored youth.\n\n\"You are a beautiful creature!\" she said, in a low melodious voice,\nwith syllables which had what might be called a foreign but agreeable\noutline. \"I knew you would be.\" Then she kissed him on each cheek, and\nhe returned the kisses. But it was something like a greeting between\nroyalties.\n\nShe paused a moment while the lines were coming back into her face, and\nthen said in a colder tone, \"I am your mother. But you can have no love\nfor me.\"\n\n\"I have thought of you more than of any other being in the world,\" said\nDeronda, his voice trembling nervously.\n\n\"I am not like what you thought I was,\" said the mother decisively,\nwithdrawing her hands from his shoulders, and folding her arms as\nbefore, looking at him as if she invited him to observe her. He had\noften pictured her face in his imagination as one which had a likeness\nto his own: he saw some of the likeness now, but amidst more striking\ndifferences. She was a remarkable looking being. What was it that gave\nher son a painful sense of aloofness?--Her worn beauty had a\nstrangeness in it as if she were not quite a human mother, but a\nMelusina, who had ties with some world which is independent of ours.\n\n\"I used to think that you might be suffering,\" said Deronda, anxious\nabove all not to wound her. \"I used to wish that I could be a comfort\nto you.\"\n\n\"I _am_ suffering. But with a suffering that you can't comfort,\" said\nthe Princess, in a harder voice than before, moving to a sofa where\ncushions had been carefully arranged for her. \"Sit down.\" She pointed\nto a seat near her; and then discerning some distress in Deronda's\nface, she added, more gently, \"I am not suffering at this moment. I am\nat ease now. I am able to talk.\"\n\nDeronda seated himself and waited for her to speak again. It seemed as\nif he were in the presence of a mysterious Fate rather than of the\nlonged-for mother. He was beginning to watch her with wonder, from the\nspiritual distance to which she had thrown him.\n\n\"No,\" she began: \"I did not send for you to comfort me. I could not\nknow beforehand--I don't know now--what you will feel toward me. I have\nnot the foolish notion that you can love me merely because I am your\nmother, when you have never seen or heard of me in all your life. But I\nthought I chose something better for you than being with me. I did not\nthink I deprived you of anything worth having.\"\n\n\"You cannot wish me to believe that your affection would not have been\nworth having,\" said Deronda, finding that she paused as if she expected\nhim to make some answer.\n\n\"I don't mean to speak ill of myself,\" said the princess, with proud\nimpetuosity, \"But I had not much affection to give you. I did not want\naffection. I had been stifled with it. I wanted to live out the life\nthat was in me, and not to be hampered with other lives. You wonder\nwhat I was. I was no princess then.\" She rose with a sudden movement,\nand stood as she had done before. Deronda immediately rose too; he felt\nbreathless.\n\n\"No princess in this tame life that I live in now. I was a great\nsinger, and I acted as well as I sang. All the rest were poor beside\nme. Men followed me from one country to another. I was living a myriad\nlives in one. I did not want a child.\"\n\nThere was a passionate self-defence in her tone. She had cast all\nprecedent out of her mind. Precedent had no excuse for her and she\ncould only seek a justification in the intensest words she could find\nfor her experience. She seemed to fling out the last words against some\npossible reproach in the mind of her son, who had to stand and hear\nthem--clutching his coat-collar as if he were keeping himself above\nwater by it, and feeling his blood in the sort of commotion that might\nhave been excited if he had seen her going through some strange rite of\na religion which gave a sacredness to crime. What else had she to tell\nhim? She went on with the same intensity and a sort of pale\nillumination in her face.\n\n\"I did not want to marry. I was forced into marrying your\nfather--forced, I mean, by my father's wishes and commands; and\nbesides, it was my best way of getting some freedom. I could rule my\nhusband, but not my father. I had a right to be free. I had a right to\nseek my freedom from a bondage that I hated.\"\n\nShe seated herself again, while there was that subtle movement in her\neyes and closed lips which is like the suppressed continuation of\nspeech. Deronda continued standing, and after a moment or two she\nlooked up at him with a less defiant pleading as she said--\n\n\"And the bondage I hated for myself I wanted to keep you from. What\nbetter could the most loving mother have done? I relieved you from the\nbondage of having been born a Jew.\"\n\n\"Then I _am_ a Jew?\" Deronda burst out with a deep-voiced energy that\nmade his mother shrink a little backward against her cushions. \"My\nfather was a Jew, and you are a Jewess?\"\n\n\"Yes, your father was my cousin,\" said the mother, watching him with a\nchange in her look, as if she saw something that she might have to be\nafraid of.\n\n\"I am glad of it,\" said Deronda, impetuously, in the veiled voice of\npassion. He could not have imagined beforehand how he would have come\nto say that which he had never hitherto admitted. He could not have\ndreamed that it would be in impulsive opposition to his mother. He was\nshaken by a mixed anger which no reflection could come soon enough to\ncheck, against this mother who it seemed had borne him unwillingly, had\nwillingly made herself a stranger to him, and--perhaps--was now making\nherself known unwillingly. This last suspicion seemed to flash some\nexplanation over her speech.\n\nBut the mother was equally shaken by an anger differently mixed, and\nher frame was less equal to any repression. The shaking with her was\nvisibly physical, and her eyes looked the larger for her pallid\nexcitement as she said violently--\n\n\"Why do you say you are glad? You are an English gentleman. I secured\nyou that.\"\n\n\"You did not know what you secured me. How could you choose my\nbirthright for me?\" said Deronda, throwing himself sideways into his\nchair again, almost unconsciously, and leaning his arm over the back,\nwhile he looked away from his mother.\n\nHe was fired with an intolerance that seemed foreign to him. But he was\nnow trying hard to master himself and keep silence. A horror had swept\nin upon his anger lest he should say something too hard in this moment\nwhich made an epoch never to be recalled. There was a pause before his\nmother spoke again, and when she spoke her voice had become more firmly\nresistant in its finely varied tones:\n\n\"I chose for you what I would have chosen for myself. How could I know\nthat you would have the spirit of my father in you? How could I know\nthat you would love what I hated?--if you really love to be a Jew.\" The\nlast words had such bitterness in them that any one overhearing might\nhave supposed some hatred had arisen between the mother and son.\n\nBut Deronda had recovered his fuller self. He was recalling his\nsensibilities to what life had been and actually was for her whose best\nyears were gone, and who with the signs of suffering in her frame was\nnow exerting herself to tell him of a past which was not his alone but\nalso hers. His habitual shame at the acceptance of events as if they\nwere his only, helped him even here. As he looked at his mother\nsilently after her last words, his face regained some of its\npenetrative calm; yet it seemed to have a strangely agitating influence\nover her: her eyes were fixed on him with a sort of fascination, but\nnot with any repose of maternal delight.\n\n\"Forgive me, if I speak hastily,\" he said, with diffident gravity. \"Why\nhave you resolved now on disclosing to me what you took care to have me\nbrought up in ignorance of? Why--since you seem angry that I should be\nglad?\"\n\n\"Oh--the reasons of our actions!\" said the Princess, with a ring of\nsomething like sarcastic scorn. \"When you are as old as I am, it will\nnot seem so simple a question--'Why did you do this?' People talk of\ntheir motives in a cut and dried way. Every woman is supposed to have\nthe same set of motives, or else to be a monster. I am not a monster,\nbut I have not felt exactly what other women feel--or say they feel,\nfor fear of being thought unlike others. When you reproach me in your\nheart for sending you away from me, you mean that I ought to say I felt\nabout you as other women say they feel about their children. I did\n_not_ feel that. I was glad to be freed from you. But I did well for\nyou, and I gave you your father's fortune. Do I seem now to be revoking\neverything?--Well, there are reasons. I feel many things that I cannot\nunderstand. A fatal illness has been growing in me for a year. I shall\nvery likely not live another year. I will not deny anything I have\ndone. I will not pretend to love where I have no love. But shadows are\nrising round me. Sickness makes them. If I have wronged the dead--I\nhave but little time to do what I left undone.\"\n\nThe varied transitions of tone with which this speech was delivered\nwere as perfect as the most accomplished actress could have made them.\nThe speech was in fact a piece of what may be called sincere acting;\nthis woman's nature was one in which all feeling--and all the more when\nit was tragic as well as real--immediately became matter of conscious\nrepresentation: experience immediately passed into drama, and she acted\nher own emotions. In a minor degree this is nothing uncommon, but in\nthe Princess the acting had a rare perfection of physiognomy, voice,\nand gesture. It would not be true to say that she felt less because of\nthis double consciousness: she felt--that is, her mind went\nthrough--all the more, but with a difference; each nucleus of pain or\npleasure had a deep atmosphere of the excitement or spiritual\nintoxication which at once exalts and deadens. But Deronda made no\nreflection of this kind. All his thoughts hung on the purport of what\nhis mother was saying; her tones and her wonderful face entered into\nhis agitation without being noted. What he longed for with an awed\ndesire was to know as much as she would tell him of the strange mental\nconflict under which it seemed he had been brought into the world; what\nhis compassionate nature made the controlling idea within him were the\nsuffering and the confession that breathed through her later words, and\nthese forbade any further question, when she paused and remained\nsilent, with her brow knit, her head turned a little away from him, and\nher large eyes fixed as if on something incorporeal. He must wait for\nher to speak again. She did so with strange abruptness, turning her\neyes upon him suddenly, and saying more quickly--\n\n\"Sir Hugo has written much about you. He tells me you have a wonderful\nmind--you comprehend everything--you are wiser than he is with all his\nsixty years. You say you are glad to know that you were born a Jew. I\nam not going to tell you that I have changed my mind about that. Your\nfeelings are against mine. You don't thank me for what I did. Shall you\ncomprehend your mother, or only blame her?\"\n\n\"There is not a fibre within me but makes me wish to comprehend her,\"\nsaid Deronda, meeting her sharp gaze solemnly. \"It is a bitter reversal\nof my longing to think of blaming her. What I have been most trying to\ndo for fifteen years is to have some understanding of those who differ\nfrom myself.\"\n\n\"Then you have become unlike your grandfather in that.\" said the\nmother, \"though you are a young copy of him in your face. He never\ncomprehended me, or if he did, he only thought of fettering me into\nobedience. I was to be what he called 'the Jewish woman' under pain of\nhis curse. I was to feel everything I did not feel, and believe\neverything I did not believe. I was to feel awe for the bit of\nparchment in the _mezuza_ over the door; to dread lest a bit of butter\nshould touch a bit of meat; to think it beautiful that men should bind\nthe _tephillin_ on them, and women not,--to adore the wisdom of such\nlaws, however silly they might seem to me. I was to love the long\nprayers in the ugly synagogue, and the howling, and the gabbling, and\nthe dreadful fasts, and the tiresome feasts, and my father's endless\ndiscoursing about our people, which was a thunder without meaning in my\nears. I was to care forever about what Israel had been; and I did not\ncare at all. I cared for the wide world, and all that I could represent\nin it. I hated living under the shadow of my father's strictness.\nTeaching, teaching for everlasting--'this you must be,' 'that you must\nnot be'--pressed on me like a frame that got tighter and tighter as I\ngrew. I wanted to live a large life, with freedom to do what every one\nelse did, and be carried along in a great current, not obliged to care.\nAh!\"--here her tone changed to one of a more bitter incisiveness--\"you\nare glad to have been born a Jew. You say so. That is because you have\nnot been brought up as a Jew. That separateness seems sweet to you\nbecause I saved you from it.\"\n\n\"When you resolved on that, you meant that I should never know my\norigin?\" said Deronda, impulsively. \"You have at least changed in your\nfeeling on that point.\"\n\n\"Yes, that was what I meant. That is what I persevered in. And it is\nnot true to say that I have changed. Things have changed in spite of\nme. I am still the same Leonora\"--she pointed with her forefinger to\nher breast--\"here within me is the same desire, the same will, the same\nchoice, _but_\"--she spread out her hands, palm upward, on each side of\nher, as she paused with a bitter compression of her lip, then let her\nvoice fall into muffled, rapid utterance--\"events come upon us like\nevil enchantments: and thoughts, feelings, apparitions in the darkness\nare events--are they not? I don't consent. We only consent to what we\nlove. I obey something tyrannic\"--she spread out her hands again--\"I am\nforced to be withered, to feel pain, to be dying slowly. Do I love\nthat? Well, I have been forced to obey my dead father. I have been\nforced to tell you that you are a Jew, and deliver to you what he\ncommanded me to deliver.\"\n\n\"I beseech you to tell me what moved you--when you were young, I\nmean--to take the course you did,\" said Deronda, trying by this\nreference to the past to escape from what to him was the heart-rending\npiteousness of this mingled suffering and defiance. \"I gather that my\ngrandfather opposed your bent to be an artist. Though my own experience\nhas been quite different, I enter into the painfulness of your\nstruggle. I can imagine the hardship of an enforced renunciation.\"\n\n\"No,\" said the Princess, shaking her head and folding her arms with an\nair of decision. \"You are not a woman. You may try--but you can never\nimagine what it is to have a man's force of genius in you, and yet to\nsuffer the slavery of being a girl. To have a pattern cut out--'this is\nthe Jewish woman; this is what you must be; this is what you are wanted\nfor; a woman's heart must be of such a size and no larger, else it must\nbe pressed small, like Chinese feet; her happiness is to be made as\ncakes are, by a fixed receipt.' That was what my father wanted. He\nwished I had been a son; he cared for me as a make-shift link. His\nheart was set on his Judaism. He hated that Jewish women should be\nthought of by the Christian world as a sort of ware to make public\nsingers and actresses of. As if we were not the more enviable for that!\nThat is a chance of escaping from bondage.\"\n\n\"Was my grandfather a learned man?\" said Deronda, eager to know\nparticulars that he feared his mother might not think of.\n\nShe answered impatiently, putting up her hand, \"Oh, yes,--and a clever\nphysician--and good: I don't deny that he was good. A man to be admired\nin a play--grand, with an iron will. Like the old Foscari before he\npardons. But such men turn their wives and daughters into slaves. They\nwould rule the world if they could; but not ruling the world, they\nthrow all the weight of their will on the necks and souls of women. But\nnature sometimes thwarts them. My father had no other child than his\ndaughter, and she was like himself.\"\n\nShe had folded her arms again, and looked as if she were ready to face\nsome impending attempt at mastery.\n\n\"Your father was different. Unlike me--all lovingness and affection. I\nknew I could rule him; and I made him secretly promise me, before I\nmarried him, that he would put no hindrance in the way of my being an\nartist. My father was on his deathbed when we were married: from the\nfirst he had fixed his mind on my marrying my cousin Ephraim. And when\na woman's will is as strong as the man's who wants to govern her, half\nher strength must be concealment. I meant to have my will in the end,\nbut I could only have it by seeming to obey. I had an awe of my\nfather--always I had had an awe of him: it was impossible to help it. I\nhated to feel awed--I wished I could have defied him openly; but I\nnever could. It was what I could not imagine: I could not act it to\nmyself that I should begin to defy my father openly and succeed. And I\nnever would risk failure.\"\n\nThis last sentence was uttered with an abrupt emphasis, and she paused\nafter it as if the words had raised a crowd of remembrances which\nobstructed speech. Her son was listening to her with feelings more and\nmore highly mixed; the first sense of being repelled by the frank\ncoldness which had replaced all his preconceptions of a mother's tender\njoy in the sight of him; the first impulses of indignation at what\nshocked his most cherished emotions and principles--all these busy\nelements of collision between them were subsiding for a time, and\nmaking more and more room for that effort at just allowance and that\nadmiration of a forcible nature whose errors lay along high pathways,\nwhich he would have felt if, instead of being his mother, she had been\na stranger who had appealed to his sympathy. Still it was impossible to\nbe dispassionate: he trembled lest the next thing she had to say would\nbe more repugnant to him than what had gone before: he was afraid of\nthe strange coërcion she seemed to be under to lay her mind bare: he\nalmost wished he could say, \"Tell me only what is necessary,\" and then\nagain he felt the fascination which made him watch her and listen to\nher eagerly. He tried to recall her to particulars by asking--\n\n\"Where was my grandfather's home?\"\n\n\"Here in Genoa, where I was married; and his family had lived here\ngenerations ago. But my father had been in various countries.\"\n\n\"You must surely have lived in England?\"\n\n\"My mother was English--a Jewess of Portuguese descent. My father\nmarried her in England. Certain circumstances of that marriage made all\nthe difference in my life: through that marriage my father thwarted his\nown plans. My mother's sister was a singer, and afterward she married\nthe English partner of a merchant's house here in Genoa, and they came\nand lived here eleven years. My mother died when I was eight years old,\nand my father allowed me to be continually with my Aunt Leonora and be\ntaught under her eyes, as if he had not minded the danger of her\nencouraging my wish to be a singer, as she had been. But this was it--I\nsaw it again and again in my father:--he did not guard against\nconsequences, because he felt sure he could hinder them if he liked.\nBefore my aunt left Genoa, I had had enough teaching to bring out the\nborn singer and actress within me: my father did not know everything\nthat was done; but he knew that I was taught music and singing--he knew\nmy inclination. That was nothing to him: he meant that I should obey\nhis will. And he was resolved that I should marry my cousin Ephraim,\nthe only one left of my father's family that he knew. I wanted not to\nmarry. I thought of all plans to resist it, but at last I found that I\ncould rule my cousin, and I consented. My father died three weeks after\nwe were married, and then I had my way!\" She uttered these words almost\nexultantly; but after a little pause her face changed, and she said in\na biting tone, \"It has not lasted, though. My father is getting his way\nnow.\"\n\nShe began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presently\nsaid--\n\n\"You are like him--but milder--there is something of your own father in\nyou; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me:\nwound up his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me--he\nwent against his conscience for me. As I loved the life of my art, so\nhe loved me. Let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on.\nIt was your father's ring.\"\n\nHe drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. We know what\nkind of a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same\ntype. As he felt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him\nthe face that held the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by\nintensity, the strong bent of his nature toward a reverential\ntenderness asserted itself above every other impression and in his most\nfervent tone he said--\n\n\"Mother! take us all into your heart--the living and the dead. Forgive\nevery thing that hurts you in the past. Take my affection.\"\n\nShe looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on\nthe brow, and saying sadly, \"I reject nothing, but I have nothing to\ngive,\" she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. Deronda\nturned pale with what seems always more of a sensation than an\nemotion--the pain of repulsed tenderness. She noticed the expression of\npain, and said, still with melodious melancholy in her tones--\n\n\"It is better so. We must part again soon and you owe me no duties. I\ndid not wish you to be born. I parted with you willingly. When your\nfather died I resolved that I would have no more ties, but such as I\ncould free myself from. I was the Alcharisi you have heard of: the name\nhad magic wherever it was carried. Men courted me. Sir Hugo Mallinger\nwas one who wished to marry me. He was madly in love with me. One day I\nasked him, 'Is there a man capable of doing something for love of me,\nand expecting nothing in return?' He said: 'What is it you want done?'\nI said, 'Take my boy and bring him up as an Englishman, and never let\nhim know anything about his parents.' You were little more than two\nyears old, and were sitting on his foot. He declared that he would pay\nmoney to have such a boy. I had not meditated much on the plan\nbeforehand, but as soon as I had spoken about it, it took possession of\nme as something I could not rest without doing. At first he thought I\nwas not serious, but I convinced him, and he was never surprised at\nanything. He agreed that it would be for your good, and the finest\nthing for you. A great singer and actress is a queen, but she gives no\nroyalty to her son. All that happened at Naples. And afterward I made\nSir Hugo the trustee of your fortune. That is what I did; and I had a\njoy in doing it. My father had tyrannized over me--he cared more about\na grandson to come than he did about me: I counted as nothing. You were\nto be such a Jew as he; you were to be what he wanted. But you were my\nson, and it was my turn to say what you should be. I said you should\nnot know you were a Jew.\"\n\n\"And for months events have been preparing me to be glad that I am a\nJew,\" said Deronda, his opposition roused again. The point touched the\nquick of his experience. \"It would always have been better that I\nshould have known the truth. I have always been rebelling against the\nsecrecy that looked like shame. It is no shame to have Jewish\nparents--the shame is to disown it.\"\n\n\"You say it was a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy,\" said\nhis mother, with a flash of new anger. \"There is no shame attaching to\nme. I have no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters\nand gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if\nwe were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as\ntheirs. I delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish\nseparateness. I am not ashamed that I did it. It was the better for\nyou.\"\n\n\"Then why have you now undone the secrecy?--no, not undone it--the\neffects will never be undone. But why have you now sent for me to tell\nme that I am a Jew?\" said Deronda, with an intensity of opposition in\nfeeling that was almost bitter. It seemed as if her words had called\nout a latent obstinacy of race in him.\n\n\"Why?--ah, why?\" said the Princess, rising quickly and walking to the\nother side of the room, where she turned round and slowly approached\nhim, as he, too, stood up. Then she began to speak again in a more\nveiled voice. \"I can't explain; I can only say what is. I don't love my\nfather's religion now any more than I did then. Before I married the\nsecond time I was baptized; I made myself like the people I lived\namong. I had a right to do it; I was not like a brute, obliged to go\nwith my own herd. I have not repented; I will not say that I have\nrepented. But yet\"--here she had come near to her son, and paused; then\nagain retreated a little and stood still, as if resolute not to give\nway utterly to an imperious influence; but, as she went on speaking,\nshe became more and more unconscious of anything but the awe that\nsubdued her voice. \"It is illness, I don't doubt that it has been\ngathering illness--my mind has gone back: more than a year ago it\nbegan. You see my gray hair, my worn look: it has all come fast.\nSometimes I am in an agony of pain--I dare say I shall be to-night.\nThen it is as if all the life I have chosen to live, all thoughts, all\nwill, forsook me and left me alone in spots of memory, and I can't get\naway: my pain seems to keep me there. My childhood--my girlhood--the\nday of my marriage--the day of my father's death--there seems to be\nnothing since. Then a great horror comes over me: what do I know of\nlife or death? and what my father called 'right' may be a power that is\nlaying hold of me--that is clutching me now. Well, I will satisfy him.\nI cannot go into the darkness without satisfying him. I have hidden\nwhat was his. I thought once I would burn it. I have not burned it. I\nthank God I have not burned it!\"\n\nShe threw herself on her cushions again, visibly fatigued. Deronda,\nmoved too strongly by her suffering for other impulses to act within\nhim, drew near her, and said, entreatingly--\n\n\"Will you not spare yourself this evening? Let us leave the rest till\nto-morrow.\"\n\n\"No,\" she said decisively. \"I will confess it all, now that I have come\nup to it. Often when I am at ease it all fades away; my whole self\ncomes quite back; but I know it will sink away again, and the other\nwill come--the poor, solitary, forsaken remains of self, that can\nresist nothing. It was my nature to resist, and say, 'I have a right to\nresist.' Well, I say so still when I have any strength in me. You have\nheard me say it, and I don't withdraw it. But when my strength goes,\nsome other right forces itself upon me like iron in an inexorable hand;\nand even when I am at ease, it is beginning to make ghosts upon the\ndaylight. And now you have made it worse for me,\" she said, with a\nsudden return of impetuosity; \"but I shall have told you everything.\nAnd what reproach is there against me,\" she added bitterly, \"since I\nhave made you glad to be a Jew? Joseph Kalonymos reproached me: he said\nyou had been turned into a proud Englishman, who resented being touched\nby a Jew. I wish you had!\" she ended, with a new marvelous alternation.\nIt was as if her mind were breaking into several, one jarring the other\ninto impulsive action.\n\n\"Who is Joseph Kalonymos?\" said Deronda, with a darting recollection of\nthat Jew who touched his arm in the Frankfort synagogue.\n\n\"Ah! some vengeance sent him back from the East, that he might see you\nand come to reproach me. He was my father's friend. He knew of your\nbirth: he knew of my husband's death, and once, twenty years ago, after\nhe had been away in the Levant, he came to see me and inquire about\nyou. I told him that you were dead: I meant you to be dead to all the\nworld of my childhood. If I had said that your were living, he would\nhave interfered with my plans: he would have taken on him to represent\nmy father, and have tried to make me recall what I had done. What could\nI do but say you were dead? The act was done. If I had told him of it\nthere would have been trouble and scandal--and all to conquer me, who\nwould not have been conquered. I was strong then, and I would have had\nmy will, though there might have been a hard fight against me. I took\nthe way to have it without any fight. I felt then that I was not really\ndeceiving: it would have come to the same in the end; or if not to the\nsame, to something worse. He believed me and begged that I would give\nup to him the chest that my father had charged me and my husband to\ndeliver to our eldest son. I knew what was in the chest--things that\nhad been dinned in my ears since I had had any understanding--things\nthat were thrust on my mind that I might feel them like a wall around\nmy life--my life that was growing like a tree. Once, after my husband\ndied, I was going to burn the chest. But it was difficult to burn; and\nburning a chest and papers looks like a shameful act. I have committed\nno shameful act--except what Jews would call shameful. I had kept the\nchest, and I gave it to Joseph Kalonymos. He went away mournful, and\nsaid, 'If you marry again, and if another grandson is born to him who\nis departed, I will deliver up the chest to him.' I bowed in silence. I\nmeant not to marry again--no more than I meant to be the shattered\nwoman that I am now.\"\n\nShe ceased speaking, and her head sank back while she looked vaguely\nbefore her. Her thought was traveling through the years, and when she\nbegan to speak again her voice had lost its argumentative spirit, and\nhad fallen into a veiled tone of distress.\n\n\"But months ago this Kalonymos saw you in the synagogue at Frankfort.\nHe saw you enter the hotel, and he went to ask your name. There was\nnobody else in the world to whom the name would have told anything\nabout me.\"\n\n\"Then it is not my real name?\" said Deronda, with a dislike even to\nthis trifling part of the disguise which had been thrown round him.\n\n\"Oh, as real as another,\" said his mother, indifferently. \"The Jews\nhave always been changing their names. My father's family had kept the\nname of Charisi: my husband was a Charisi. When I came out as a singer,\nwe made it Alcharisi. But there had been a branch of the family my\nfather had lost sight of who called themselves Deronda, and when I\nwanted a name for you, and Sir Hugo said, 'Let it be a foreign name,' I\nthought of Deronda. But Joseph Kalonymos had heard my father speak of\nthe Deronda branch, and the name confirmed his suspicion. He began to\nsuspect what had been done. It was as if everything had been whispered\nto him in the air. He found out where I was. He took a journey into\nRussia to see me; he found me weak and shattered. He had come back\nagain, with his white hair, and with rage in his soul against me. He\nsaid I was going down to the grave clad in falsehood and\nrobbery--falsehood to my father and robbery of my own child. He accused\nme of having kept the knowledge of your birth from you, and having\nbrought you up as if you had been the son of an English gentleman.\nWell, it was true; and twenty years before I would have maintained that\nI had a right to do it. But I can maintain nothing now. No faith is\nstrong within me. My father may have God on his side. This man's words\nwere like lion's teeth upon me. My father's threats eat into me with my\npain. If I tell everything--if I deliver up everything--what else can\nbe demanded of me? I cannot make myself love the people I have never\nloved--is it not enough that I lost the life I did love?\"\n\nShe had leaned forward a little in her low-toned pleading, that seemed\nlike a smothered cry: her arms and hands were stretched out at full\nlength, as if strained in beseeching, Deronda's soul was absorbed in\nthe anguish of compassion. He could not mind now that he had been\nrepulsed before. His pity made a flood of forgiveness within him. His\nsingle impulse was to kneel by her and take her hand gently, between\nhis palms, while he said in that exquisite voice of soothing which\nexpresses oneness with the sufferer--\n\n\"Mother, take comfort!\"\n\nShe did not seem inclined to repulse him now, but looked down at him\nand let him take both her hands to fold between his. Gradually tears\ngathered, but she pressed her handkerchief against her eyes and then\nleaned her cheek against his brow, as if she wished that they should\nnot look at each other.\n\n\"Is it not possible that I could be near you often and comfort you?\"\nsaid Deronda. He was under that stress of pity that propels us on\nsacrifices.\n\n\"No, not possible,\" she answered, lifting up her head again and\nwithdrawing her hand as if she wished him to move away. \"I have a\nhusband and five children. None of them know of your existence.\"\n\nDeronda felt painfully silenced. He rose and stood at a little distance.\n\n\"You wonder why I married,\" she went on presently, under the influence\nof a newly-recurring thought. \"I meant never to marry again. I meant to\nbe free and to live for my art. I had parted with you. I had no bonds.\nFor nine years I was a queen. I enjoyed the life I had longed for. But\nsomething befell me. It was like a fit of forgetfulness. I began to\nsing out of tune. They told me of it. Another woman was thrusting\nherself in my place. I could not endure the prospect of failure and\ndecline. It was horrible to me.\" She started up again, with a shudder,\nand lifted screening hands like one who dreads missiles. \"It drove me\nto marry. I made believe that I preferred being the wife of a Russian\nnoble to being the greatest lyric actress of Europe; I made believe--I\nacted that part. It was because I felt my greatness sinking away from\nme, as I feel my life sinking now. I would not wait till men said, 'She\nhad better go.'\"\n\nShe sank into her seat again, and looked at the evening sky as she went\non: \"I repented. It was a resolve taken in desperation. That singing\nout of tune was only like a fit of illness; it went away. I repented;\nbut it was too late. I could not go back. All things hindered, me--all\nthings.\"\n\nA new haggardness had come in her face, but her son refrained from\nagain urging her to leave further speech till the morrow: there was\nevidently some mental relief for her in an outpouring such as she could\nnever have allowed herself before. He stood still while she maintained\nsilence longer than she knew, and the light was perceptibly fading. At\nlast she turned to him and said--\n\n\"I can bear no more now.\" She put out her hand, but then quickly\nwithdrew it saying, \"Stay. How do I know that I can see you again? I\ncannot bear to be seen when I am in pain.\"\n\nShe drew forth a pocket-book, and taking out a letter said, \"This is\naddressed to the banking-house in Mainz, where you are to go for your\ngrandfather's chest. It is a letter written by Joseph Kalonymos: if he\nis not there himself, this order of his will be obeyed.\"\n\nWhen Deronda had taken the letter, she said, with effort but more\ngently than before, \"Kneel again, and let me kiss you.\"\n\nHe obeyed, and holding his head between her hands, she kissed him\nsolemnly on the brow. \"You see, I had no life left to love you with,\"\nshe said, in a low murmur. \"But there is more fortune for you. Sir Hugo\nwas to keep it in reserve. I gave you all your father's fortune. They\ncan never accuse me of robbery there.\"\n\n\"If you had needed anything I would have worked for you,\" said Deronda,\nconscious of disappointed yearning--a shutting out forever from long\nearly vistas of affectionate imagination.\n\n\"I need nothing that the skill of man can give me,\" said his mother,\nstill holding his head, and perusing his features. \"But perhaps now I\nhave satisfied my father's will, your face will come instead of\nhis--your young, loving face.\"\n\n\"But you will see me again?\" said Deronda, anxiously.\n\n\"Yes--perhaps. Wait, wait. Leave me now.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LII.\n\n    \"La même fermeté qui sert à résister à l'amour sert aussi à le rendre\n    violent et durable; et les personnes faibles qui sont toujours\n    agitées des passions n'en sont presque jamais véritablement remplies.\"\n    --LA ROCHEFOUCAULD.\n\n\nAmong Deronda's letters the next morning was one from Hans Meyrick of\nfour quarto pages, in the small, beautiful handwriting which ran in the\nMeyrick family.\n\n    MY DEAR DERONDA,--In return for your sketch of Italian movements and\n    your view of the world's affairs generally, I may say that here at\n    home the most judicious opinion going as to the effects of present\n    causes is that \"time will show.\" As to the present causes of past\n    effects, it is now seen that the late swindling telegrams account for\n    the last year's cattle plague--which is a refutation of philosophy\n    falsely so called, and justifies the compensation to the farmers. My\n    own idea that a murrain will shortly break out in the commercial\n    class, and that the cause will subsequently disclose itself in the\n    ready sale of all rejected pictures, has been called an unsound use of\n    analogy; but there are minds that will not hesitate to rob even the\n    neglected painter of his solace. To my feeling there is great beauty\n    in the conception that some bad judge might give a high price for my\n    Berenice series, and that the men in the city would have already been\n    punished for my ill-merited luck.\n\n    Meanwhile I am consoling myself for your absence by finding my\n    advantage in it--shining like Hesperus when Hyperion has departed;\n    sitting with our Hebrew prophet, and making a study of his head, in\n    the hours when he used to be occupied with you--getting credit with\n    him as a learned young Gentile, who would have been a Jew if he could\n    --and agreeing with him in the general principle, that whatever is\n    best is for that reason Jewish. I never held it my _forte_ to be\n    a severe reasoner, but I can see that if whatever is best is A, and B\n    happens to be best, B must be A, however little you might have\n    expected it beforehand. On that principle I could see the force of a\n    pamphlet I once read to prove that all good art was Protestant.\n    However, our prophet is an uncommonly interesting sitter--a better\n    model than Rembrandt had for his Rabbi--and I never come away from him\n    without a new discovery. For one thing, it is a constant wonder to me\n    that, with all his fiery feeling for his race and their traditions, he\n    is no straight-laced Jew, spitting after the word Christian, and\n    enjoying the prospect that the Gentile mouth will water in vain for a\n    slice of the roasted Leviathan, while Israel will be sending up plates\n    for more, _ad libitum_, (You perceive that my studies had taught\n    me what to expect from the orthodox Jew.) I confess that I have always\n    held lightly by your account of Mordecai, as apologetic, and merely\n    part of your disposition to make an antedeluvian point of view lest\n    you should do injustice to the megatherium. But now I have given ear\n    to him in his proper person, I find him really a sort of\n    philosophical-allegorical-mystical believer, and yet with a sharp\n    dialectic point, so that any argumentative rattler of peas in a\n    bladder might soon be pricked in silence by him. The mixture may be\n    one of the Jewish prerogatives, for what I know. In fact, his mind\n    seems so broad that I find my own correct opinions lying in it quite\n    commodiously, and how they are to be brought into agreement with the\n    vast remainder is his affair, not mine. I leave it to him to settle\n    our basis, never yet having seen a basis which is not a\n    world-supporting elephant, more or less powerful and expensive to keep.\n    My means will not allow me to keep a private elephant. I go into mystery\n    instead, as cheaper and more lasting--a sort of gas which is likely to\n    be continually supplied by the decomposition of the elephants. And if\n    I like the look of an opinion, I treat it civilly, without suspicious\n    inquiries. I have quite a friendly feeling toward Mordecai's notion\n    that a whole Christian is three-fourths a Jew, and that from the\n    Alexandrian time downward the most comprehensive minds have been\n    Jewish; for I think of pointing out to Mirah that, Arabic and other\n    incidents of life apart, there is really little difference between me\n    and--Maimonides. But I have lately been finding out that it is your\n    shallow lover who can't help making a declaration. If Mirah's ways\n    were less distracting, and it were less of a heaven to be in her\n    presence and watch her, I must long ago have flung myself at her feet,\n    and requested her to tell me, with less indirectness, whether she\n    wished me to blow my brains out. I have a knack of hoping, which is as\n    good as an estate in reversion, if one can keep from the temptation of\n    turning it into certainty, which may spoil all. My Hope wanders among\n    the orchard blossoms, feels the warm snow falling on it through the\n    sunshine, and is in doubt of nothing; but, catching sight of Certainty\n    in the distance, sees an ugly Janus-faced deity, with a dubious wink\n    on the hither side of him, and turns quickly away. But you, with your\n    supreme reasonableness, and self-nullification, and preparation for\n    the worst--you know nothing about Hope, that immortal, delicious\n    maiden forever courted forever propitious, whom fools have called\n    deceitful, as if it were Hope that carried the cup of disappointment,\n    whereas it is her deadly enemy, Certainty, whom she only escapes by\n    transformation. (You observe my new vein of allegory?) Seriously,\n    however, I must be permitted to allege that truth will prevail, that\n    prejudice will melt before it, that diversity, accompanied by merit,\n    will make itself felt as fascination, and that no virtuous aspiration\n    will be frustrated--all which, if I mistake not, are doctrines of the\n    schools, and they imply that the Jewess I prefer will prefer me. Any\n    blockhead can cite generalities, but the mind-master discerns the\n    particular cases they represent.\n\n    I am less convinced that my society makes amends to Mordecai for your\n    absence, but another substitute occasionally comes in the form of\n    Jacob Cohen. It is worth while to catch our prophet's expression when\n    he has that remarkable type of young Israel on his knee, and pours\n    forth some Semitic inspiration with a sublime look of melancholy\n    patience and devoutness. Sometimes it occurs to Jacob that Hebrew will\n    be more edifying to him if he stops his ears with his palms, and\n    imitates the venerable sounds as heard through that muffled medium.\n    When Mordecai gently draws down the little fists and holds them fast,\n    Jacob's features all take on an extraordinary activity, very much as\n    if he was walking through a menagerie and trying to imitate every\n    animal in turn, succeeding best with the owl and the peccary. But I\n    dare say you have seen something of this. He treats me with the\n    easiest familiarity, and seems in general to look at me as a second-hand\n    Christian commodity, likely to come down in price; remarking on\n    my disadvantages with a frankness which seems to imply some thoughts\n    of future purchase. It is pretty, though, to see the change in him if\n    Mirah happens to come in. He turns child suddenly--his age usually\n    strikes one as being like the Israelitish garments in the desert,\n    perhaps near forty, yet with an air of recent production. But, with\n    Mirah, he reminds me of the dogs that have been brought up by women,\n    and remain manageable by them only. Still, the dog is fond of Mordecai\n    too, and brings sugar-plums to share with him, filling his own mouth\n    to rather an embarrassing extent, and watching how Mordecai deals with\n    a smaller supply. Judging from this modern Jacob at the age of six, my\n    astonishment is that his race has not bought us all up long ago, and\n    pocketed our feebler generations in the form of stock and scrip, as so\n    much slave property. There is one Jewess I should not mind being slave\n    to. But I wish I did not imagine that Mirah gets a little sadder, and\n    tries all the while to hide it. It is natural enough, of course, while\n    she has to watch the slow death of this brother, whom she has taken to\n    worshipping with such looks of loving devoutness that I am ready to\n    wish myself in his place.\n\n    For the rest, we are a little merrier than usual. Rex Gascoigne--you\n    remember a head you admired among my sketches, a fellow with a good\n    upper lip, reading law--has got some rooms in town now not far off us,\n    and has had a neat sister (upper lip also good) staying with him the\n    last fortnight. I have introduced them both to my mother and the\n    girls, who have found out from Miss Gascoigne that she is cousin to\n    your Vandyke duchess!!! I put the notes of exclamation to mark the\n    surprise that the information at first produced on my feeble\n    understanding. On reflection I discovered that there was not the least\n    ground for surprise, unless I had beforehand believed that nobody\n    could be anybody's cousin without my knowing it. This sort of\n    surprise, I take it, depends on a liveliness of the spine, with a more\n    or less constant nullity of brain. There was a fellow I used to meet\n    at Rome who was in an effervescence of surprise at contact with the\n    simplest information. Tell him what you would--that you were fond of\n    easy boots--he would always say, \"No! are you?\" with the same energy\n    of wonder: the very fellow of whom pastoral Browne wrote\n    prophetically--\n\n      \"A wretch so empty that if e'er there be\n      In nature found the least vacuity\n      'Twill be in him.\"\n\n    I have accounted for it all--he had a lively spine.\n\n    However, this cousinship with the duchess came out by chance one day\n    that Mirah was with them at home and they were talking about the\n    Mallingers. _Apropos_; I am getting so important that I have\n    rival invitations. Gascoigne wants me to go down with him to his\n    father's rectory in August and see the country round there. But I\n    think self-interest well understood will take me to Topping Abbey, for\n    Sir Hugo has invited me, and proposes--God bless him for his rashness!\n    --that I should make a picture of his three daughters sitting on a\n    bank--as he says, in the Gainsborough style. He came to my studio the\n    other day and recommended me to apply myself to portrait. Of course I\n    know what that means.--\"My good fellow, your attempts at the historic\n    and poetic are simply pitiable. Your brush is just that of a\n    successful portrait-painter--it has a little truth and a great\n    facility in falsehood--your idealism will never do for gods and\n    goddesses and heroic story, but it may fetch a high price as flattery.\n    Fate, my friend, has made you the hinder wheel--_rota  posterior\n    curras, et in axe secundo_--run behind, because you can't help it.\"\n    --What great effort it evidently costs our friends to give us these\n    candid opinions! I have even known a man to take the trouble to call,\n    in order to tell me that I had irretrievably exposed my want of\n    judgment in treating my subject, and that if I had asked him we would\n    have lent me his own judgment. Such was my ingratitude and my\n    readiness at composition, that even while he was speaking I inwardly\n    sketched a Last Judgment with that candid friend's physiognomy on the\n    left. But all this is away from Sir Hugo, whose manner of implying\n    that one's gifts are not of the highest order is so exceedingly\n    good-natured and comfortable that I begin to feel it an advantage not\n    to be among those poor fellows at the tip-top. And his kindness to me\n    tastes all the better because it comes out of his love for you, old\n    boy. His chat is uncommonly amusing. By the way, he told me that your\n    Vandyke duchess is gone with her husband yachting to the Mediterranean.\n    I bethink me that it is possible to land from a yacht, or to be taken\n    on to a yacht from the land. Shall you by chance have an opportunity of\n    continuing your theological discussion with the fair Supralapsarian--I\n    think you said her tenets were of that complexion? Is Duke Alphonso\n    also theological?--perhaps an Arian who objects to triplicity. (Stage\n    direction. While D. is reading, a profound scorn gathers in his face\n    till at the last word he flings down the letter, grasps his coat-collar\n    in a statuesque attitude and so remains with a look generally\n    tremendous, throughout the following soliloquy, \"O night, O blackness,\n    etc., etc.\")\n\n    Excuse the brevity of this letter. You are not used to more from me\n    than a bare statement of facts, without comment or digression. One\n    fact I have omitted--that the Klesmers on the eve of departure have\n    behaved magnificently, shining forth as might be expected from the\n    planets of genius and fortune in conjunction. Mirah is rich with their\n    oriental gifts.\n\n    What luck it will be if you come back and present yourself at the\n    Abbey while I am there! I am going to behave with consummate\n    discretion and win golden opinions, But I shall run up to town now and\n    then, just for a peep into Gad Eden. You see how far I have got in\n    Hebrew lore--up with my Lord Bolingbroke, who knew no Hebrew, but\n    \"understood that sort of learning and what is writ about it.\" If Mirah\n    commanded, I would go to a depth below the tri-literal roots. Already\n    it makes no difference to me whether the points are there or not. But\n    while her brother's life lasts I suspect she would not listen to a\n    lover, even one whose \"hair is like a flock of goats on Mount\n    Gilead\"--and I flatter myself that few heads would bear that trying\n    comparison better than mine. So I stay with my hope among the\n    orchard-blossoms.\n\n    Your devoted,\n\n    HANS MEYRICK.\n\nSome months before, this letter from Hans would have divided Deronda's\nthoughts irritatingly: its romancing, about Mirah would have had an\nunpleasant edge, scarcely anointed with any commiseration for his\nfriend's probable disappointment. But things had altered since March.\nMirah was no longer so critically placed with regard to the Meyricks,\nand Deronda's own position had been undergoing a change which had just\nbeen crowned by the revelation of his birth. The new opening toward the\nfuture, though he would not trust in any definite visions, inevitably\nshed new lights, and influenced his mood toward past and present;\nhence, what Hans called his hope now seemed to Deronda, not a\nmischievous unreasonableness which roused his indignation, but an\nunusually persistent bird-dance of an extravagant fancy, and he would\nhave felt quite able to pity any consequent suffering of his friend's,\nif he had believed in the suffering as probable. But some of the busy\nthought filling that long day, which passed without his receiving any\nnew summons from his mother, was given to the argument that Hans\nMeyrick's nature was not one in which love could strike the deep roots\nthat turn disappointment into sorrow: it was too restless, too readily\nexcitable by novelty, too ready to turn itself into imaginative\nmaterial, and wear its grief as a fantastic costume. \"Already he is\nbeginning to play at love: he is taking the whole affair as a comedy,\"\nsaid Deronda to himself; \"he knows very well that there is no chance\nfor him. Just like him--never opening his eyes on any possible\nobjection I could have to receive his outpourings about Mirah. Poor old\nHans! If we were under a fiery hail together he would howl like a\nGreek, and if I did not howl too it would never occur to him that I was\nas badly off as he. And yet he is tender-hearted and affectionate in\nintention, and I can't say that he is not active in imagining what goes\non in other people--but then he always imagines it to fit his own\ninclination.\"\n\nWith this touch of causticity Deronda got rid of the slight heat at\npresent raised by Hans's naive expansiveness. The nonsense about\nGwendolen, conveying the fact that she was gone yachting with her\nhusband, only suggested a disturbing sequel to his own strange parting\nwith her. But there was one sentence in the letter which raised a more\nimmediate, active anxiety. Hans's suspicion of a hidden sadness in\nMirah was not in the direction of his wishes, and hence, instead of\ndistrusting his observation here, Deronda began to conceive a cause for\nthe sadness. Was it some event that had occurred during his absence, or\nonly the growing fear of some event? Was it something, perhaps\nalterable, in the new position which had been made for her? Or--had\nMordecai, against his habitual resolve, communicated to her those\npeculiar cherished hopes about him, Deronda, and had her quickly\nsensitive nature been hurt by the discovery that her brother's will or\ntenacity of visionary conviction had acted coercively on their\nfriendship--been hurt by the fear that there was more of pitying\nself-suppression than of equal regard in Deronda's relation to him? For\namidst all Mirah's quiet renunciation, the evident thirst of soul with\nwhich she received the tribute of equality implied a corresponding pain\nif she found that what she had taken for a purely reverential regard\ntoward her brother had its mixture of condescension.\n\nIn this last conjecture of Deronda's he was not wrong as to the quality\nin Mirah's nature on which he was founding--the latent protest against\nthe treatment she had all her life being subject to until she met him.\nFor that gratitude which would not let her pass by any notice of their\nacquaintance without insisting on the depth of her debt to him, took\nhalf its fervor from the keen comparison with what others had thought\nenough to render to her. Deronda's affinity in feeling enabled him to\npenetrate such secrets. But he was not near the truth in admitting the\nidea that Mordecai had broken his characteristic reticence. To no soul\nbut Deronda himself had he yet breathed the history of their relation\nto each other, or his confidence about his friend's origin: it was not\nonly that these subjects were for him too sacred to be spoken of\nwithout weighty reason, but that he had discerned Deronda's shrinking\nat any mention of his birth; and the severity of reserve which had\nhindered Mordecai from answering a question on a private affair of the\nCohen family told yet more strongly here.\n\n\"Ezra, how is it?\" Mirah one day said to him--\"I am continually going\nto speak to Mr. Deronda as if he were a Jew?\"\n\nHe smiled at her quietly, and said, \"I suppose it is because he treats\nus as if he were our brother. But he loves not to have the difference\nof birth dwelt upon.\"\n\n\"He has never lived with his parents, Mr. Hans, says,\" continued Mirah,\nto whom this was necessarily a question of interest about every one for\nwhom she had a regard.\n\n\"Seek not to know such things from Mr. Hans,\" said Mordecai, gravely,\nlaying his hand on her curls, as he was wont. \"What Daniel Deronda\nwishes us to know about himself is for him to tell us.\"\n\nAnd Mirah felt herself rebuked, as Deronda had done. But to be rebuked\nin this way by Mordecai made her rather proud.\n\n\"I see no one so great as my brother,\" she said to Mrs. Meyrick one day\nthat she called at the Chelsea house on her way home, and, according to\nher hope, found the little mother alone. \"It is difficult to think that\nhe belongs to the same world as those people I used to live amongst. I\ntold you once that they made life seem like a madhouse; but when I am\nwith Ezra he makes me feel that his life is a great good, though he has\nsuffered so much; not like me, who wanted to die because I had suffered\na little, and only for a little while. His soul is so full, it is\nimpossible for him to wish for death as I did. I get the same sort of\nfeeling from him that I got yesterday, when I was tired, and came home\nthrough the park after the sweet rain had fallen and the sunshine lay\non the grass and flowers. Everything in the sky and under the sky\nlooked so pure and beautiful that the weariness and trouble and folly\nseemed only a small part of what is, and I became more patient and\nhopeful.\"\n\nA dove-like note of melancholy in this speech caused Mrs. Meyrick to\nlook at Mirah with new examination. After laying down her hat and\npushing her curls flat, with an air of fatigue, she placed herself on a\nchair opposite her friend in her habitual attitude, her feet and hands\njust crossed; and at a distance she might have seemed a colored statue\nof serenity. But Mrs. Meyrick discerned a new look of suppressed\nsuffering in her face, which corresponded to the hint that to be\npatient and hopeful required some extra influence.\n\n\"Is there any fresh trouble on your mind, my dear?\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\ngiving up her needlework as a sign of concentrated attention.\n\nMirah hesitated before she said, \"I am too ready to speak of troubles,\nI think. It seems unkind to put anything painful into other people's\nminds, unless one were sure it would hinder something worse. And\nperhaps I am too hasty and fearful.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear, mothers are made to like pain and trouble for the sake of\ntheir children. Is it because the singing lessons are so few, and are\nlikely to fall off when the season comes to an end? Success in these\nthings can't come all at once.\" Mrs. Meyrick did not believe that she\nwas touching the real grief; but a guess that could be corrected would\nmake an easier channel for confidence.\n\n\"No, not that,\" said Mirah, shaking her head gently. \"I have been a\nlittle disappointed because so many ladies said they wanted me to give\nthem or their daughters lessons, and then I never heard of them again,\nBut perhaps after the holidays I shall teach in some schools. Besides,\nyou know, I am as rich as a princess now. I have not touched the\nhundred pounds that Mrs. Klesmer gave me; and I should never be afraid\nthat Ezra would be in want of anything, because there is Mr. Deronda,\"\nand he said, 'It is the chief honor of my life that your brother will\nshare anything with me.' Oh, no! Ezra and I can have no fears for each\nother about such things as food and clothing.\"\n\n\"But there is some other fear on your mind,\" said Mrs. Meyrick not\nwithout divination--\"a fear of something that may disturb your peace;\nDon't be forecasting evil, dear child, unless it is what you can guard\nagainst. Anxiety is good for nothing if we can't turn it into a\ndefense. But there's no defense against all the things that might be.\nHave you any more reason for being anxious now than you had a month\nago?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have,\" said Mirah. \"I have kept it from Ezra. I have not dared\nto tell him. Pray forgive me that I can't do without telling you. I\n_have_ more reason for being anxious. It is five days ago now. I am\nquite sure I saw my father.\"\n\nMrs. Meyrick shrank into a smaller space, packing her arms across her\nchest and leaning forward--to hinder herself from pelting that father\nwith her worst epithets.\n\n\"The year has changed him,\" Mirah went on. \"He had already been much\naltered and worn in the time before I left him. You remember I said how\nhe used sometimes to cry. He was always excited one way or the other. I\nhave told Ezra everything that I told you, and he says that my father\nhad taken to gambling, which makes people easily distressed, and then\nagain exalted. And now--it was only a moment that I saw him--his face\nwas more haggard, and his clothes were shabby. He was with a much\nworse-looking man, who carried something, and they were hurrying along\nafter an omnibus.\"\n\n\"Well, child, he did not see you, I hope?\"\n\n\"No. I had just come from Mrs. Raymond's, and I was waiting to cross\nnear the Marble Arch. Soon he was on the omnibus and gone out of sight.\nIt was a dreadful moment. My old life seemed to have come back again,\nand it was worse than it had ever been before. And I could not help\nfeeling it a new deliverance that he was gone out of sight without\nknowing that I was there. And yet it hurt me that I was feeling so--it\nseemed hateful in me--almost like words I once had to speak in a play,\nthat 'I had warmed my hands in the blood of my kindred.' For where\nmight my father be going? What may become of him? And his having a\ndaughter who would own him in spite of all, might have hindered the\nworst. Is there any pain like seeing what ought to be the best things\nin life turned into the worst? All those opposite feelings were meeting\nand pressing against each other, and took up all my strength. No one\ncould act that. Acting is slow and poor to what we go through within. I\ndon't know how I called a cab. I only remember that I was in it when I\nbegan to think, 'I cannot tell Ezra; he must not know.'\"\n\n\"You are afraid of grieving him?\" Mrs. Meyrick asked, when Mirah had\npaused a little.\n\n\"Yes--and there is something more,\" said Mirah, hesitatingly, as if she\nwere examining her feeling before she would venture to speak of it. \"I\nwant to tell you; I cannot tell any one else. I could not have told my\nown mother: I should have closed it up before her. I feel shame for my\nfather, and it is perhaps strange--but the shame is greater before Ezra\nthan before any one else in the world. He desired me to tell him all\nabout my life, and I obeyed him. But it is always like a smart to me to\nknow that those things about my father are in Ezra's mind. And--can you\nbelieve it? when the thought haunts me how it would be if my father\nwere to come and show himself before us both, what seems as if it would\nscorch me most is seeing my father shrinking before Ezra. That is the\ntruth. I don't know whether it is a right feeling. But I can't help\nthinking that I would rather try to maintain my father in secret, and\nbear a great deal in that way, if I could hinder him from meeting my\nbrother.\"\n\n\"You must not encourage that feeling, Mirah,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nhastily. \"It would be very dangerous; it would be wrong. You must not\nhave concealment of that sort.\"\n\n\"But ought I now to tell Ezra that I have seen my father?\" said Mirah,\nwith deprecation in her tone.\n\n\"No,\" Mrs. Meyrick answered, dubitatively. \"I don't know that it is\nnecessary to do that. Your father may go away with the birds. It is not\nclear that he came after you; you may never see him again. And then\nyour brother will have been spared a useless anxiety. But promise me\nthat if your father sees you--gets hold of you in any way again--and\nyou will let us all know. Promise me that solemnly, Mirah. I have a\nright to ask it.\"\n\nMirah reflected a little, then leaned forward to put her hands in Mrs.\nMeyrick's, and said, \"Since you ask it, I do promise. I will bear this\nfeeling of shame. I have been so long used to think that I must bear\nthat sort of inward pain. But the shame for my father burns me more\nwhen I think of his meeting Ezra.\" She was silent a moment or two, and\nthen said, in a new tone of yearning compassion, \"And we are his\nchildren--and he was once young like us--and my mother loved him. Oh! I\ncannot help seeing it all close, and it hurts me like a cruelty.\"\n\nMirah shed no tears: the discipline of her whole life had been against\nindulgence in such manifestation, which soon falls under the control of\nstrong motives; but it seemed that the more intense expression of\nsorrow had entered into her voice. Mrs. Meyrick, with all her quickness\nand loving insight, did not quite understand that filial feeling in\nMirah which had active roots deep below her indignation for the worst\noffenses. She could conceive that a mother would have a clinging pity\nand shame for a reprobate son, but she was out of patience with what\nshe held an exaggerated susceptibility on behalf of this father, whose\nreappearance inclined her to wish him under the care of a turnkey.\nMirah's promise, however, was some security against her weakness.\n\nThat incident was the only reason that Mirah herself could have stated\nfor the hidden sadness which Hans had divined. Of one element in her\nchanged mood she could have given no definite account: it was something\nas dim as the sense of approaching weather-change, and had extremely\nslight external promptings, such as we are often ashamed to find all we\ncan allege in support of the busy constructions that go on within us,\nnot only without effort, but even against it, under the influence of\nany blind emotional stirring. Perhaps the first leaven of uneasiness\nwas laid by Gwendolen's behavior on that visit which was entirely\nsuperfluous as a means of engaging Mirah to sing, and could have no\nother motive than the excited and strange questioning about Deronda.\nMirah had instinctively kept the visit a secret, but the active\nremembrance of it had raised a new susceptibility in her, and made her\nalive as she had never been before to the relations Deronda must have\nwith that society which she herself was getting frequent glimpses of\nwithout belonging to it. Her peculiar life and education had produced\nin her an extraordinary mixture of unworldliness, with knowledge of the\nworld's evil, and even this knowledge was a strange blending of direct\nobservation with the effects of reading and theatrical study. Her\nmemory was furnished with abundant passionate situation and intrigue,\nwhich she never made emotionally her own, but felt a repelled aloofness\nfrom, as she had done from the actual life around her. Some of that\nimaginative knowledge began now to weave itself around Mrs. Grandcourt;\nand though Mirah would admit no position likely to affect her reverence\nfor Deronda, she could not avoid a new painfully vivid association of\nhis general life with a world away from her own, where there might be\nsome involvement of his feeling and action with a woman like Gwendolen,\nwho was increasingly repugnant to her--increasingly, even after she had\nceased to see her; for liking and disliking can grow in meditation as\nfast as in the more immediate kind of presence. Any disquietude\nconsciously due to the idea that Deronda's deepest care might be for\nsomething remote not only from herself but even from his friendship for\nher brother, she would have checked with rebuking questions:--What was\nshe but one who had shared his generous kindness with many others? and\nhis attachment to her brother, was it not begun late to be soon ended?\nOther ties had come before, and others would remain after this had been\ncut by swift-coming death. But her uneasiness had not reached that\npoint of self-recognition in which she would have been ashamed of it as\nan indirect, presumptuous claim on Deronda's feeling. That she or any\none else should think of him as her possible lover was a conception\nwhich had never entered her mind; indeed it was equally out of the\nquestion with Mrs. Meyrick and the girls, who with Mirah herself\nregarded his intervention in her life as something exceptional, and\nwere so impressed by his mission as her deliverer and guardian that\nthey would have held it an offense to him at his holding any other\nrelation toward her: a point of view which Hans also had readily\nadopted. It is a little hard upon some men that they appear to sink for\nus in becoming lovers. But precisely to this innocence of the Meyricks\nwas owing the disturbance of Mirah's unconsciousness. The first\noccasion could hardly have been more trivial, but it prepared her\nemotive nature for a deeper effect from what happened afterward.\n\nIt was when Anna Gascoigne, visiting the Meyricks; was led to speak of\nher cousinship with Gwendolen. The visit had been arranged that Anna\nmight see Mirah; the three girls were at home with their mother, and\nthere was naturally a flux of talk among six feminine creatures, free\nfrom the presence of a distorting male standard. Anna Gascoigne felt\nherself much at home with the Meyrick girls, who knew what it was to\nhave a brother, and to be generally regarded as of minor importance in\nthe world; and she had told Rex that she thought the University very\nnice, because brothers made friends there whose families were not rich\nand grand, and yet (like the University) were very nice. The Meyricks\nseemed to her almost alarmingly clever, and she consulted them much on\nthe best mode of teaching Lotta, confiding to them that she herself was\nthe least clever of her family. Mirah had lately come in, and there was\na complete bouquet of young faces around the tea-table--Hafiz, seated a\nlittle aloft with large eyes on the alert, regarding the whole scene as\nan apparatus for supplying his allowance of milk.\n\n\"Think of our surprise, Mirah,\" said Kate. \"We were speaking of Mr.\nDeronda and the Mallingers, and it turns out that Miss Gascoigne knows\nthem.\"\n\n\"I only knew about them,\" said Anna, a little flushed with excitement,\nwhat she had heard and now saw of the lovely Jewess being an almost\nstartling novelty to her. \"I have not even seen them. But some months\nago, my cousin married Sir Hugo Mallinger's nephew, Mr. Grandcourt, who\nlived in Sir Hugo's place at Diplow, near us.\"\n\n\"There!\" exclaimed Mab, clasping her hands. \"Something must come of\nthat. Mrs. Grandcourt, the Vandyke duchess, is your cousin?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes; I was her bridesmaid,\" said Anna. \"Her mamma and mine are\nsisters. My aunt was much richer before last year, but then she and\nmamma lost all their fortune. Papa is a clergyman, you know, so it\nmakes very little difference to us, except that we keep no carriage,\nand have no dinner parties--and I like it better. But it was very sad\nfor poor Aunt Davilow, for she could not live with us, because she has\nfour daughters besides Gwendolen; but then, when she married Mr.\nGrandcourt, it did not signify so much, because of his being so rich.\"\n\n\"Oh, this finding out relationships is delightful!\" said Mab. \"It is\nlike a Chinese puzzle that one has to fit together. I feel sure\nsomething wonderful may be made of it, but I can't tell what.\"\n\n\"Dear me, Mab,\" said Amy, \"relationships must branch out. The only\ndifference is, that we happen to know some of the people concerned.\nSuch things are going on every day.\"\n\n\"And pray, Amy, why do you insist on the number nine being so\nwonderful?\" said Mab. \"I am sure that is happening every day. Never\nmind, Miss Gascoigne; please go on. And Mr. Deronda?--have you never\nseen Mr. Deronda? You _must_ bring him in.\"\n\n\"No, I have not seen him,\" said Anna; \"but he was at Diplow before my\ncousin was married, and I have heard my aunt speaking of him to papa.\nShe said what you have been saying about him--only not so much: I mean,\nabout Mr. Deronda living with Sir Hugo Mallinger, and being so nice,\nshe thought. We talk a great deal about every one who comes near\nPennicote, because it is so seldom there is any one new. But I\nremember, when I asked Gwendolen what she thought of Mr. Deronda, she\nsaid, 'Don't mention it, Anna: but I think his hair is dark.' That was\nher droll way of answering: she was always so lively. It is really\nrather wonderful that I should come to hear so much about him, all\nthrough Mr. Hans knowing Rex, and then my having the pleasure of\nknowing you,\" Anna ended, looking at Mrs. Meyrick with a shy grace.\n\n\"The pleasure is on our side too; but the wonder would have been, if\nyou had come to this house without hearing of Mr. Deronda--wouldn't it,\nMirah?\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\nMirah smiled acquiescently, but had nothing to say. A confused\ndiscontent took possession of her at the mingling of names and images\nto which she had been listening.\n\n\"My son calls Mrs. Grandcourt the Vandyke duchess,\" continued Mrs.\nMeyrick, turning again to Anna; \"he thinks her so striking and\npicturesque.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Anna. \"Gwendolen was always so beautiful--people fell\ndreadfully in love with her. I thought it a pity, because it made them\nunhappy.\"\n\n\"And how do you like Mr. Grandcourt, the happy lover?\" said Mrs.\nMeyrick, who, in her way, was as much interested as Mab in the hints\nshe had been hearing of vicissitude in the life of a widow with\ndaughters.\n\n\"Papa approved of Gwendolen's accepting him, and my aunt says he is\nvery generous,\" said Anna, beginning with a virtuous intention of\nrepressing her own sentiments; but then, unable to resist a rare\noccasion for speaking them freely, she went on--\"else I should have\nthought he was not very nice--rather proud, and not at all lively, like\nGwendolen. I should have thought some one younger and more lively would\nhave suited her better. But, perhaps, having a brother who seems to us\nbetter than any one makes us think worse of others.\"\n\n\"Wait till you see Mr. Deronda,\" said Mab, nodding significantly.\n\"Nobody's brother will do after him.\"\n\n\"Our brothers _must_ do for people's husbands,\" said Kate, curtly,\n\"because they will not get Mr. Deronda. No woman will do for him to\nmarry.\"\n\n\"No woman ought to want him to marry him,\" said Mab, with indignation.\n\"_I_ never should. Fancy finding out that he had a tailor's bill, and\nused boot-hooks, like Hans. Who ever thought of his marrying?\"\n\n\"I have,\" said Kate. \"When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece to\n'Hearts and Diamonds,' I made a sort of likeness to him for the\nbridegroom, and I went about looking for a grand woman who would do for\nhis countess, but I saw none that would not be poor creatures by the\nside of him.\"\n\n\"You should have seen this Mrs. Grandcourt then,\" said Mrs. Meyrick.\n\"Hans says that she and Mr. Deronda set each other off when they are\nside by side. She is tall and fair. But you know her, Mirah--you can\nalways say something descriptive. What do _you_ think of Mrs.\nGrandcourt?\"\n\n\"I think she is the _Princess of Eboli_ in _Don Carlos_,\" said Mirah,\nwith a quick intensity. She was pursuing an association in her own mind\nnot intelligible to her hearers--an association with a certain actress\nas well as the part she represented.\n\n\"Your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear,\" said Mrs. Meyrick,\nsmiling.\n\n\"You said that Mrs. Grandcourt was tall and fair,\" continued Mirah,\nslightly paler. \"That is quite true.\"\n\nMrs. Meyrick's quick eye and ear detected something unusual, but\nimmediately explained it to herself. Fine ladies had often wounded\nMirah by caprices of manner and intention.\n\n\"Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah,\" she said\nturning to Anna. \"But many have talked of having lessons, and then have\nfound no time. Fashionable ladies have too much work to do.\"\n\nAnd the chat went on without further insistance on the _Princess of\nEboli_. That comparison escaped Mirah's lips under the urgency of a\npang unlike anything she had felt before. The conversation from the\nbeginning had revived unpleasant impressions, and Mrs. Meyrick's\nsuggestion of Gwendolen's figure by the side of Deronda's had the\nstinging effect of a voice outside her, confirming her secret\nconviction that this tall and fair woman had some hold on his lot. For\na long while afterward she felt as if she had had a jarring shock\nthrough her frame.\n\nIn the evening, putting her cheek against her brother's shoulder as she\nwas sitting by him, while he sat propped up in bed under a new\ndifficulty of breathing, she said--\n\n\"Ezra, does it ever hurt your love for Mr. Deronda that so much of his\nlife was all hidden away from you--that he is amongst persons and cares\nabout persons who are all so unlike us--I mean unlike you?\"\n\n\"No, assuredly no,\" said Mordecai. \"Rather it is a precious thought to\nme that he has a preparation which I lacked, and is an accomplished\nEgyptian.\" Then, recollecting that his words had reference which his\nsister must not yet understand, he added. \"I have the more to give him,\nsince his treasure differs from mine. That is a blessedness in\nfriendship.\"\n\nMirah mused a little.\n\n\"Still,\" she said, \"it would be a trial to your love for him if that\nother part of his life were like a crowd in which he had got entangled,\nso that he was carried away from you--I mean in his thoughts, and not\nmerely carried out of sight as he is now--and not merely for a little\nwhile, but continually. How should you bear that! Our religion commands\nus to bear. But how should you bear it?\"\n\n\"Not well, my sister--not well; but it will never happen,\" said\nMordecai, looking at her with a tender smile. He thought that her heart\nneeded comfort on his account.\n\nMirah said no more. She mused over the difference between her own state\nof mind and her brother's, and felt her comparative pettiness. Why\ncould she not be completely satisfied with what satisfied his larger\njudgment? She gave herself no fuller reason than a painful sense of\nunfitness--in what? Airy possibilities to which she could give no\noutline, but to which one name and one figure gave the wandering\npersistency of a blot in her vision. Here lay the vaguer source of the\nhidden sadness rendered noticeable to Hans by some diminution of that\nsweet ease, that ready joyousness of response in her speech and smile,\nwhich had come with the new sense of freedom and safety, and had made\nher presence like the freshly-opened daisies and clear bird-notes after\nthe rain. She herself regarded her uneasiness as a sort of ingratitude\nand dullness of sensibility toward the great things that had been given\nher in her new life; and whenever she threw more energy than usual into\nher singing, it was the energy of indignation against the shallowness\nof her own content. In that mood she once said, \"Shall I tell you what\nis the difference between you and me, Ezra? You are a spring in the\ndrought, and I am an acorn-cup; the waters of heaven fill me, but the\nleast little shake leaves me empty.\"\n\n\"Why, what has shaken thee?\" said Mordecai. He fell into this antique\nform of speech habitually in talking to his sister and to the Cohen\nchildren.\n\n\"Thoughts,\" said Mirah; \"thoughts that come like the breeze and shake\nme--bad people, wrong things, misery--and how they might touch our\nlife.\"\n\n\"We must take our portion, Mirah. It is there. On whose shoulder would\nwe lay it, that we might be free?\"\n\nThe one voluntary sign she made of her inward care was this distant\nallusion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIII.\n\n  \"My desolation does begin to make\n  A better life.\"\n      --SHAKESPEARE: _Antony and Cleopatra._\n\n\nBefore Deronda was summoned to a second interview with his mother, a\nday had passed in which she had only sent him a message to say that she\nwas not yet well enough to receive him again; but on the third morning\nhe had a note saying, \"I leave to-day. Come and see me at once.\"\n\nHe was shown into the same room as before; but it was much darkened\nwith blinds and curtains. The Princess was not there, but she presently\nentered, dressed in a loose wrap of some soft silk, in color a dusky\norange, her head again with black lace floating about it, her arms\nshowing themselves bare from under her wide sleeves. Her face seemed\neven more impressive in the sombre light, the eyes larger, the lines\nmore vigorous. You might have imagined her a sorceress who would\nstretch forth her wonderful hand and arm to mix youth-potions for\nothers, but scorned to mix them for herself, having had enough of youth.\n\nShe put her arms on her son's shoulders at once, and kissed him on both\ncheeks, then seated herself among her cushions with an air of assured\nfirmness and dignity unlike her fitfulness in their first interview,\nand told Deronda to sit down by her. He obeyed, saying, \"You are quite\nrelieved now, I trust?\"\n\n\"Yes, I am at ease again. Is there anything more that you would like to\nask me?\" she said, with the matter of a queen rather than of a mother.\n\n\"Can I find the house in Genoa where you used to live with my\ngrandfather?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"No,\" she answered, with a deprecating movement of her arm, \"it is\npulled down--not to be found. But about our family, and where my father\nlived at various times--you will find all that among the papers in the\nchest, better than I can tell you. My father, I told you, was a\nphysician. My mother was a Morteira. I used to hear all those things\nwithout listening. You will find them all. I was born amongst them\nwithout my will. I banished them as soon as I could.\"\n\nDeronda tried to hide his pained feeling, and said, \"Anything else that\nI should desire to know from you could only be what it is some\nsatisfaction to your own feeling to tell me.\"\n\n\"I think I have told you everything that could be demanded of me,\" said\nthe Princess, looking coldly meditative. It seemed as if she had\nexhausted her emotion in their former interview. The fact was, she had\nsaid to herself, \"I have done it all. I have confessed all. I will not\ngo through it again. I will save myself from agitation.\" And she was\nacting out that scheme.\n\nBut to Deronda's nature the moment was cruel; it made the filial\nyearning of his life a disappointed pilgrimage to a shrine where there\nwere no longer the symbols of sacredness. It seemed that all the woman\nlacking in her was present in him, as he said, with some tremor in his\nvoice--\n\n\"Then are we to part and I never be anything to you?\"\n\n\"It is better so,\" said the Princess, in a softer, mellower voice.\n\"There could be nothing but hard duty for you, even if it were possible\nfor you to take the place of my son. You would not love me. Don't deny\nit,\" she said, abruptly, putting up her hand. \"I know what is the\ntruth. You don't like what I did. You are angry with me. You think I\nrobbed you of something. You are on your grandfather's side, and you\nwill always have a condemnation of me in your heart.\"\n\nDeronda felt himself under a ban of silence. He rose from his seat by\nher, preferring to stand, if he had to obey that imperious prohibition\nof any tenderness. But his mother now looked up at him with a new\nadmiration in her glance, saying--\n\n\"You are wrong to be angry with me. You are the better for what I did.\"\nAfter pausing a little, she added, abruptly, \"And now tell me what you\nshall do?\"\n\n\"Do you mean now, immediately,\" said Deronda; \"or as to the course of\nmy future life?\"\n\n\"I mean in the future. What difference will it make to you that I have\ntold you about your birth?\"\n\n\"A very great difference,\" said Deronda, emphatically. \"I can hardly\nthink of anything that would make a greater difference.\"\n\n\"What shall you do then?\" said the Princess, with more sharpness. \"Make\nyourself just like your grandfather--be what he wished you--turn\nyourself into a Jew like him?\"\n\n\"That is impossible. The effect of my education can never be done away\nwith. The Christian sympathies in which my mind was reared can never\ndie out of me,\" said Deronda, with increasing tenacity of tone. \"But I\nconsider it my duty--it is the impulse of my feeling--to identify\nmyself, as far as possible, with my hereditary people, and if I can see\nany work to be done for them that I can give my soul and hand to I\nshall choose to do it.\"\n\nHis mother had her eyes fixed on him with a wondering speculation,\nexamining his face as if she thought that by close attention she could\nread a difficult language there. He bore her gaze very firmly,\nsustained by a resolute opposition, which was the expression of his\nfullest self. She bent toward him a little, and said, with a decisive\nemphasis--\n\n\"You are in love with a Jewess.\"\n\nDeronda colored and said, \"My reasons would be independent of any such\nfact.\"\n\n\"I know better. I have seen what men are,\" said the Princess,\nperemptorily. \"Tell me the truth. She is a Jewess who will not accept\nany one but a Jew. There _are_ a few such,\" she added, with a touch of\nscorn.\n\nDeronda had that objection to answer which we all have known in\nspeaking to those who are too certain of their own fixed\ninterpretations to be enlightened by anything we may say. But besides\nthis, the point immediately in question was one on which he felt a\nrepugnance either to deny or affirm. He remained silent, and she\npresently said--\n\n\"You love her as your father loved me, and she draws you after her as I\ndrew him.\"\n\nThose words touched Deronda's filial imagination, and some tenderness\nin his glance was taken by his mother as an assent. She went on with\nrising passion: \"But I was leading him the other way. And now your\ngrandfather is getting his revenge.\"\n\n\"Mother,\" said Deronda, remonstrantly, \"don't let us think of it in\nthat way. I will admit that there may come some benefit from the\neducation you chose for me. I prefer cherishing the benefit with\ngratitude, to dwelling with resentment on the injury. I think it would\nhave been right that I should have been brought up with the\nconsciousness that I was a Jew, but it must always have been a good to\nme to have as wide an instruction and sympathy as possible. And now,\nyou have restored me my inheritance--events have brought a fuller\nrestitution than you could have made--you have been saved from robbing\nmy people of my service and me of my duty: can you not bring your whole\nsoul to consent to this?\"\n\nDeronda paused in his pleading: his mother looked at him listeningly,\nas if the cadence of his voice were taking her ear, yet she shook her\nhead slowly. He began again, even more urgently.\n\n\"You have told me that you sought what you held the best for me: open\nyour heart to relenting and love toward my grandfather, who sought what\nhe held the best for you.\"\n\n\"Not for me, no,\" she said, shaking her head with more absolute denial,\nand folding her arms tightly. \"I tell you, he never thought of his\ndaughter except as an instrument. Because I had wants outside his\npurpose, I was to be put in a frame and tortured. If that is the right\nlaw for the world, I will not say that I love it. If my acts were\nwrong--if it is God who is exacting from me that I should deliver up\nwhat I withheld--who is punishing me because I deceived my father and\ndid not warn him that I should contradict his trust--well, I have told\neverything. I have done what I could. And _your_ soul consents. That is\nenough. I have after all been the instrument my father wanted.--'I\ndesire a grandson who shall have a true Jewish heart. Every Jew should\nrear his family as if he hoped that a Deliverer might spring from it.'\"\n\nIn uttering these last sentences the Princess narrowed her eyes, waved\nher head up and down, and spoke slowly with a new kind of chest-voice,\nas if she were quoting unwillingly.\n\n\"Were those my grandfather's words?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"Yes, yes; and you will find them written. I wanted to thwart him,\"\nsaid the Princess, with a sudden outburst of the passion she had shown\nin the former interview. Then she added more slowly, \"You would have me\nlove what I have hated from the time I was so high\"--here she held her\nleft hand a yard from the floor.--\"That can never be. But what does it\nmatter? His yoke has been on me, whether I loved it or not. You are the\ngrandson he wanted. You speak as men do--as if you felt yourself wise.\nWhat does it all mean?\"\n\nHer tone was abrupt and scornful. Deronda, in his pained feeling, and\nunder the solemn urgency of the moment, had to keep a clutching\nremembrance of their relationship, lest his words should become cruel.\nHe began in a deep entreating tone:\n\n\"Mother, don't say that I feel myself wise. We are set in the midst of\ndifficulties. I see no other way to get any clearness than by being\ntruthful--not by keeping back facts which may--which should carry\nobligation within them--which should make the only guidance toward\nduty. No wonder if such facts come to reveal themselves in spite of\nconcealments. The effects prepared by generations are likely to triumph\nover a contrivance which would bend them all to the satisfaction of\nself. Your will was strong, but my grandfather's trust which you\naccepted and did not fulfill--what you call his yoke--is the expression\nof something stronger, with deeper, farther-spreading roots, knit into\nthe foundations of sacredness for all men. You renounced me--you still\nbanish me--as a son\"--there was an involuntary movement of indignation\nin Deronda's voice--\"But that stronger Something has determined that I\nshall be all the more the grandson whom also you willed to annihilate.\"\n\nHis mother was watching him fixedly, and again her face gathered\nadmiration. After a moment's silence she said, in a low, persuasive\ntone--\n\n\"Sit down again,\" and he obeyed, placing himself beside her. She laid\nher hand on his shoulder and went on--\n\n\"You rebuke me. Well--I am the loser. And you are angry because I\nbanish you. What could you do for me but weary your own patience? Your\nmother is a shattered woman. My sense of life is little more than a\nsense of what was--except when the pain is present. You reproach me\nthat I parted with you. I had joy enough without you then. Now you are\ncome back to me, and I cannot make you a joy. Have you the cursing\nspirit of the Jew in you? Are you not able to forgive me? Shall you be\nglad to think that I am punished because I was not a Jewish mother to\nyou?\"\n\n\"How can you ask me that?\" said Deronda, remonstrantly. \"Have I not\nbesought you that I might now at least be a son to you? My grief is\nthat you have declared me helpless to comfort you. I would give up much\nthat is dear for the sake of soothing your anguish.\"\n\n\"You shall give up nothing,\" said his mother, with the hurry of\nagitation. \"You shall be happy. You shall let me think of you as happy.\nI shall have done you no harm. You have no reason to curse me. You\nshall feel for me as they feel for the dead whom they say prayers\nfor--you shall long that I may be freed from all suffering--from all\npunishment. And I shall see you instead of always seeing your\ngrandfather. Will any harm come to me because I broke his trust in the\ndaylight after he was gone into darkness? I cannot tell:--if you think\n_Kaddish_ will help me--say it, say it. You will come between me and\nthe dead. When I am in your mind, you will look as you do now--always\nas if you were a tender son--always--as if I had been a tender mother.\"\n\nShe seemed resolved that her agitation should not conquer her, but he\nfelt her hand trembling on his shoulder. Deep, deep compassion hemmed\nin all words. With a face of beseeching he put his arm around her and\npressed her head tenderly under his. They sat so for some moments. Then\nshe lifted her head again and rose from her seat with a great sigh, as\nif in that breath she were dismissing a weight of thoughts. Deronda,\nstanding in front of her, felt that the parting was near. But one of\nher swift alternations had come upon his mother.\n\n\"Is she beautiful?\" she said, abruptly.\n\n\"Who?\" said Deronda, changing color.\n\n\"The woman you love.\"\n\nIt was not a moment for deliberate explanation. He was obliged to say,\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Not ambitious?\"\n\n\"No, I think not.\"\n\n\"Not one who must have a path of her own?\"\n\n\"I think her nature is not given to make great claims.\"\n\n\"She is not like that?\" said the Princess, taking from her wallet a\nminiature with jewels around it, and holding it before her son. It was\nher own in all the fire of youth, and as Deronda looked at it with\nadmiring sadness, she said, \"Had I not a rightful claim to be something\nmore than a mere daughter and mother? The voice and the genius matched\nthe face. Whatever else was wrong, acknowledge that I had a right to be\nan artist, though my father's will was against it. My nature gave me a\ncharter.\"\n\n\"I do acknowledge that,\" said Deronda, looking from the miniature to\nher face, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living\nforce beyond anything that the pencil could show.\n\n\"Will you take the portrait?\" said the Princess, more gently. \"If she\nis a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly.\"\n\n\"I shall be grateful for the portrait,\" said Deronda, \"but--I ought to\nsay, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for\nme. I have kept silence.\"\n\n\"Who and what is she?\" said the mother. The question seemed a command.\n\n\"She was brought up as a singer for the stage,\" said Deronda, with\ninward reluctance. \"Her father took her away early from her mother, and\nher life has been unhappy. She is very young--only twenty. Her father\nwished to bring her up in disregard--even in dislike of her Jewish\norigin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her\nmother and the fellowship of her people.\"\n\n\"Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of,\"\nsaid the Princess, peremptorily. \"That is poetry--fit to last through\nan opera night. Is she fond of her artist's life--is her singing worth\nanything?\"\n\n\"Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. I\nthink that the artist's life has been made repugnant to her.\"\n\n\"Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly against\nbeing a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself be\nmerged in a wife, as your father was.\"\n\n\"I repeat,\" said Deronda, emphatically--\"I repeat that I have no\nassurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be\nunited. Other things--painful issues may lie before me. I have always\nfelt that I should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that\nprospect. But I suppose I might feel so of happiness in general.\nWhether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do\nwithout it.\"\n\n\"Do you feel in that way?\" said his mother, laying her hands on his\nshoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative\ntone, pausing between her sentences. \"Poor boy!----I wonder how it\nwould have been if I had kept you with me----whether you would have\nturned your heart to the old things against mine----and we should have\nquarreled----your grandfather would have been in you----and you would\nhave hampered my life with your young growth from the old root.\"\n\n\"I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarreling,\"\nsaid Deronda, saddened more and more, \"and that would not have\nhampered--surely it would have enriched your life.\"\n\n\"Not then, not then----I did not want it then----I might have been glad\nof it now,\" said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, \"if I could have\nbeen glad of anything.\"\n\n\"But you love your other children, and they love you?\" said Deronda,\nanxiously.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" she answered, as to a question about a matter of course,\nwhile she folded her arms again. \"But,\"----she added in a deeper\ntone,----\"I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to\nlove--I lack it. Others have loved me--and I have acted their love. I\nknow very well what love makes of men and women--it is subjection. It\ntakes another for a larger self, enclosing this one,\"--she pointed to\nher own bosom. \"I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been\nsubject to me.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two,\" said\nDeronda--not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother's\nprivation.\n\n\"Perhaps--but I _was_ happy--for a few years I was happy. If I had not\nbeen afraid of defeat and failure, I might have gone on. I\nmiscalculated. What then? It is all over. Another life! Men talk of\n'another life,' as if it only began on the other side of the grave. I\nhave long entered on another life.\" With the last words she raised her\narms till they were bare to the elbow, her brow was contracted in one\ndeep fold, her eyes were closed, her voice was smothered: in her dusky\nflame-colored garment, she looked like a dreamed visitant from some\nregion of departed mortals.\n\nDeronda's feeling was wrought to a pitch of acuteness in which he was\nno longer quite master of himself. He gave an audible sob. His mother,\nopened her eyes, and letting her hands again rest on his shoulders,\nsaid--\n\n\"Good-bye, my son, good-bye. We shall hear no more of each other. Kiss\nme.\"\n\nHe clasped his arms round her neck, and they kissed each other.\n\nDeronda did not know how he got out of the room. He felt an older man.\nAll his boyish yearnings and anxieties about his mother had vanished.\nHe had gone through a tragic experience which must forever solemnize\nhis life and deepen the significance of the acts by which he bound\nhimself to others.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIV.\n\n        \"The unwilling brain\n  Feigns often what it would not; and we trust\n  Imagination with such phantasies\n  As the tongue dares not fashion into words;\n  Which have no words, their horror makes them dim\n  To the mind's eye.\"\n                                          --SHELLEY.\n\n\nMadonna Pia, whose husband, feeling himself injured by her, took her to\nhis castle amid the swampy flats of the Maremma and got rid of her\nthere, makes a pathetic figure in Dante's Purgatory, among the sinners\nwho repented at the last and desire to be remembered compassionately by\ntheir fellow-countrymen. We know little about the grounds of mutual\ndiscontent between the Siennese couple, but we may infer with some\nconfidence that the husband had never been a very delightful companion,\nand that on the flats of the Maremma his disagreeable manners had a\nbackground which threw them out remarkably; whence in his desire to\npunish his wife to the unmost, the nature of things was so far against\nhim that in relieving himself of her he could not avoid making the\nrelief mutual. And thus, without any hardness to the poor Tuscan lady,\nwho had her deliverance long ago, one may feel warranted in thinking of\nher with a less sympathetic interest than of the better known Gwendolen\nwho, instead of being delivered from her errors on earth and cleansed\nfrom their effect in purgatory, is at the very height of her\nentanglement in those fatal meshes which are woven within more closely\nthan without, and often make the inward torture disproportionate to\nwhat is discernable as outward cause.\n\nIn taking his wife with him on a yachting expedition, Grandcourt had no\nintention to get rid of her; on the contrary, he wanted to feel more\nsecurely that she was his to do as he liked with, and to make her feel\nit also. Moreover, he was himself very fond of yachting: its dreamy\ndo-nothing absolutism, unmolested by social demands, suited his\ndisposition, and he did not in the least regard it as an equivalent for\nthe dreariness of the Maremma. He had his reasons for carrying\nGwendolen out of reach, but they were not reasons that can seem black\nin the mere statement. He suspected a growing spirit of opposition in\nher, and his feeling about the sentimental inclination she betrayed for\nDeronda was what in another man he would have called jealousy. In\nhimself it seemed merely a resolution to put an end to such foolery as\nmust have been going on in that prearranged visit of Deronda's which he\nhad divined and interrupted.\n\nAnd Grandcourt might have pleaded that he was perfectly justified in\ntaking care that his wife should fulfill the obligations she had\naccepted. Her marriage was a contract where all the ostensible\nadvantages were on her side, and it was only of those advantages that\nher husband should use his power to hinder her from any injurious self\ncommittal or unsuitable behavior. He knew quite well that she had not\nmarried him--had not overcome her repugnance to certain facts--out of\nlove to him personally; he had won her by the rank and luxuries he had\nto give her, and these she had got: he had fulfilled his side of the\ncontract.\n\nAnd Gwendolen, we know, was thoroughly aware of the situation. She\ncould not excuse herself by saying that there had been a tacit part of\nthe contract on her side--namely, that she meant to rule and have her\nown way. With all her early indulgence in the disposition to dominate,\nshe was not one of the narrow-brained women who through life regard all\ntheir own selfish demands as rights, and every claim upon themselves as\nan injury. She had a root of conscience in her, and the process of\npurgatory had begun for her on the green earth: she knew that she had\nbeen wrong.\n\nBut now enter into the soul of this young creature as she found\nherself, with the blue Mediterranean dividing her from the world, on\nthe tiny plank-island of a yacht, the domain of the husband to whom she\nfelt that she had sold herself, and had been paid the strict\nprice--nay, paid more than she had dared to ask in the handsome\nmaintenance of her mother:--the husband to whom she had sold her\ntruthfulness and sense of justice, so that he held them throttled into\nsilence, collared and dragged behind him to witness what he would,\nwithout remonstrance.\n\nWhat had she to complain of? The yacht was of the prettiest; the cabin\nfitted up to perfection, smelling of cedar, soft-cushioned, hung with\nsilk, expanded with mirrors; the crew such as suited an elegant toy,\none of them having even ringlets, as well as a bronze complexion and\nfine teeth; and Mr. Lush was not there, for he had taken his way back\nto England as soon as he had seen all and everything on board.\nMoreover, Gwendolen herself liked the sea: it did not make her ill; and\nto observe the rigging of the vessel and forecast the necessary\nadjustments was a sort of amusement that might have gratified her\nactivity and enjoyment of imaginary rule; the weather was fine, and\nthey were coasting southward, where even the rain-furrowed,\nheat-cracked clay becomes gem-like with purple shadows, and where one\nmay float between blue and blue in an open-eyed dream that the world\nhas done with sorrow.\n\nBut what can still that hunger of the heart which sickens the eye for\nbeauty, and makes sweet-scented ease an oppression? What sort of Moslem\nparadise would quiet the terrible fury of moral repulsion and cowed\nresistance which, like an eating pain intensifying into torture,\nconcentrates the mind in that poisonous misery? While Gwendolen,\nthroned on her cushions at evening, and beholding the glory of sea and\nsky softening as if with boundless love around her, was hoping that\nGrandcourt in his march up and down was not going to pause near her,\nnot going to look at her or speak to her, some woman, under a smoky\nsky, obliged to consider the price of eggs in arranging her dinner, was\nlistening for the music of a footstep that would remove all risk from\nher foretaste of joy; some couple, bending cheek by cheek, over a bit\nof work done by the one and delighted in by the other, were reckoning\nthe earnings that would make them rich enough for a holiday among the\nfurze and heather.\n\nHad Grandcourt the least conception of what was going on in the breast\nof his wife? He conceived that she did not love him; but was that\nnecessary? She was under his power, and he was not accustomed to soothe\nhimself, as some cheerfully-disposed persons are, with the conviction\nthat he was very generally and justly beloved. But what lay quite away\nfrom his conception was, that she could have any special repulsion for\nhim personally. How could she? He himself knew what personal repulsion\nwas--nobody better; his mind was much furnished with a sense of what\nbrutes his fellow-creatures were, both masculine and feminine; what\nodious familiarities they had, what smirks, what modes of flourishing\ntheir handkerchiefs, what costume, what lavender water, what bulging\neyes, and what foolish notions of making themselves agreeable by\nremarks which were not wanted. In this critical view of mankind there\nwas an affinity between him and Gwendolen before their marriage, and we\nknow that she had been attractingly wrought upon by the refined\nnegations he presented to her. Hence he understood her repulsion for\nLush. But how was he to understand or conceive her present repulsion\nfor Henleigh Grandcourt? Some men bring themselves to believe, and not\nmerely maintain, the non-existence of an external world; a few others\nbelieve themselves objects of repulsion to a woman without being told\nso in plain language. But Grandcourt did not belong to this eccentric\nbody of thinkers. He had all his life had reason to take a flattering\nview of his own attractiveness, and to place himself in fine antithesis\nto the men who, he saw at once, must be revolting to a woman of taste.\nHe had no idea of moral repulsion, and could not have believed, if he\nhad been told it, that there may be a resentment and disgust which will\ngradually make beauty more detestable than ugliness, through\nexasperation at that outward virtue in which hateful things can flaunt\nthemselves or find a supercilious advantage.\n\nHow, then, could Grandcourt divine what was going on in Gwendolen's\nbreast?\n\nFor their behavior to each other scandalized no observer--not even the\nforeign maid, warranted against sea-sickness; nor Grandcourt's own\nexperienced valet: still less the picturesque crew, who regarded them\nas a model couple in high life. Their companionship consisted chiefly\nin a well-bred silence. Grandcourt had no humorous observations at\nwhich Gwendolen could refuse to smile, no chit-chat to make small\noccasions of dispute. He was perfectly polite in arranging an\nadditional garment over her when needful, and in handing her any object\nthat he perceived her to need, and she could not fall into the\nvulgarity of accepting or rejecting such politeness rudely.\n\nGrandcourt put up his telescope and said, \"There's a plantation of\nsugar-canes at the foot of that rock; should you like to look?\"\n\nGwendolen said, \"Yes, please,\" remembering that she must try and\ninterest herself in sugar-canes as something outside her personal\naffairs. Then Grandcourt would walk up and down and smoke for a long\nwhile, pausing occasionally to point out a sail on the horizon, and at\nlast would seat himself and look at Gwendolen with his narrow immovable\ngaze, as if she were part of the complete yacht; while she, conscious\nof being looked at was exerting her ingenuity not to meet his eyes. At\ndinner he would remark that the fruit was getting stale, and they must\nput in somewhere for more; or, observing that she did not drink the\nwine, he asked her if she would like any other kind better. A lady was\nobliged to respond to these things suitably; and even if she had not\nshrunk from quarrelling on other grounds, quarreling with Grandcourt\nwas impossible; she might as well have made angry remarks to a\ndangerous serpent ornamentally coiled in her cabin without invitation.\nAnd what sort of dispute could a woman of any pride and dignity begin\non a yacht?\n\nGrandcourt had intense satisfaction in leading his wife captive after\nthis fashion; it gave their life on a small scale a royal\nrepresentation and publicity in which every thing familiar was got rid\nof, and every body must do what was expected of them whatever might be\ntheir private protest--the protest (kept strictly private) adding to\nthe piquancy of despotism.\n\nTo Gwendolen, who even in the freedom of her maiden time, had had very\nfaint glimpses of any heroism or sublimity, the medium that now thrust\nitself everywhere before her view was this husband and her relation to\nhim. The beings closest to us, whether in love or hate, are often\nvirtually our interpreters of the world, and some feather-headed\ngentleman or lady whom in passing we regret to take as legal tender for\na human being, may be acting as a melancholy theory of life in the\nminds of those who live with them--like a piece of yellow and wavy\nglass that distorts form and makes color an affliction. Their trivial\nsentences, their petty standards, their low suspicions, their loveless\n_ennui_, may be making somebody else's life no better than a promenade\nthrough a pantheon of ugly idols. Gwendolen had that kind of window\nbefore her, affecting the distant equally with the near. Some unhappy\nwives are soothed by the possibility that they may become mothers; but\nGwendolen felt that to desire a child for herself would have been a\nconsenting to the completion of the injury she had been guilty of. She\nwas reduced to dread lest she should become a mother. It was not the\nimage of a new sweetly-budding life that came as a vision of\ndeliverance from the monotony of distaste: it was an image of another\nsort. In the irritable, fluctuating stages of despair, gleams of hope\ncame in the form of some possible accident. To dwell on the benignity\nof accident was a refuge from worse temptation.\n\nThe embitterment of hatred is often as unaccountable to onlookers as\nthe growth of devoted love, and it not only seems but is really out of\ndirect relation with any outward causes to be alleged. Passion is of\nthe nature of seed, and finds nourishment within, tending to a\npredominance which determines all currents toward itself, and makes the\nwhole life its tributary. And the intensest form of hatred is that\nrooted in fear, which compels to silence and drives vehemence into a\nconstructive vindictiveness, an imaginary annihilation of the detested\nobject, something like the hidden rites of vengeance with which the\npersecuted have made a dark vent for their rage, and soothed their\nsuffering into dumbness. Such hidden rites went on in the secrecy of\nGwendolen's mind, but not with soothing effect--rather with the effect\nof a struggling terror. Side by side with the dread of her husband had\ngrown the self-dread, which urged her to flee from the pursuing images\nwrought by her pent-up impulse. The vision of her past wrong-doing, and\nwhat it had brought on her, came with a pale ghastly illumination over\nevery imagined deed that was a rash effort at freedom, such as she had\nmade in her marriage. Moreover, she had learned to see all her acts\nthrough the impression they would make on Deronda: whatever relief\nmight come to her, she could not sever it from the judgment of her that\nwould be created in his mind. Not one word of flattery, of indulgence,\nof dependence on her favor, could be fastened on by her in all their\nintercourse, to weaken his restraining power over her (in this way\nDeronda's effort over himself was repaid); and amid the dreary\nuncertainties of her spoiled life the possible remedies that lay in his\nmind, nay, the remedy that lay in her feeling for him, made her only\nhope. He seemed to her a terrible-browed angel, from whom she could not\nthink of concealing any deed so as to win an ignorant regard from him:\nit belonged to the nature of their relation that she should be\ntruthful, for his power over her had begun in the raising of a\nself-discontent which could be satisfied only by genuine change. But in\nno concealment had she now any confidence: her vision of what she had\nto dread took more decidedly than ever the form of some fiercely\nimpulsive deed, committed as in a dream that she would instantaneously\nwake from to find the effects real though the images had been false: to\nfind death under her hands, but instead of darkness, daylight; instead\nof satisfied hatred, the dismay of guilt; instead of freedom, the palsy\nof a new terror--a white dead face from which she was forever trying to\nflee and forever held back. She remembered Deronda's words: they were\ncontinually recurring in her thought--\n\n\"Turn your fear into a safeguard. Keep your dread fixed on the idea of\nincreasing your remorse. * * * Take your fear as a safeguard. It is\nlike quickness of hearing. It may make consequences passionately\npresent to you.\"\n\nAnd so it was. In Gwendolen's consciousness temptation and dread met\nand stared like two pale phantoms, each seeing itself in the\nother--each obstructed by its own image; and all the while her fuller\nself beheld the apparitions and sobbed for deliverance from them.\n\nInarticulate prayers, no more definite than a cry, often swept out from\nher into the vast silence, unbroken except by her husband's breathing\nor the plash of the wave or the creaking of the masts; but if ever she\nthought of definite help, it took the form of Deronda's presence and\nwords, of the sympathy he might have for her, of the direction he might\ngive her. It was sometimes after a white-lipped fierce-eyed temptation\nwith murdering fingers had made its demon-visit that these best moments\nof inward crying and clinging for rescue would come to her, and she\nwould lie with wide-open eyes in which the rising tears seemed a\nblessing, and the thought, \"I will not mind if I can keep from getting\nwicked,\" seemed an answer to the indefinite prayer.\n\nSo the days passed, taking with them light breezes beyond and about the\nBalearic Isles, and then to Sardinia, and then with gentle change\npersuading them northward again toward Corsica. But this floating,\ngentle-wafted existence, with its apparently peaceful influences, was\nbecoming as bad as a nightmare to Gwendolen.\n\n\"How long are we to be yachting?\" she ventured to ask one day after\nthey had been touching at Ajaccio, and the mere fact of change in going\nashore had given her a relief from some of the thoughts which seemed\nnow to cling about the very rigging of the vessel, mix with the air in\nthe red silk cabin below, and make the smell of the sea odious.\n\n\"What else should we do?\" said Grandcourt. \"I'm not tired of it. I\ndon't see why we shouldn't stay out any length of time. There's less to\nbore one in this way. And where would you go to? I'm sick of foreign\nplaces. And we shall have enough of Ryelands. Would you rather be at\nRyelands?\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" said Gwendolen, indifferently, finding all places alike\nundescribable as soon as she imagined herself and her husband in them.\n\"I only wondered how long you would like this.\"\n\n\"I like yachting longer than anything else,\" said Grandcourt; \"and I\nhad none last year. I suppose you are beginning to tire of it. Women\nare so confoundedly whimsical. They expect everything to give way to\nthem.\"\n\n\"Oh, dear, no!\" said Gwendolen, letting out her scorn in a flute-like\ntone. \"I never expect you to give way.\"\n\n\"Why should I?\" said Grandcourt, with his inward voice, looking at her,\nand then choosing an orange--for they were at table.\n\nShe made up her mind to a length of yatching that she could not see\nbeyond; but the next day, after a squall which had made her rather ill\nfor the first time, he came down to her and said--\n\n\"There's been the devil's own work in the night. The skipper says we\nshall have to stay at Genoa for a week while things are set right.\"\n\n\"Do you mind that?\" said Gwendolen, who lay looking very white amidst\nher white drapery.\n\n\"I should think so. Who wants to be broiling at Genoa?\"\n\n\"It will be a change,\" said Gwendolen, made a little incautious by her\nlanguor.\n\n\"_I_ don't want any change. Besides, the place is intolerable; and one\ncan't move along the roads. I shall go out in a boat, as I used to do,\nand manage it myself. One can get a few hours every day in that way\ninstead of striving in a damnable hotel.\"\n\nHere was a prospect which held hope in it. Gwendolen thought of hours\nwhen she would be alone, since Grandcourt would not want to take her in\nthe said boat, and in her exultation at this unlooked-for relief, she\nhad wild, contradictory fancies of what she might do with her\nfreedom--that \"running away\" which she had already innumerable times\nseen to be a worse evil than any actual endurance, now finding new\narguments as an escape from her worse self. Also, visionary relief on a\npar with the fancy of a prisoner that the night wind may blow down the\nwall of his prison and save him from desperate devices, insinuated\nitself as a better alternative, lawful to wish for.\n\nThe fresh current of expectation revived her energies, and enabled her\nto take all things with an air of cheerfulness and alacrity that made a\nchange marked enough to be noticed by her husband. She watched through\nthe evening lights to the sinking of the moon with less of awed\nloneliness than was habitual to her--nay, with a vague impression that\nin this mighty frame of things there might be some preparation of\nrescue for her. Why not?--since the weather had just been on her side.\nThis possibility of hoping, after her long fluctuation amid fears, was\nlike a first return of hunger to the long-languishing patient.\n\nShe was waked the next morning by the casting of the anchor in the port\nof Genoa--waked from a strangely-mixed dream in which she felt herself\nescaping over the Mont Cenis, and wondering to find it warmer even in\nthe moonlight on the snow, till suddenly she met Deronda, who told her\nto go back.\n\nIn an hour or so from that dream she actually met Deronda. But it was\non the palatial staircase of the _Italia_, where she was feeling warm\nin her light woolen dress and straw hat; and her husband was by her\nside.\n\nThere was a start of surprise in Deronda before he could raise his hat\nand pass on. The moment did not seem to favor any closer greeting, and\nthe circumstances under which they had last parted made him doubtful\nwhether Grandcourt would be civilly inclined to him.\n\nThe doubt might certainly have been changed into a disagreeable\ncertainty, for Grandcourt on this unaccountable appearance of Deronda\nat Genoa of all places, immediately tried to conceive how there could\nhave been an arrangement between him and Gwendolen. It is true that\nbefore they were well in their rooms, he had seen how difficult it was\nto shape such an arrangement with any probability, being too\ncool-headed to find it at once easily credible that Gwendolen had not\nonly while in London hastened to inform Deronda of the yachting\nproject, but had posted a letter to him from Marseilles or Barcelona,\nadvising him to travel to Genoa in time for the chance of meeting her\nthere, or of receiving a letter from her telling of some other\ndestination--all which must have implied a miraculous foreknowledge in\nher, and in Deronda a bird-like facility in flying about and perching\nidly. Still he was there, and though Grandcourt would not make a fool\nof himself by fabrications that others might call preposterous, he was\nnot, for all that, disposed to admit fully that Deronda's presence was,\nso far as Gwendolen was concerned, a mere accident. It was a disgusting\nfact; that was enough; and no doubt she was well pleased. A man out of\ntemper does not wait for proofs before feeling toward all things\nanimate and inanimate as if they were in a conspiracy against him, but\nat once threshes his horse or kicks his dog in consequence. Grandcourt\nfelt toward Gwendolen and Deronda as if he knew them to be in a\nconspiracy against him, and here was an event in league with them. What\nhe took for clearly certain--and so far he divined the truth--was that\nGwendolen was now counting on an interview with Deronda whenever her\nhusband's back was turned.\n\nAs he sat taking his coffee at a convenient angle for observing her, he\ndiscerned something which he felt sure was the effect of a secret\ndelight--some fresh ease in moving and speaking, some peculiar meaning\nin her eyes, whatever she looked on. Certainly her troubles had not\nmarred her beauty. Mrs. Grandcourt was handsomer than Gwendolen\nHarleth: her grace and expression were informed by a greater variety of\ninward experience, giving new play to her features, new attitudes in\nmovement and repose; her whole person and air had the nameless\nsomething which often makes a woman more interesting after marriage\nthan before, less confident that all things are according to her\nopinion, and yet with less of deer-like shyness--more fully a human\nbeing.\n\nThis morning the benefits of the voyage seemed to be suddenly revealing\nthemselves in a new elasticity of mien. As she rose from the table and\nput her two heavily-jewelled hands on each side of her neck, according\nto her wont, she had no art to conceal that sort of joyous expectation\nwhich makes the present more bearable than usual, just as when a man\nmeans to go out he finds it easier to be amiable to the family for a\nquarter of an hour beforehand. It is not impossible that a terrier\nwhose pleasure was concerned would perceive those amiable signs and\nknow their meaning--know why his master stood in a peculiar way, talked\nwith alacrity, and even had a peculiar gleam in his eye, so that on the\nleast movement toward the door, the terrier would scuttle to be in\ntime. And, in dog fashion, Grandcourt discerned the signs of\nGwendolen's expectation, interpreting them with the narrow correctness\nwhich leaves a world of unknown feeling behind.\n\n\"A--just ring, please, and tell Gibbs to order some dinner for us at\nthree,\" said Grandcourt, as he too rose, took out a cigar, and then\nstretched his hand toward the hat that lay near. \"I'm going to send\nAngus to find a little sailing-boat for us to go out in; one that I can\nmanage, with you at the tiller. It's uncommonly pleasant these fine\nevenings--the least boring of anything we can do.\"\n\nGwendolen turned cold. There was not only the cruel disappointment;\nthere was the immediate conviction that her husband had determined to\ntake her because he would not leave her out of his sight; and probably\nthis dual solitude in a boat was the more attractive to him because it\nwould be wearisome to her. They were not on the plank-island; she felt\nit the more possible to begin a contest. But the gleaming content had\ndied out of her. There was a change in her like that of a glacier after\nsunset.\n\n\"I would rather not go in the boat,\" she said. \"Take some one else with\nyou.\"\n\n\"Very well; if you don't go, I shall not go,\" said Grandcourt. \"We\nshall stay suffocating here, that's all.\"\n\n\"I can't bear to go in a boat,\" said Gwendolen, angrily.\n\n\"That is a sudden change,\" said Grandcourt, with a slight sneer. \"But,\nsince you decline, we shall stay indoors.\"\n\nHe laid down his hat again, lit his cigar, and walked up and down the\nroom, pausing now and then to look out of the windows. Gwendolen's\ntemper told her to persist. She knew very well now that Grandcourt\nwould not go without her; but if he must tyrannize over her, he should\nnot do it precisely in the way he would choose. She would oblige him to\nstay in the hotel. Without speaking again, she passed into the\nadjoining bedroom and threw herself into a chair with her anger, seeing\nno purpose or issue--only feeling that the wave of evil had rushed back\nupon her, and dragged her away from her momentary breathing-place.\n\nPresently Grandcourt came in with his hat on, but threw it off and sat\ndown sideways on a chair nearly in front of her, saying, in his\nsuperficial drawl--\n\n\"Have you come round yet? or do you find it agreeable to be out of\ntemper. You make things uncommonly pleasant for me.\"\n\n\"Why do you want to make them unpleasant for _me_?\" said Gwendolen,\ngetting helpless again, and feeling the hot tears rise.\n\n\"Now, will you be good enough to say what it is you have to complain\nof?\" said Grandcourt, looking into her eyes, and using his most inward\nvoice. \"Is it that I stay indoors when you stay?\"\n\nShe could give no answer. The sort of truth that made any excuse for\nher anger could not be uttered. In the conflict of despair and\nhumiliation she began to sob, and the tears rolled down her cheeks--a\nform of agitation which she had never shown before in her husband's\npresence.\n\n\"I hope this is useful,\" said Grandcourt, after a moment or two. \"All I\ncan say is, it's most confoundedly unpleasant. What the devil women can\nsee in this kind of thing, I don't know. _You_ see something to be got\nby it, of course. All I can see is, that we shall be shut up here when\nwe might have been having a pleasant sail.\"\n\n\"Let us go, then,\" said Gwendolen, impetuously. \"Perhaps we shall be\ndrowned.\" She began to sob again.\n\nThis extraordinary behavior, which had evidently some relation to\nDeronda, gave more definiteness to Grandcourt's conclusions. He drew\nhis chair quite close in front of her, and said, in a low tone, \"Just\nbe quiet and listen, will you?\"\n\nThere seemed to be a magical effect in this close vicinity. Gwendolen\nshrank and ceased to sob. She kept her eyelids down and clasped her\nhands tightly.\n\n\"Let us understand each other,\" said Grandcourt, in the same tone. \"I\nknow very well what this nonsense means. But if you suppose I am going\nto let you make a fool of me, just dismiss that notion from your mind.\nWhat are you looking forward to, if you can't behave properly as my\nwife? There is disgrace for you, if you like to have it, but I don't\nknow anything else; and as to Deronda, it's quite clear that he hangs\nback from you.\"\n\n\"It's all false!\" said Gwendolen, bitterly. \"You don't in the least\nimagine what is in my mind. I have seen enough of the disgrace that\ncomes in that way. And you had better leave me at liberty to speak with\nany one I like. It will be better for you.\"\n\n\"You will allow me to judge of that,\" said Grandcourt, rising and\nmoving to a little distance toward the window, but standing there\nplaying with his whiskers as if he were awaiting something.\n\nGwendolen's words had so clear and tremendous a meaning for herself\nthat she thought they must have expressed it to Grandcourt, and had no\nsooner uttered them than she dreaded their effect. But his soul was\ngarrisoned against presentiments and fears: he had the courage and\nconfidence that belong to domination, and he was at that moment feeling\nperfectly satisfied that he held his wife with bit and bridle. By the\ntime they had been married a year she would cease to be restive. He\ncontinued standing with his air of indifference, till she felt her\nhabitual stifling consciousness of having an immovable obstruction in\nher life, like the nightmare of beholding a single form that serves to\narrest all passage though the wide country lies open.\n\n\"What decision have you come to?\" he said, presently looking at her.\n\"What orders shall I give?\"\n\n\"Oh, let us go,\" said Gwendolen. The walls had begun to be an\nimprisonment, and while there was breath in this man he would have the\nmastery over her. His words had the power of thumb-screws and the cold\ntouch of the rock. To resist was to act like a stupid animal unable to\nmeasure results.\n\nSo the boat was ordered. She even went down to the quay again with him\nto see it before midday. Grandcourt had recovered perfect quietude of\ntemper, and had a scornful satisfaction in the attention given by the\nnautical groups to the _milord_, owner of the handsome yacht which had\njust put in for repairs, and who being an Englishman was naturally so\nat home on the sea that he could manage a sail with the same ease that\nhe could manage a horse. The sort of exultation he had discerned in\nGwendolen this morning she now thought that she discerned in him; and\nit was true that he had set his mind on this boating, and carried out\nhis purpose as something that people might not expect him to do, with\nthe gratified impulse of a strong will which had nothing better to\nexert itself upon. He had remarkable physical courage, and was proud of\nit--or rather he had a great contempt for the coarser, bulkier men who\ngenerally had less. Moreover, he was ruling that Gwendolen should go\nwith him.\n\nAnd when they came down again at five o'clock, equipped for their\nboating, the scene was as good as a theatrical representation for all\nbeholders. This handsome, fair-skinned English couple, manifesting the\nusual eccentricity of their nation, both of them proud, pale, and calm,\nwithout a smile on their faces, moving like creatures who were\nfulfilling a supernatural destiny--it was a thing to go out and see, a\nthing to paint. The husband's chest, back, and arms, showed very well\nin his close-fitting dress, and the wife was declared to be a statue.\n\nSome suggestions were proffered concerning a possible change in the\nbreeze, and the necessary care in putting about, but Grandcourt's\nmanner made the speakers understand that they were too officious, and\nthat he knew better than they.\n\nGwendolen, keeping her impassable air, as they moved away from the\nstrand, felt her imagination obstinately at work. She was not afraid of\nany outward dangers--she was afraid of her own wishes which were taking\nshapes possible and impossible, like a cloud of demon-faces. She was\nafraid of her own hatred, which under the cold iron touch that had\ncompelled her to-day had gathered a fierce intensity. As she sat\nguiding the tiller under her husband's eyes, doing just what he told\nher, the strife within her seemed like her own effort to escape from\nherself. She clung to the thought of Deronda: she persuaded herself\nthat he would not go away while she was there--he knew that she needed\nhelp. The sense that he was there would save her from acting out the\nevil within. And yet quick, quick, came images, plans of evil that\nwould come again and seize her in the night, like furies preparing the\ndeed that they would straightway avenge.\n\nThey were taken out of the port and carried eastward by a gentle\nbreeze. Some clouds tempered the sunlight, and the hour was always\ndeepening toward the supreme beauty of evening. Sails larger and\nsmaller changed their aspect like sensitive things, and made a cheerful\ncompanionship, alternately near and far. The grand city shone more\nvaguely, the mountains looked out above it, and there was stillness as\nin an island sanctuary. Yet suddenly Gwendolen let her hands fall, and\nsaid in a scarcely audible tone, \"God help me!\"\n\n\"What is the matter?\" said Grandcourt, not distinguishing the words.\n\n\"Oh, nothing,\" said Gwendolen, rousing herself from her momentary\nforgetfulness and resuming the ropes.\n\n\"Don't you find this pleasant?\" said Grandcourt.\n\n\"Very.\"\n\n\"You admit now we couldn't have done anything better?\"\n\n\"No--I see nothing better. I think we shall go on always, like the\nFlying Dutchman,\" said Gwendolen wildly.\n\nGrandcourt gave her one of his narrow examining glances, and then said,\n\"If you like, we can go to Spezia in the morning, and let them take us\nup there.\"\n\n\"No; I shall like nothing better than this.\"\n\n\"Very well: we'll do the same to-morrow. But we must be turning in\nsoon. I shall put about.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LV.\n\n        \"Ritorna a tua scienza\n  Che vuoi, quanto la cosa e più perfetta\n  Più senta if bene, e cosi la doglienza.\"\n                                         --DANTE.\n\n\nWhen Deronda met Gwendolen and Grandcourt on the staircase, his mind\nwas seriously preoccupied. He had just been summoned to the second\ninterview with his mother.\n\nIn two hours after his parting from her he knew that the Princess\nHalm-Eberstein had left the hotel, and so far as the purpose of his\njourney to Genoa was concerned, he might himself have set off on his\nway to Mainz, to deliver the letter from Joseph Kalonymos, and get\npossession of the family chest. But mixed mental conditions, which did\nnot resolve themselves into definite reasons, hindered him from\ndeparture. Long after the farewell he was kept passive by a weight of\nretrospective feeling. He lived again, with the new keenness of emotive\nmemory, through the exciting scenes which seemed past only in the sense\nof preparation for their actual presence in his soul. He allowed\nhimself in his solitude to sob, with perhaps more than a woman's\nacuteness of compassion, over that woman's life so near to his, and yet\nso remote. He beheld the world changed for him by the certitude of ties\nthat altered the poise of hopes and fears, and gave him a new sense of\nfellowship, as if under cover of the night he had joined the wrong band\nof wanderers, and found with the rise of morning that the tents of his\nkindred were grouped far off. He had a quivering imaginative sense of\nclose relation to the grandfather who had been animated by strong\nimpulses and beloved thoughts, which were now perhaps being roused from\ntheir slumber within himself. And through all this passionate\nmeditation Mordecai and Mirah were always present, as beings who\nclasped hands with him in sympathetic silence.\n\nOf such quick, responsive fibre was Deronda made, under that mantle of\nself-controlled reserve into which early experience had thrown so much\nof his young strength.\n\nWhen the persistent ringing of a bell as a signal reminded him of the\nhour he thought of looking into _Bradshaw_, and making the brief\nnecessary preparations for starting by the next train--thought of it,\nbut made no movement in consequence. Wishes went to Mainz and what he\nwas to get possession of there--to London and the beings there who made\nthe strongest attachments of his life; but there were other wishes that\nclung in these moments to Genoa, and they kept him where he was by that\nforce which urges us to linger over an interview that carries a\npresentiment of final farewell or of overshadowing sorrow. Deronda did\nnot formally say, \"I will stay over to-night, because it is Friday, and\nI should like to go to the evening service at the synagogue where they\nmust all have gone; and besides, I may see the Grandcourts again.\" But\nsimply, instead of packing and ringing for his bill, he sat doing\nnothing at all, while his mind went to the synagogue and saw faces\nthere probably little different from those of his grandfather's time,\nand heard the Spanish-Hebrew liturgy which had lasted through the\nseasons of wandering generations like a plant with wandering seed, that\ngives the far-off lands a kinship to the exile's home--while, also, his\nmind went toward Gwendolen, with anxious remembrance of what had been,\nand with a half-admitted impression that it would be hardness in him\nwillingly to go away at once without making some effort, in spite of\nGrandcourt's probable dislike, to manifest the continuance of his\nsympathy with her since their abrupt parting.\n\nIn this state of mind he deferred departure, ate his dinner without\nsense of flavor, rose from it quickly to find the synagogue, and in\npassing the porter asked if Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt were still in the\nhotel, and what was the number of their apartment. The porter gave him\nthe number, but added that they were gone out boating. That information\nhad somehow power enough over Deronda to divide his thoughts with the\nmemories wakened among the sparse _talithim_ and keen dark faces of\nworshippers whose way of taking awful prayers and invocations with the\neasy familiarity which might be called Hebrew dyed Italian, made him\nreflect that his grandfather, according to the Princess's hints of his\ncharacter, must have been almost as exceptional a Jew as Mordecai. But\nwere not men of ardent zeal and far-reaching hope everywhere\nexceptional? the men who had the visions which, as Mordecai said, were\nthe creators and feeders of the world--moulding and feeding the more\npassive life which without them would dwindle and shrivel into the\nnarrow tenacity of insects, unshaken by thoughts beyond the reach of\ntheir antennae. Something of a mournful impatience perhaps added itself\nto the solicitude about Gwendolen (a solicitude that had room to grow\nin his present release from immediate cares) as an incitement to hasten\nfrom the synagogue and choose to take his evening walk toward the quay,\nalways a favorite haunt with him, and just now attractive with the\npossibility that he might be in time to see the Grandcourts come in\nfrom their boating. In this case, he resolved that he would advance to\ngreet them deliberately, and ignore any grounds that the husband might\nhave for wishing him elsewhere.\n\nThe sun had set behind a bank of cloud, and only a faint yellow light\nwas giving its farewell kisses to the waves, which were agitated by an\nactive breeze. Deronda, sauntering slowly within sight of what took\nplace on the strand, observed the groups there concentrating their\nattention on a sailing-boat which was advancing swiftly landward, being\nrowed by two men. Amidst the clamorous talk in various languages,\nDeronda held it the surer means of getting information not to ask\nquestions, but to elbow his way to the foreground and be an\nunobstructed witness of what was occurring. Telescopes were being used,\nand loud statements made that the boat held somebody who had been\ndrowned. One said it was the _milord_ who had gone out in a sailing\nboat; another maintained that the prostrate figure he discerned was\n_miladi_; a Frenchman who had no glass would rather say that it was\n_milord_ who had probably taken his wife out to drown her, according to\nthe national practice--a remark which an English skipper immediately\ncommented on in our native idiom (as nonsense which--had undergone a\nmining operation), and further dismissed by the decision that the\nreclining figure was a woman. For Deronda, terribly excited by\nfluctuating fears, the strokes of the oars as he watched them were\ndivided by swift visions of events, possible and impossible, which\nmight have brought about this issue, or this broken-off fragment of an\nissue, with a worse half undisclosed--if this woman apparently snatched\nfrom the waters were really Mrs. Grandcourt.\n\nBut soon there was no longer any doubt: the boat was being pulled to\nland, and he saw Gwendolen half raising herself on her hands, by her\nown effort, under her heavy covering of tarpaulin and pea-jackets--pale\nas one of the sheeted dead, shivering, with wet hair streaming, a wild\namazed consciousness in her eyes, as if she had waked up in a world\nwhere some judgment was impending, and the beings she saw around were\ncoming to seize her. The first rower who jumped to land was also wet\nthrough, and ran off; the sailors, close about the boat, hindered\nDeronda from advancing, and he could only look on while Gwendolen gave\nscared glances, and seemed to shrink with terror as she was carefully,\ntenderly helped out, and led on by the strong arms of those rough,\nbronzed men, her wet clothes clinging about her limbs, and adding to\nthe impediment of her weakness. Suddenly her wandering eyes fell on\nDeronda, standing before her, and immediately, as if she had been\nexpecting him and looking for him, she tried to stretch out her arms,\nwhich were held back by her supporters, saying, in a muffled voice--\n\n\"It is come, it is come! He is dead!\"\n\n\"Hush, hush!\" said Deronda, in a tone of authority; \"quiet yourself.\"\nThen to the men who were assisting her, \"I am a connection of this\nlady's husband. If you will get her on to the _Italia_ as quickly as\npossible, I will undertake everything else.\"\n\nHe stayed behind to hear from the remaining boatman that her husband\nhad gone down irrecoverably, and that his boat was left floating empty.\nHe and his comrade had heard a cry, had come up in time to see the lady\njump in after her husband, and had got her out fast enough to save her\nfrom much damage.\n\nAfter this, Deronda hastened to the hotel to assure himself that the\nbest medical help would be provided; and being satisfied on this point,\nhe telegraphed the event to Sir Hugo, begging him to come forthwith,\nand also to Mr. Gascoigne, whose address at the rectory made his\nnearest known way of getting the information to Gwendolen's mother.\nCertain words of Gwendolen's in the past had come back to him with the\neffectiveness of an inspiration: in moments of agitated confession she\nhad spoken of her mother's presence, as a possible help, if she could\nhave had it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVI.\n\n  \"The pang, the curse with which they died,\n    Had never passed away:\n  I could not draw my eyes from theirs,\n    Nor lift them up to pray.\"\n                                  --COLERIDGE.\n\n\nDeronda did not take off his clothes that night. Gwendolen, after\ninsisting on seeing him again before she would consent to be undressed,\nhad been perfectly quiet, and had only asked him, with a whispering,\nrepressed eagerness, to promise that he would come to her when she sent\nfor him in the morning. Still, the possibility that a change might come\nover her, the danger of a supervening feverish condition, and the\nsuspicion that something in the late catastrophe was having an effect\nwhich might betray itself in excited words, acted as a foreboding\nwithin him. He mentioned to her attendant that he should keep himself\nready to be called if there were any alarming change of symptoms,\nmaking it understood by all concerned that he was in communication with\nher friends in England, and felt bound meanwhile to take all care on\nher behalf--a position which it was the easier for him to assume,\nbecause he was well known to Grandcourt's valet, the only old servant\nwho had come on the late voyage.\n\nBut when fatigue from the strangely various emotion of the day at last\nsent Deronda to sleep, he remained undisturbed except by the morning\ndreams, which came as a tangled web of yesterday's events, and finally\nwaked him, with an image drawn by his pressing anxiety.\n\nStill, it was morning, and there had been no summons--an augury which\ncheered him while he made his toilet, and reflected that it was too\nearly to send inquiries. Later, he learned that she had passed a too\nwakeful night, but had shown no violent signs of agitation, and was at\nlast sleeping. He wondered at the force that dwelt in this creature, so\nalive to dread; for he had an irresistible impression that even under\nthe effects of a severe physical shock she was mastering herself with a\ndetermination of concealment. For his own part, he thought that his\nsensibilities had been blunted by what he had been going through in the\nmeeting with his mother: he seemed to himself now to be only fulfilling\nclaims, and his more passionate sympathy was in abeyance. He had lately\nbeen living so keenly in an experience quite apart from Gwendolen's\nlot, that his present cares for her were like a revisiting of scenes\nfamiliar in the past, and there was not yet a complete revival of the\ninward response to them.\n\nMeanwhile he employed himself in getting a formal, legally recognized\nstatement from the fisherman who had rescued Gwendolen. Few details\ncame to light. The boat in which Grandcourt had gone out had been found\ndrifting with its sail loose, and had been towed in. The fishermen\nthought it likely that he had been knocked overboard by the flapping of\nthe sail while putting about, and that he had not known how to swim;\nbut, though they were near, their attention had been first arrested by\na cry which seemed like that of a man in distress, and while they were\nhastening with their oars, they heard a shriek from the lady, and saw\nher jump in.\n\nOn re-entering the hotel, Deronda was told that Gwendolen had risen,\nand was desiring to see him. He was shown into a room darkened by\nblinds and curtains, where she was seated with a white shawl wrapped\nround her, looking toward the opening door like one waiting uneasily.\nBut her long hair was gathered up and coiled carefully, and, through\nall, the blue stars in her ears had kept their place: as she started\nimpulsively to her full height, sheathed in her white shawl, her face\nand neck not less white, except for a purple line under her eyes, her\nlips a little apart with the peculiar expression of one accused and\nhelpless, she looked like the unhappy ghost of that Gwendolen Harleth\nwhom Deronda had seen turning with firm lips and proud self-possession\nfrom her losses at the gaming table. The sight pierced him with pity,\nand the effects of all their past relations began to revive within him.\n\n\"I beseech you to rest--not to stand,\" said Deronda, as he approached\nher; and she obeyed, falling back into her chair again.\n\n\"Will you sit down near me?\" she said. \"I want to speak very low.\"\n\nShe was in a large arm-chair, and he drew a small one near to her side.\nThe action seemed to touch her peculiarly: turning her pale face full\nupon his, which was very near, she said, in the lowest audible tone,\n\"You know I am a guilty woman?\"\n\nDeronda himself turned paler as he said, \"I know nothing.\" He did not\ndare to say more.\n\n\"He is dead.\" She uttered this with the same undertoned decision.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Deronda, in a mournful suspense which made him reluctant to\nspeak.\n\n\"His face will not be seen above the water again,\" said Gwendolen, in a\ntone that was not louder, but of a suppressed eagerness, while she held\nboth her hands clenched.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not by any one else--only by me--a dead face--I shall never get away\nfrom it.\"\n\nIt was with an inward voice of desperate self-repression that she spoke\nthese last words, while she looked away from Deronda toward something\nat a distance from her on the floor. She was seeing the whole\nevent--her own acts included--through an exaggerating medium of\nexcitement and horror? Was she in a state of delirium into which there\nentered a sense of concealment and necessity for self-repression? Such\nthoughts glanced through Deronda as a sort of hope. But imagine the\nconflict of feeling that kept him silent. She was bent on confession,\nand he dreaded hearing her confession. Against his better will he\nshrank from the task that was laid on him: he wished, and yet rebuked\nthe wish as cowardly, that she could bury her secrets in her own bosom.\nHe was not a priest. He dreaded the weight of this woman's soul flung\nupon his own with imploring dependence. But she spoke again, hurriedly,\nlooking at him--\n\n\"You will not say that I ought to tell the world? you will not say that\nI ought to be disgraced? I could not do it. I could not bear it. I\ncannot have my mother know. Not if I were dead. I could not have her\nknow. I must tell you; but you will not say that any one else should\nknow.\"\n\n\"I can say nothing in my ignorance,\" said Deronda, mournfully, \"except\nthat I desire to help you.\"\n\n\"I told you from the beginning--as soon as I could--I told you I was\nafraid of myself.\" There was a piteous pleading in the low murmur in\nwhich Deronda turned his ear only. Her face afflicted him too much. \"I\nfelt a hatred in me that was always working like an evil\nspirit--contriving things. Everything I could do to free myself came\ninto my mind; and it got worse--all things got worse. That is why I\nasked you to come to me in town. I thought then I would tell you the\nworst about myself. I tried. But I could not tell everything. And _he_\ncame in.\"\n\nShe paused, while a shudder passed through her; but soon went on.\n\n\"I will tell you everything now. Do you think a woman who cried, and\nprayed, and struggled to be saved from herself, could be a murderess?\"\n\n\"Great God!\" said Deronda, in a deep, shaken voice, \"don't torture me\nneedlessly. You have not murdered him. You threw yourself into the\nwater with the impulse to save him. Tell me the rest afterward. This\ndeath was an accident that you could not have hindered.\"\n\n\"Don't be impatient with me.\" The tremor, the childlike beseeching in\nthese words compelled Deronda to turn his head and look at her face.\nThe poor quivering lips went on. \"You said--you used to say--you felt\nmore for those who had done something wicked and were miserable; you\nsaid they might get better--they might be scourged into something\nbetter. If you had not spoken in that way, Everything would have been\nworse. I _did_ remember all you said to me. It came to me always. It\ncame to me at the very last--that was the reason why I--But now, if you\ncannot bear with me when I tell you everything--if you turn away from\nme and forsake me, what shall I do? Am I worse than I was when you\nfound me and wanted to make me better? All the wrong I have done was in\nme then--and more--and more--if you had not come and been patient with\nme. And now--will you forsake me?\"\n\nHer hands, which had been so tightly clenched some minutes before, were\nnow helplessly relaxed and trembling on the arm of her chair. Her\nquivering lips remained parted as she ceased speaking. Deronda could\nnot answer; he was obliged to look away. He took one of her hands, and\nclasped it as if they were going to walk together like two children: it\nwas the only way in which he could answer, \"I will not forsake you.\"\nAnd all the while he felt as if he were putting his name to a blank\npaper which might be filled up terribly. Their attitude, his adverted\nface with its expression of a suffering which he was solemnly resolved\nto undergo, might have told half the truth of the situation to a\nbeholder who had suddenly entered.\n\nThat grasp was an entirely new experience to Gwendolen: she had never\nbefore had from any man a sign of tenderness which her own being had\nneeded, and she interpreted its powerful effect on her into a promise\nof inexhaustible patience and constancy. The stream of renewed strength\nmade it possible for her to go on as she had begun--with that fitful,\nwandering confession where the sameness of experience seems to nullify\nthe sense of time or of order in events. She began again in a\nfragmentary way--\n\n\"All sorts of contrivances in my mind--but all so difficult. And I\nfought against them--I was terrified at them--I saw his dead\nface\"--here her voice sank almost to a whisper close to Deronda's\near--\"ever so long ago I saw it and I wished him to be dead. And yet it\nterrified me. I was like two creatures. I could not speak--I wanted to\nkill--it was as strong as thirst--and then directly--I felt beforehand\nI had done something dreadful, unalterable--that would make me like an\nevil spirit. And it came--it came.\"\n\nShe was silent a moment or two, as if her memory had lost itself in a\nweb where each mesh drew all the rest.\n\n\"It had all been in my mind when I first spoke to you--when we were at\nthe Abbey. I had done something then. I could not tell you that. It was\nthe only thing I did toward carrying out my thoughts. They went about\nover everything; but they all remained like dreadful dreams--all but\none. I did one act--and I never undid it--it is there still--as long\nago as when we were at Ryelands. There it was--something my fingers\nlonged for among the beautiful toys in the cabinet in my boudoir--small\nand sharp like a long willow leaf in a silver sheath. I locked it in\nthe drawer of my dressing-case. I was continually haunted with it and\nhow I should use it. I fancied myself putting it under my pillow. But I\nnever did. I never looked at it again. I dared not unlock the drawer:\nit had a key all to itself; and not long ago, when we were in the\nyacht, I dropped the key into the deep water. It was my wish to drop it\nand deliver myself. After that I began to think how I could open the\ndrawer without the key: and when I found we were to stay at Genoa, it\ncame into my mind that I could get it opened privately at the hotel.\nBut then, when we were going up the stairs, I met you; and I thought I\nshould talk to you alone and tell you this--everything I could not tell\nyou in town; and then I was forced to go out in the boat.\"\n\nA sob had for the first time risen with the last words, and she sank\nback in her chair. The memory of that acute disappointment seemed for\nthe moment to efface what had come since. Deronda did not look at her,\nbut he said, insistently--\n\n\"And it has all remained in your imagination. It has gone on only in\nyour thought. To the last the evil temptation has been resisted?\"\n\nThere was silence. The tears had rolled down her cheeks. She pressed\nher handkerchief against them and sat upright. She was summoning her\nresolution; and again, leaning a little toward Deronda's ear, she began\nin a whisper--\n\n\"No, no; I will tell you everything as God knows it. I will tell you no\nfalsehood; I will tell you the exact truth. What should I do else? I\nused to think I could never be wicked. I thought of wicked people as if\nthey were a long way off me. Since then I have been wicked. I have felt\nwicked. And everything has been a punishment to me--all the things I\nused to wish for--it is as if they had been made red-hot. The very\ndaylight has often been a punishment to me. Because--you know--I ought\nnot to have married. That was the beginning of it. I wronged some one\nelse. I broke my promise. I meant to get pleasure for myself, and it\nall turned to misery. I wanted to make my gain out of another's\nloss--you remember?--it was like roulette--and the money burned into\nme. And I could not complain. It was as if I had prayed that another\nshould lose and I should win. And I had won, I knew it all--I knew I\nwas guilty. When we were on the sea, and I lay awake at night in the\ncabin, I sometimes felt that everything I had done lay open without\nexcuse--nothing was hidden--how could anything be known to me only?--it\nwas not my own knowledge, it was God's that had entered into me, and\neven the stillness--everything held a punishment for me--everything but\nyou. I always thought that you would not want me to be punished--you\nwould have tried and helped me to be better. And only thinking of that\nhelped me. You will not change--you will not want to punish me now?\"\n\nAgain a sob had risen.\n\n\"God forbid!\" groaned Deronda. But he sat motionless.\n\nThis long wandering with the conscious-stricken one over her past was\ndifficult to bear, but he dared not again urge her with a question. He\nmust let her mind follow its own need. She unconsciously left intervals\nin her retrospect, not clearly distinguishing between what she said and\nwhat she had only an inward vision of. Her next words came after such\nan interval.\n\n\"That all made it so hard when I was forced to go in the boat. Because\nwhen I saw you it was an unexpected joy, and I thought I could tell you\neverything--about the locked-up drawer and what I had not told you\nbefore. And if I had told you, and knew it was in your mind, it would\nhave less power over me. I hoped and trusted in that. For after all my\nstruggles and my crying, the hatred and rage, the temptation that\nfrightened me, the longing, the thirst for what I dreaded, always came\nback. And that disappointment--when I was quite shut out from speaking\nto you, and was driven to go in the boat--brought all the evil back, as\nif I had been locked in a prison with it and no escape. Oh, it seems so\nlong ago now since I stepped into that boat! I could have given up\neverything in that moment, to have the forked lightning for a weapon to\nstrike him dead.\"\n\nSome of the compressed fierceness that she was recalling seemed to find\nits way into her undertoned utterance. After a little silence she said,\nwith agitated hurry--\n\n\"If he were here again, what should I do? I cannot wish him here--and\nyet I cannot bear his dead face. I was a coward. I ought to have borne\ncontempt. I ought to have gone away--gone and wandered like a beggar\nrather than to stay to feel like a fiend. But turn where I would there\nwas something I could not bear. Sometimes I thought he would kill _me_\nif I resisted his will. But now--his dead face is there, and I cannot\nbear it.\"\n\nSuddenly loosing Deronda's hand, she started up, stretching her arms to\ntheir full length upward, and said with a sort of moan--\n\n\"I have been a cruel woman! What can _I_ do but cry for help? _I_ am\nsinking. Die--die--you are forsaken--go down, go down into darkness.\nForsaken--no pity--_I_ shall be forsaken.\"\n\nShe sank in her chair again and broke into sobs. Even Deronda had no\nplace in her consciousness at that moment. He was completely unmanned.\nInstead of finding, as he had imagined, that his late experience had\ndulled his susceptibility to fresh emotion, it seemed that the lot of\nthis young creature, whose swift travel from her bright rash girlhood\ninto this agony of remorse he had had to behold in helplessness,\npierced him the deeper because it came close upon another sad\nrevelation of spiritual conflict: he was in one of those moments when\nthe very anguish of passionate pity makes us ready to choose that we\nwill know pleasure no more, and live only for the stricken and\nafflicted. He had risen from his seat while he watched that terrible\noutburst--which seemed the more awful to him because, even in this\nsupreme agitation, she kept the suppressed voice of one who confesses\nin secret. At last he felt impelled to turn his back toward her and\nwalk to a distance.\n\nBut presently there was stillness. Her mind had opened to the sense\nthat he had gone away from her. When Deronda turned round to approach\nher again, he saw her face bent toward him, her eyes dilated, her lips\nparted. She was an image of timid forlorn beseeching--too timid to\nentreat in words while he kept himself aloof from her. Was she forsaken\nby him--now--already? But his eyes met hers sorrowfully--met hers for\nthe first time fully since she had said, \"You know I am a guilty\nwoman,\" and that full glance in its intense mournfulness seemed to say,\n\"I know it, but I shall all the less forsake you.\" He sat down by her\nside again in the same attitude--without turning his face toward her\nand without again taking her hand.\n\nOnce more Gwendolen was pierced, as she had been by his face of sorrow\nat the Abbey, with a compunction less egoistic than that which urged\nher to confess, and she said, in a tone of loving regret--\n\n\"I make you very unhappy.\"\n\nDeronda gave an indistinct \"Oh,\" just shrinking together and changing\nhis attitude a little. Then he had gathered resolution enough to say\nclearly, \"There is no question of being happy or unhappy. What I most\ndesire at this moment is what will most help you. Tell me all you feel\nit a relief to tell.\"\n\nDevoted as these words were, they widened his spiritual distance from\nher, and she felt it more difficult to speak: she had a vague need of\ngetting nearer to that compassion which seemed to be regarding her from\na halo of superiority, and the need turned into an impulse to humble\nherself more. She was ready to throw herself on her knees before him;\nbut no--her wonderfully mixed consciousness held checks on that\nimpulse, and she was kept silent and motionless by the pressure of\nopposing needs. Her stillness made Deronda at last say--\n\n\"Perhaps you are too weary. Shall I go away, and come again whenever\nyou wish it?\"\n\n\"No, no,\" said Gwendolen--the dread of his leaving her bringing back\nher power of speech. She went on with her low-toned eagerness, \"I want\nto tell you what it was that came over me in that boat. I was full of\nrage at being obliged to go--full of rage--and I could do nothing but\nsit there like a galley slave. And then we got away--out of the\nport--into the deep--and everything was still--and we never looked at\neach other, only he spoke to order me--and the very light about me\nseemed to hold me a prisoner and force me to sit as I did. It came over\nme that when I was a child I used to fancy sailing away into a world\nwhere people were not forced to live with any one they did not like--I\ndid not like my father-in-law to come home. And now, I thought, just\nthe opposite had come to me. I had stepped into a boat, and my life was\na sailing and sailing away--gliding on and no help--always into\nsolitude with _him_, away from deliverance. And because I felt more\nhelpless than ever, my thoughts went out over worse things--I longed\nfor worse things--I had cruel wishes--I fancied impossible ways of--I\ndid not want to die myself; I was afraid of our being drowned together.\nIf it had been any use I should have prayed--I should have prayed that\nsomething might befall him. I should have prayed that he might sink out\nof my sight and leave me alone. I knew no way of killing him there, but\nI did, I did kill him in my thoughts.\"\n\nShe sank into silence for a minute, submerged by the weight of memory\nwhich no words could represent.\n\n\"But yet, all the while I felt that I was getting more wicked. And what\nhad been with me so much, came to me just then--what you once\nsaid--about dreading to increase my wrong-doing and my remorse--I\nshould hope for nothing then. It was all like a writing of fire within\nme. Getting wicked was misery--being shut out forever from knowing what\nyou--what better lives were. That had always been coming back to me\nthen--but yet with a despair--a feeling that it was no use--evil wishes\nwere too strong. I remember then letting go the tiller and saying 'God\nhelp me!' But then I was forced to take it again and go on; and the\nevil longings, the evil prayers came again and blotted everything else\ndim, till, in the midst of them--I don't know how it was--he was\nturning the sail--there was a gust--he was struck--I know nothing--I\nonly know that I saw my wish outside me.\"\n\nShe began to speak more hurriedly, and in more of a whisper.\n\n\"I saw him sink, and my heart gave a leap as if it were going out of\nme. I think I did not move. I kept my hands tight. It was long enough\nfor me to be glad, and yet to think it was no use--he would come up\nagain. And he _was_ come--farther off--the boat had moved. It was all\nlike lightning. 'The rope!' he called out in a voice--not his own--I\nhear it now--and I stooped for the rope--I felt I must--I felt sure he\ncould swim, and he would come back whether or not, and I dreaded him.\nThat was in my mind--he would come back. But he was gone down again,\nand I had the rope in my hand--no, there he was again--his face above\nthe water--and he cried again--and I held my hand, and my heart said,\n'Die!'--and he sank; and I felt 'It is done--I am wicked, I am\nlost!--and I had the rope in my hand--I don't know what I thought--I\nwas leaping away from myself--I would have saved him then. I was\nleaping from my crime, and there it was--close to me as I fell--there\nwas the dead face--dead, dead. It can never be altered. That was what\nhappened. That was what I did. You know it all. It can never be\naltered.\"\n\nShe sank back in her chair, exhausted with the agitation of memory and\nspeech. Deronda felt the burden on his spirit less heavy than the\nforegoing dread. The word \"guilty\" had held a possibility of\ninterpretations worse than the fact; and Gwendolen's confession, for\nthe very reason that her conscience made her dwell on the determining\npower of her evil thoughts, convinced him the more that there had been\nthroughout a counterbalancing struggle of her better will. It seemed\nalmost certain that her murderous thought had had no outward\neffect--that, quite apart from it, the death was inevitable. Still, a\nquestion as to the outward effectiveness of a criminal desire dominant\nenough to impel even a momentary act, cannot alter our judgment of the\ndesire; and Deronda shrank from putting that question forward in the\nfirst instance. He held it likely that Gwendolen's remorse aggravated\nher inward guilt, and that she gave the character of decisive action to\nwhat had been an inappreciably instantaneous glance of desire. But her\nremorse was the precious sign of a recoverable nature; it was the\nculmination of that self-disapproval which had been the awakening of a\nnew life within her; it marked her off from the criminals whose only\nregret is failure in securing their evil wish. Deronda could not utter\none word to diminish that sacred aversion to her worst self--that\nthorn-pressure which must come with the crowning of the sorrowful\nbetter, suffering because of the worse. All this mingled thought and\nfeeling kept him silent; speech was too momentous to be ventured on\nrashly. There were no words of comfort that did not carry some\nsacrilege. If he had opened his lips to speak, he could only have\nechoed, \"It can never be altered--it remains unaltered, to alter other\nthings.\" But he was silent and motionless--he did not know how\nlong--before he turned to look at her, and saw her sunk back with\nclosed eyes, like a lost, weary, storm-beaten white doe, unable to rise\nand pursue its unguided way. He rose and stood before her. The movement\ntouched her consciousness, and she opened her eyes with a slight\nquivering that seemed like fear.\n\n\"You must rest now. Try to rest: try to sleep. And may I see you again\nthis evening--to-morrow--when you have had some rest? Let us say no\nmore now.\"\n\nThe tears came, and she could not answer except by a slight movement of\nthe head. Deronda rang for attendance, spoke urgently of the necessity\nthat she should be got to rest, and then left her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LVII.\n\n    \"The unripe grape, the ripe, and the dried. All things are changes,\n    not into nothing, but into that which is not at present.\"--MARCUS\n    AURELIUS.\n\n    Deeds are the pulse of Time, his beating life,\n    And righteous or unrighteous, being done,\n    Must throb in after-throbs till Time itself\n    Be laid in darkness, and the universe\n    Quiver and breathe upon no mirror more.\n\n\nIn the evening she sent for him again. It was already near the hour at\nwhich she had been brought in from the sea the evening before, and the\nlight was subdued enough with blinds drawn up and windows open. She was\nseated gazing fixedly on the sea, resting her cheek on her hand,\nlooking less shattered than when he had left her, but with a deep\nmelancholy in her expression which as Deronda approached her passed\ninto an anxious timidity. She did not put out her hand, but said, \"How\nlong ago it is!\" Then, \"Will you sit near me again a little while?\"\n\nHe placed himself by her side as he had done before, and seeing that\nshe turned to him with that indefinable expression which implies a wish\nto say something, he waited for her to speak. But again she looked\ntoward the window silently, and again turned with the same expression,\nwhich yet did not issue in speech. There was some fear hindering her,\nand Deronda, wishing to relieve her timidity, averted his face.\nPresently he heard her cry imploringly--\n\n\"You will not say that any one else should know?\"\n\n\"Most decidedly not,\" said Deronda. \"There is no action that ought to\nbe taken in consequence. There is no injury that could be righted in\nthat way. There is no retribution that any mortal could apportion\njustly.\"\n\nShe was so still during a pause that she seemed to be holding her\nbreath before she said--\n\n\"But if I had not had that murderous will--that moment--if I had thrown\nthe rope on the instant--perhaps it would have hindered death?\"\n\n\"No--I think not,\" said Deronda, slowly. \"If it were true that he could\nswim, he must have been seized with cramp. With your quickest, utmost\neffort, it seems impossible that you could have done anything to save\nhim. That momentary murderous will cannot, I think, have altered the\ncourse of events. Its effect is confined to the motives in your own\nbreast. Within ourselves our evil will is momentous, and sooner or\nlater it works its way outside us--it may be in the vitiation that\nbreeds evil acts, but also it may be in the self-abhorrence that stings\nus into better striving.\"\n\n\"I am saved from robbing others--there are others--they will have\neverything--they will have what they ought to have. I knew that some\ntime before I left town. You do not suspect me of wrong desires about\nthose things?\" She spoke hesitatingly.\n\n\"I had not thought of them,\" said Deronda; \"I was thinking too much of\nthe other things.\"\n\n\"Perhaps you don't quite know the beginning of it all,\" said Gwendolen,\nslowly, as if she were overcoming her reluctance. \"There was some one\nelse he ought to have married. And I knew it, and I told her I would\nnot hinder it. And I went away--that was when you first saw me. But\nthen we became poor all at once, and I was very miserable, and I was\ntempted. I thought, 'I shall do as I like and make everything right.' I\npersuaded myself. And it was all different. It was all dreadful. Then\ncame hatred and wicked thoughts. That was how it all came. I told you I\nwas afraid of myself. And I did what you told me--I did try to make my\nfear a safeguard. I thought of what would be if I--I felt what would\ncome--how I should dread the morning--wishing it would be always\nnight--and yet in the darkness always seeing something--seeing death.\nIf you did not know how miserable I was, you might--but now it has all\nbeen no use. I can care for nothing but saving the rest from\nknowing--poor mamma, who has never been happy.\"\n\nThere was silence again before she said with a repressed sob--\"You\ncannot bear to look at me any more. You think I am too wicked. You do\nnot believe that I can become any better--worth anything--worthy\nenough--I shall always be too wicked to--\" The voice broke off helpless.\n\nDeronda's heart was pierced. He turned his eyes on her poor beseeching\nface and said, \"I believe that you may become worthier than you have\never yet been--worthy to lead a life that may be a blessing. No evil\ndooms us hopelessly except the evil we love, and desire to continue in,\nand make no effort to escape from. You _have_ made efforts--you will go\non making them.\"\n\n\"But you were the beginning of them. You must not forsake me,\" said\nGwendolen, leaning with her clasped hands on the arm of her chair and\nlooking at him, while her face bore piteous traces of the\nlife-experience concentrated in the twenty-four hours--that new\nterrible life lying on the other side of the deed which fulfills a\ncriminal desire. \"I will bear any penance. I will lead any life you\ntell me. But you must not forsake me. You must be near. If you had been\nnear me--if I could have said everything to you, I should have been\ndifferent. You will not forsake me?\"\n\n\"It could never be my impulse to forsake you,\" said Deronda promptly,\nwith that voice which, like his eyes, had the unintentional effect of\nmaking his ready sympathy seem more personal and special than it really\nwas. And in that moment he was not himself quite free from a foreboding\nof some such self-committing effect. His strong feeling for this\nstricken creature could not hinder rushing images of future difficulty.\nHe continued to meet her appealing eyes as he spoke, but it was with\nthe painful consciousness that to her ear his words might carry a\npromise which one day would seem unfulfilled: he was making an\nindefinite promise to an indefinite hope. Anxieties, both immediate and\ndistant, crowded on his thought, and it was under their influence that,\nafter a moment's silence, he said--\n\n\"I expect Sir Hugo Mallinger to arrive by to-morrow night at least; and\nI am not without hope that Mrs. Davilow may shortly follow him. Her\npresence will be the greatest comfort to you--it will give you a motive\nto save her from unnecessary pain?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes--I will try. And you will not go away?\"\n\n\"Not till after Sir Hugo has come.\"\n\n\"But we shall all go to England?\"\n\n\"As soon as possible,\" said Deronda, not wishing to enter into\nparticulars.\n\nGwendolen looked toward the window again with an expression which\nseemed like a gradual awakening to new thoughts. The twilight was\nperceptibly deepening, but Deronda could see a movement in her eyes and\nhands such as accompanies a return of perception in one who has been\nstunned.\n\n\"You will always be with Sir Hugo now!\" she said presently, looking at\nhim. \"You will always live at the Abbey--or else at Diplow?\"\n\n\"I am quite uncertain where I shall live,\" said Deronda, coloring.\n\nShe was warned by his changed color that she had spoken too rashly, and\nfell silent. After a little while she began, again looking away--\n\n\"It is impossible to think how my life will go on. I think now it would\nbe better for me to be poor and obliged to work.\"\n\n\"New promptings will come as the days pass. When you are among your\nfriends again, you will discern new duties,\" said Deronda. \"Make it a\ntask now to get as well and calm--as much like yourself as you can,\nbefore--\" He hesitated.\n\n\"Before my mother comes,\" said Gwendolen. \"Ah! I must be changed. I\nhave not looked at myself. Should you have known me,\" she added,\nturning toward him, \"if you had met me now?--should you have known me\nfor the one you saw at Leubronn?\"\n\n\"Yes, I should have known you,\" said Deronda, mournfully. \"The outside\nchange is not great. I should have seen at once that it was you, and\nthat you had gone through some great sorrow.\"\n\n\"Don't wish now that you had never seen me; don't wish that,\" said\nGwendolen, imploringly, while the tears gathered.\n\n\"I should despise myself for wishing it,\" said Deronda. \"How could I\nknow what I was wishing? We must find our duties in what comes to us,\nnot in what we imagine might have been. If I took to foolish wishing of\nthat sort, I should wish--not that I had never seen you, but that I had\nbeen able to save you from this.\"\n\n\"You have saved me from worse,\" said Gwendolen, in a sobbing voice. \"I\nshould have been worse if it had not been for you. If you had not been\ngood, I should have been more wicked than I am.\"\n\n\"It will be better for me to go now,\" said Deronda, worn in spirit by\nthe perpetual strain of this scene. \"Remember what we said of your\ntask--to get well and calm before other friends come.\"\n\nHe rose as he spoke, and she gave him her hand submissively. But when\nhe had left her she sank on her knees, in hysterical crying. The\ndistance between them was too great. She was a banished soul--beholding\na possible life which she had sinned herself away from.\n\nShe was found in this way, crushed on the floor. Such grief seemed\nnatural in a poor lady whose husband had been drowned in her presence.\n\n\n\n\nBOOK VIII.--FRUIT AND SEED.\n\n\nCHAPTER LVIII.\n\n\n  \"Much adoe there was, God wot;\n  He wold love and she wold not.\"\n                   --NICHOLAS BRETON.\n\n\nExtension, we know, is a very imperfect measure of things; and the\nlength of the sun's journeying can no more tell us how life has\nadvanced than the acreage of a field can tell us what growths may be\nactive within it. A man may go south, and, stumbling over a bone, may\nmeditate upon it till he has found a new starting-point for anatomy; or\neastward, and discover a new key to language telling a new story of\nraces; or he may head an expedition that opens new continental\npathways, get himself maimed in body, and go through a whole heroic\npoem of resolve and endurance; and at the end of a few months he may\ncome back to find his neighbors grumbling at the same parish grievance\nas before, or to see the same elderly gentleman treading the pavement\nin discourse with himself, shaking his head after the same percussive\nbutcher's boy, and pausing at the same shop-window to look at the same\nprints. If the swiftest thinking has about the pace of a greyhound, the\nslowest must be supposed to move, like the limpet, by an apparent\nsticking, which after a good while is discerned to be a slight\nprogression. Such differences are manifest in the variable intensity\nwhich we call human experience, from the revolutionary rush of change\nwhich makes a new inner and outer life, to that quiet recurrence of the\nfamiliar, which has no other epochs than those of hunger and the\nheavens.\n\nSomething of this contrast was seen in the year's experience which had\nturned the brilliant, self-confident Gwendolen Harleth of the Archery\nMeeting into the crushed penitent impelled to confess her unworthiness\nwhere it would have been her happiness to be held worthy; while it had\nleft her family in Pennicote without deeper change than that of some\noutward habits, and some adjustment of prospects and intentions to\nreduced income, fewer visits, and fainter compliments. The rectory was\nas pleasant a home as before: and the red and pink peonies on the lawn,\nthe rows of hollyhocks by the hedges, had bloomed as well this year as\nlast: the rector maintained his cheerful confidence in the good will of\npatrons and his resolution to deserve it by diligence in the\nfulfillment of his duties, whether patrons were likely to hear of it or\nnot; doing nothing solely with an eye to promotion except, perhaps, the\nwriting of two ecclesiastical articles, which having no signature, were\nattributed to some one else, except by the patrons who had a special\ncopy sent them, and these certainly knew the author but did not read\nthe articles. The rector, however, chewed no poisonous cud of suspicion\non this point: he made marginal notes on his own copies to render them\na more interesting loan, and was gratified that the Archdeacon and\nother authorities had nothing to say against the general tenor of his\nargument. Peaceful authorship!--living in the air of the fields and\ndowns, and not in the thrice-breathed breath of criticism--bringing no\nDantesque leanness; rather, assisting nutrition by complacency, and\nperhaps giving a more suffusive sense of achievement than the\nproduction of a whole _Divina Commedia_. Then there was the father's\nrecovered delight in his favorite son, which was a happiness\noutweighing the loss of eighteen hundred a year. Of whatever nature\nmight be the hidden change wrought in Rex by the disappointment of his\nfirst love, it was apparently quite secondary to that evidence of more\nserious ambition which dated from the family misfortune; indeed, Mr.\nGascoigne was inclined to regard the little affair which had caused him\nso much anxiety the year before as an evaporation of superfluous\nmoisture, a kind of finish to the baking process which the human dough\ndemands. Rex had lately come down for a summer visit to the rectory,\nbringing Anna home, and while he showed nearly the old liveliness with\nhis brothers and sisters, he continued in his holiday the habits of the\neager student, rising early in the morning and shutting himself up\nearly in the evenings to carry on a fixed course of study.\n\n\"You don't repent the choice of the law as a profession, Rex?\" said his\nfather.\n\n\"There is no profession I would choose before it,\" said Rex. \"I should\nlike to end my life as a first-rate judge, and help to draw up a code.\nI reverse the famous dictum. I should say, 'Give me something to do\nwith making the laws, and let who will make the songs.'\"\n\n\"You will have to stow in an immense amount of rubbish, I\nsuppose--that's the worst of it,\" said the rector.\n\n\"I don't see that law-rubbish is worse than any other sort. It is not\nso bad as the rubbishy literature that people choke their minds with.\nIt doesn't make one so dull. Our wittiest men have often been lawyers.\nAny orderly way of looking at things as cases and evidence seems to me\nbetter than a perpetual wash of odds and ends bearing on nothing in\nparticular. And then, from a higher point of view, the foundations and\nthe growth of law make the most interesting aspects of philosophy and\nhistory. Of course there will be a good deal that is troublesome,\ndrudging, perhaps exasperating. But the great prizes in life can't be\nwon easily--I see that.\"\n\n\"Well, my boy, the best augury of a man's success in his profession is\nthat he thinks it the finest in the world. But I fancy it so with most\nwork when a man goes into it with a will. Brewitt, the blacksmith, said\nto me the other day that his 'prentice had no mind to his trade; 'and\nyet, sir,' said Brewitt, 'what would a young fellow have if he doesn't\nlike the blacksmithing?\"\n\nThe rector cherished a fatherly delight, which he allowed to escape him\nonly in moderation. Warham, who had gone to India, he had easily borne\nparting with, but Rex was that romance of later life which a man\nsometimes finds in a son whom he recognizes as superior to himself,\npicturing a future eminence for him according to a variety of famous\nexamples. It was only to his wife that he said with decision: \"Rex will\nbe a distinguished man, Nancy, I am sure of it--as sure as Paley's\nfather was about his son.\"\n\n\"Was Paley an old bachelor?\" said Mrs. Gascoigne.\n\n\"That is hardly to the point, my dear,\" said the rector, who did not\nremember that irrelevant detail. And Mrs. Gascoigne felt that she had\nspoken rather weakly.\n\nThis quiet trotting of time at the rectory was shared by the group who\nhad exchanged the faded dignity of Offendene for the low white house\nnot a mile off, well enclosed with evergreens, and known to the\nvillagers, as \"Jodson's.\" Mrs. Davilow's delicate face showed only a\nslight deepening of its mild melancholy, her hair only a few more\nsilver lines, in consequence of the last year's trials; the four girls\nhad bloomed out a little from being less in the shade; and the good\nJocosa preserved her serviceable neutrality toward the pleasures and\nglories of the world as things made for those who were not \"in a\nsituation.\"\n\nThe low narrow drawing-room, enlarged by two quaint projecting windows,\nwith lattices wide open on a July afternoon to the scent of monthly\nroses, the faint murmurs of the garden, and the occasional rare sound\nof hoofs and wheels seeming to clarify the succeeding silence, made\nrather a crowded, lively scene, Rex and Anna being added to the usual\ngroup of six. Anna, always a favorite with her younger cousins, had\nmuch to tell of her new experience, and the acquaintances she had made\nin London, and when on her first visit she came alone, many questions\nwere asked her about Gwendolen's house in Grosvenor Square, what\nGwendolen herself had said, and what any one else had said about\nGwendolen. Had Anna been to see Gwendolen after she had known about the\nyacht? No:--an answer which left speculation free concerning everything\nconnected with that interesting unknown vessel beyond the fact that\nGwendolen had written just before she set out to say that Mr.\nGrandcourt and she were going yachting on the Mediterranean, and again\nfrom Marseilles to say that she was sure to like the yachting, the\ncabins were very elegant, and she would probably not send another\nletter till she had written quite a long diary filled with _dittos_.\nAlso, this movement of Mr. and Mrs. Grandcourt had been mentioned in\n\"the newspaper;\" so that altogether this new phase of Gwendolen's\nexalted life made a striking part of the sisters' romance, the\nbook-devouring Isabel throwing in a corsair or two to make an adventure\nthat might end well.\n\nBut when Rex was present, the girls, according to instructions, never\nstarted this fascinating topic, and to-day there had only been animated\ndescriptions of the Meyricks and their extraordinary Jewish friends,\nwhich caused some astonished questioning from minds to which the idea\nof live Jews, out of a book, suggested a difference deep enough to be\nalmost zoological, as of a strange race in Pliny's Natural History that\nmight sleep under the shade of its own ears. Bertha could not imagine\nwhat Jews believed now; and she had a dim idea that they rejected the\nOld Testament since it proved the New; Miss Merry thought that Mirah\nand her brother could \"never have been properly argued with,\" and the\namiable Alice did not mind what the Jews believed, she was sure she\n\"couldn't bear them.\" Mrs. Davilow corrected her by saying that the\ngreat Jewish families who were in society were quite what they ought to\nbe both in London and Paris, but admitted that the commoner unconverted\nJews were objectionable; and Isabel asked whether Mirah talked just as\nthey did, or whether you might be with her and not find out that she\nwas a Jewess.\n\nRex, who had no partisanship with the Israelites, having made a\ntroublesome acquaintance with the minutiae of their ancient history in\nthe form of \"cram,\" was amusing himself by playfully exaggerating the\nnotion of each speaker, while Anna begged them all to understand that\nhe was only joking, when the laughter was interrupted by the bringing\nin of a letter for Mrs. Davilow. A messenger had run with it in great\nhaste from the rectory. It enclosed a telegram, and as Mrs. Davilow\nread and re-read it in silence and agitation, all eyes were turned on\nher with anxiety, but no one dared to speak. Looking up at last and\nseeing the young faces \"painted with fear,\" she remembered that they\nmight be imagining something worse than the truth, something like her\nown first dread which made her unable to understand what was written,\nand she said, with a sob which was half relief--\n\n\"My dears, Mr. Grandcourt--\" She paused an instant, and then began\nagain, \"Mr. Grandcourt is drowned.\"\n\nRex started up as if a missile had been suddenly thrown into the room.\nHe could not help himself, and Anna's first look was at him. But then,\ngathering some self-command while Mrs. Davilow was reading what the\nrector had written on the enclosing paper, he said--\n\n\"Can I do anything, aunt? Can I carry any word to my father from you?\"\n\n\"Yes, dear. Tell him I will be ready--he is very good. He says he will\ngo with me to Genoa--he will be here at half-past six. Jocosa and\nAlice, help me to get ready. She is safe--Gwendolen is safe--but she\nmust be ill. I am sure she must be very ill. Rex, dear--Rex and\nAnna--go and and tell your father I will be quite ready. I would not\nfor the world lose another night. And bless him for being ready so\nsoon. I can travel night and day till we get there.\"\n\nRex and Anna hurried away through the sunshine which was suddenly\nsolemn to them, without uttering a word to each other: she chiefly\npossessed by solicitude about any reopening of his wound, he struggling\nwith a tumultuary crowd of thoughts that were an offence against his\nbetter will. The tumult being undiminished when they were at the\nrectory gate, he said--\n\n\"Nannie, I will leave you to say everything to my father. If he wants\nme immediately, let me know. I shall stay in the shrubbery for ten\nminutes--only ten minutes.\"\n\nWho has been quite free from egoistic escapes of the imagination,\npicturing desirable consequences on his own future in the presence of\nanother's misfortune, sorrow, or death? The expected promotion or\nlegacy is the common type of a temptation which makes speech and even\nprayer a severe avoidance of the most insistent thoughts, and sometimes\nraises an inward shame, a self-distaste that is worse than any other\nform of unpleasant companionship. In Rex's nature the shame was\nimmediate, and overspread like an ugly light all the hurrying images of\nwhat might come, which thrust themselves in with the idea that\nGwendolen was again free--overspread them, perhaps, the more\npersistently because every phantasm of a hope was quickly nullified by\na more substantial obstacle. Before the vision of \"Gwendolen free\" rose\nthe impassable vision of \"Gwendolen rich, exalted, courted;\" and if in\nthe former time, when both their lives were fresh, she had turned from\nhis love with repugnance, what ground was there for supposing that her\nheart would be more open to him in the future?\n\nThese thoughts, which he wanted to master and suspend, were like a\ntumultuary ringing of opposing chimes that he could not escape from by\nrunning. During the last year he had brought himself into a state of\ncalm resolve, and now it seemed that three words had been enough to\nundo all that difficult work, and cast him back into the wretched\nfluctuations of a longing which he recognized as simply perturbing and\nhopeless. And at this moment the activity of such longing had an\nuntimeliness that made it repulsive to his better self. Excuse poor\nRex; it was not much more than eighteen months since he had been laid\nlow by an archer who sometimes touches his arrow with a subtle,\nlingering poison. The disappointment of a youthful passion has effects\nas incalculable as those of small-pox which may make one person plain\nand a genius, another less plain and more foolish, another plain\nwithout detriment to his folly, and leave perhaps the majority without\nobvious change. Everything depends--not on the mere fact of\ndisappointment, but--on the nature affected and the force that stirs\nit. In Rex's well-endowed nature, brief as the hope had been, the\npassionate stirring had gone deep, and the effect of disappointment was\nrevolutionary, though fraught with a beneficent new order which\nretained most of the old virtues; in certain respects he believed that\nit had finally determined the bias and color of his life. Now, however,\nit seemed that his inward peace was hardly more than that of republican\nFlorence, and his heart no better than the alarm-bell that made work\nslack and tumult busy.\n\nRex's love had been of that sudden, penetrating, clinging sort which\nthe ancients knew and sung, and in singing made a fashion of talk for\nmany moderns whose experience has by no means a fiery, demonic\ncharacter. To have the consciousness suddenly steeped with another's\npersonality, to have the strongest inclinations possessed by an image\nwhich retains its dominance in spite of change and apart from\nworthiness--nay, to feel a passion which clings faster for the tragic\npangs inflicted by a cruel, reorganized unworthiness--is a phase of\nlove which in the feeble and common-minded has a repulsive likeness to\nhis blind animalism insensible to the higher sway of moral affinity or\nheaven-lit admiration. But when this attaching force is present in a\nnature not of brutish unmodifiableness, but of a human dignity that can\nrisk itself safely, it may even result in a devotedness not unfit to be\ncalled divine in a higher sense than the ancient. Phlegmatic\nrationality stares and shakes its head at these unaccountable\nprepossessions, but they exist as undeniably as the winds and waves,\ndetermining here a wreck and there a triumphant voyage.\n\nThis sort of passion had nested in the sweet-natured, strong Rex, and\nhe had made up his mind to its companionship, as if it had been an\nobject supremely dear, stricken dumb and helpless, and turning all the\nfuture of tenderness into a shadow of the past. But he had also made up\nhis mind that his life was not to be pauperized because he had had to\nrenounce one sort of joy; rather, he had begun life again with a new\ncounting-up of the treasures that remained to him, and he had even felt\na release of power such as may come from ceasing to be afraid of your\nown neck.\n\nAnd now, here he was pacing the shrubbery, angry with himself that the\nsense of irrevocableness in his lot, which ought in reason to have been\nas strong as ever, had been shaken by a change of circumstances that\ncould make no change in relation to him. He told himself the truth\nquite roughly--\n\n\"She would never love me; and that is not the question--I could never\napproach her as a lover in her present position. I am exactly of no\nconsequence at all, and am not likely to be of much consequence till my\nhead is turning gray. But what has that to do with it? She would not\nhave me on any terms, and I would not ask her. It is a meanness to be\nthinking about it now--no better than lurking about the battle-field to\nstrip the dead; but there never was more gratuitous sinning. I have\nnothing to gain there--absolutely nothing. Then why can't I face the\nfacts, and behave as they demand, instead of leaving my father to\nsuppose that there are matters he can't speak to me about, though I\nmight be useful in them?\"\n\nThe last thought made one wave with the impulse that sent Rex walking\nfirmly into the house and through the open door of the study, where he\nsaw his father packing a traveling-desk.\n\n\"Can I be of any use, sir?\" said Rex, with rallied courage, as his\nfather looked up at him.\n\n\"Yes, my boy; when I'm gone, just see to my letters, and answer where\nnecessary, and send me word of everything. Dymock will manage the\nparish very well, and you will stay with your mother, or, at least, go\nup and down again, till I come back, whenever that may be.\"\n\n\"You will hardly be very long, sir, I suppose,\" said Rex, beginning to\nstrap a railway rug. \"You will perhaps bring my cousin back to\nEngland?\" He forced himself to speak of Gwendolen for the first time,\nand the rector noticed the epoch with satisfaction.\n\n\"That depends,\" he answered, taking the subject as a matter-of-course\nbetween them. \"Perhaps her mother may stay there with her, and I may\ncome back very soon. This telegram leaves us in ignorance which is\nrather anxious. But no doubt the arrangements of the will lately made\nare satisfactory, and there may possibly be an heir yet to be born. In\nany case, I feel confident that Gwendolen will be liberally--I should\nexpect, splendidly--provided for.\"\n\n\"It must have been a great shock for her,\" said Rex, getting more\nresolute after the first twinge had been borne. \"I suppose he was a\ndevoted husband.\"\n\n\"No doubt of it,\" said the rector, in his most decided manner. \"Few men\nof his position would have come forward as he did under the\ncircumstances.\"\n\nRex had never seen Grandcourt, had never been spoken to about him by\nany one of the family, and knew nothing of Gwendolen's flight from her\nsuitor to Leubronn. He only knew that Grandcourt, being very much in\nlove with her, had made her an offer in the first weeks of her sudden\npoverty, and had behaved very handsomely in providing for her mother\nand sisters. That was all very natural and what Rex himself would have\nliked to do. Grandcourt had been a lucky fellow, and had had some\nhappiness before he got drowned. Yet Rex wondered much whether\nGwendolen had been in love with the successful suitor, or had only\nforborne to tell him that she hated being made love to.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LIX.\n\n  \"I count myself in nothing else so happy\n  As in a soul remembering my good friends.\"\n                                  --SHAKESPEARE.\n\n\nSir Hugo Mallinger was not so prompt in starting for Genoa as Mr.\nGascoigne had been, and Deronda on all accounts would not take his\ndeparture until he had seen the baronet. There was not only\nGrandcourt's death, but also the late crisis in his own life to make\nreasons why his oldest friend would desire to have the unrestrained\ncommunication of speech with him, for in writing he had not felt able\nto give any details concerning the mother who had come and gone like an\napparition. It was not till the fifth evening that Deronda, according\nto telegram, waited for Sir Hugo at the station, where he was to arrive\nbetween eight and nine; and while he was looking forward to the sight\nof the kind, familiar face, which was part of his earliest memories,\nsomething like a smile, in spite of his late tragic experience, might\nhave been detected in his eyes and the curve of his lips at the idea of\nSir Hugo's pleasure in being now master of his estates, able to leave\nthem to his daughters, or at least--according to a view of inheritance\nwhich had just been strongly impressed on Deronda's imagination--to\ntake makeshift feminine offspring as intermediate to a satisfactory\nheir in a grandson. We should be churlish creatures if we could have no\njoy in our fellow-mortals' joy, unless it were in agreement with our\ntheory of righteous distribution and our highest ideal of human good:\nwhat sour corners our mouths would get--our eyes, what frozen glances!\nand all the while our own possessions and desires would not exactly\nadjust themselves to our ideal. We must have some comradeship with\nimperfection; and it is, happily, possible to feel gratitude even where\nwe discern a mistake that may have been injurious, the vehicle of the\nmistake being an affectionate intention prosecuted through a life-time\nof kindly offices. Deronda's feeling and judgment were strongly against\nthe action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity--yes, a\nfalsity: he could give no milder name to the concealment under which he\nhad been reared. But the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge\nconcerning the mother's breach of trust, and with his light, easy way\nof taking life, had held it a reasonable preference in her that her son\nshould be made an English gentleman, seeing that she had the\neccentricity of not caring to part from her child, and be to him as if\nshe were not. Daniel's affectionate gratitude toward Sir Hugo made him\nwish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as possible\nto be rigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from\nthe sight of things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger\nwho sees amiss. If Sir Hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into\nregarding children chiefly as a product intended to make life more\nagreeable to the full-grown, whose convenience alone was to be\nconsulted in the disposal of them--why, he had shared an assumption\nwhich, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on at that date of\nthe world's history; and Deronda, with all his keen memory of the\npainful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able\nalso to remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely\nshut out from Sir Hugo's conception. Ignorant kindness may have the\neffect of cruelty; but to be angry with it as if it were direct cruelty\nwould be an ignorant _un_kindness, the most remote from Deronda's large\nimaginative lenience toward others. And perhaps now, after the\nsearching scenes of the last ten days, in which the curtain had been\nlifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was more\nthan ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment\nwhich has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw\nSir Hugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the\nlife-long affection which had been well accustomed to make excuses,\nflowed in and submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed\nfresh ground for blame.\n\n\"Well, Dan,\" said Sir Hugo, with a serious fervor, grasping Deronda's\nhand. He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a\nrush of mutual consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the\ncourier, and then to propose walking slowly in, the mild evening, there\nbeing no hurry to get to the hotel.\n\n\"I have taken my journey easily, and am in excellent condition,\" he\nsaid, as he and Deronda came out under the starlight, which was still\nfaint with the lingering sheen of day. \"I didn't hurry in setting off,\nbecause I wanted to inquire into things a little, and so I got sight of\nyour letter to Lady Mallinger before I started. But now, how is the\nwidow?\"\n\n\"Getting calmer,\" said Deronda. \"She seems to be escaping the bodily\nillness that one might have feared for her, after her plunge and\nterrible excitement. Her uncle and mother came two days ago, and she is\nbeing well taken care of.\"\n\n\"Any prospect of an heir being born?\"\n\n\"From what Mr. Gascoigne said to me, I conclude not. He spoke as if it\nwere a question whether the widow would have the estates for her life.\"\n\n\"It will not be much of a wrench to her affections, I fancy, this loss\nof the husband?\" said Sir Hugo, looking round at Deronda.\n\n\"The suddenness of the death has been a great blow to her,\" said\nDeronda, quietly evading the question.\n\n\"I wonder whether Grandcourt gave her any notion what were the\nprovisions of his will?\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"Do you know what they are, sir?\" parried Deronda.\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" said the baronet, quickly. \"Gad! if there is no prospect\nof a legitimate heir, he has left everything to a boy he had by a Mrs.\nGlasher; you know nothing about the affair, I suppose, but she was a\nsort of wife to him for a good many years, and there are three older\nchildren--girls. The boy is to take his father's name; he is Henleigh\nalready, and he is to be Henleigh Mallinger Grandcourt. The Mallinger\nwill be of no use to him, I am happy to say; but the young dog will\nhave more than enough with his fourteen years' minority--no need to\nhave had holes filled up with my fifty thousand for Diplow that he had\nno right to: and meanwhile my beauty, the young widow, is to put up\nwith a poor two thousand a year and the house at Gadsmere--a nice kind\nof banishment for her if she chose to shut herself up there, which I\ndon't think she will. The boy's mother has been living there of late\nyears. I'm perfectly disgusted with Grandcourt. I don't know that I'm\nobliged to think the better of him because he's drowned, though, so far\nas my affairs are concerned, nothing in his life became him like the\nleaving it.\"\n\n\"In my opinion he did wrong when he married this wife--not in leaving\nhis estates to the son,\" said Deronda, rather dryly.\n\n\"I say nothing against his leaving the land to the lad,\" said Sir Hugo;\n\"but since he had married this girl he ought to have given her a\nhandsome provision, such as she could live on in a style fitted to the\nrank he had raised her to. She ought to have had four or five thousand\na year and the London house for her life; that's what I should have\ndone for her. I suppose, as she was penniless, her friends couldn't\nstand out for a settlement, else it's ill trusting to the will a man\nmay make after he's married. Even a wise man generally lets some folly\nooze out of him in his will--my father did, I know; and if a fellow has\nany spite or tyranny in him, he's likely to bottle off a good deal for\nkeeping in that sort of document. It's quite clear Grandcourt meant\nthat his death should put an extinguisher on his wife, if she bore him\nno heir.\"\n\n\"And, in the other case, I suppose everything would have been\nreversed--illegitimacy would have had the extinguisher?\" said Deronda,\nwith some scorn.\n\n\"Precisely--Gadsmere and the two thousand. It's queer. One nuisance is\nthat Grandcourt has made me an executor; but seeing he was the son of\nmy only brother, I can't refuse to act. And I shall mind it less if I\ncan be of any use to the widow. Lush thinks she was not in ignorance\nabout the family under the rose, and the purport of the will. He hints\nthat there was no very good understanding between the couple. But I\nfancy you are the man who knew most about what Mrs. Grandcourt felt or\ndid not feel--eh, Dan?\" Sir Hugo did not put this question with his\nusual jocoseness, but rather with a lowered tone of interested inquiry;\nand Deronda felt that any evasion would be misinterpreted. He answered\ngravely--\n\n\"She was certainly not happy. They were unsuited to each other. But as\nto the disposal of the property--from all I have seen of her, I should\npredict that she will be quite contented with it.\"\n\n\"Then she is not much like the rest of her sex; that's all I can say,\"\nsaid Sir Hugo, with a slight shrug. \"However, she ought to be something\nextraordinary, for there must be an entanglement between your horoscope\nand hers--eh? When that tremendous telegram came, the first thing Lady\nMallinger said was, 'How very strange that it should be Daniel who\nsends it!' But I have had something of the same sort in my own life. I\nwas once at a foreign hotel where a lady had been left by her husband\nwithout money. When I heard of it, and came forward to help her, who\nshould she be but an early flame of mine, who had been fool enough to\nmarry an Austrian baron with a long mustache and short affection? But\nit was an affair of my own that called me there--nothing to do with\nknight-errantry, any more than you coming to Genoa had to do with the\nGrandcourts.\"\n\nThere was silence for a little while. Sir Hugo had begun to talk of the\nGrandcourts as the less difficult subject between himself and Deronda;\nbut they were both wishing to overcome a reluctance to perfect\nfrankness on the events which touched their relation to each other.\nDeronda felt that his letter, after the first interview with his\nmother, had been rather a thickening than a breaking of the ice, and\nthat he ought to wait for the first opening to come from Sir Hugo. Just\nwhen they were about to lose sight of the port, the baronet turned, and\npausing as if to get a last view, said in a tone of more serious\nfeeling--\"And about the main business of your coming to Genoa, Dan? You\nhave not been deeply pained by anything you have learned, I hope? There\nis nothing that you feel need change your position in any way? You\nknow, whatever happens to you must always be of importance to me.\"\n\n\"I desire to meet your goodness by perfect confidence, sir,\" said\nDeronda. \"But I can't answer those questions truly by a simple yes or\nno. Much that I have heard about the past has pained me. And it has\nbeen a pain to meet and part with my mother in her suffering state, as\nI have been compelled to do, But it is no pain--it is rather a clearing\nup of doubts for which I am thankful, to know my parentage. As to the\neffect on my position, there will be no change in my gratitude to you,\nsir, for the fatherly care and affection you have always shown me. But\nto know that I was born a Jew, may have a momentous influence on my\nlife, which I am hardly able to tell you of at present.\"\n\nDeronda spoke the last sentence with a resolve that overcame some\ndiffidence. He felt that the differences between Sir Hugo's nature and\nhis own would have, by-and-by, to disclose themselves more markedly\nthan had ever yet been needful. The baronet gave him a quick glance,\nand turned to walk on. After a few moments' silence, in which he had\nreviewed all the material in his memory which would enable him to\ninterpret Deronda's words, he said--\n\n\"I have long expected something remarkable from you, Dan; but, for\nGod's sake, don't go into any eccentricities! I can tolerate any man's\ndifference of opinion, but let him tell it me without getting himself\nup as a lunatic. At this stage of the world, if a man wants to be taken\nseriously, he must keep clear of melodrama. Don't misunderstand me. I\nam not suspecting you of setting up any lunacy on your own account. I\nonly think you might easily be led arm in arm with a lunatic,\nespecially if he wanted defending. You have a passion for people who\nare pelted, Dan. I'm sorry for them too; but so far as company goes,\nit's a bad ground of selection. However, I don't ask you to anticipate\nyour inclination in anything you have to tell me. When you make up your\nmind to a course that requires money, I have some sixteen thousand\npounds that have been accumulating for you over and above what you have\nbeen having the interest of as income. And now I am come, I suppose you\nwant to get back to England as soon as you can?\"\n\n\"I must go first to Mainz to get away a chest of my grandfather's, and\nperhaps to see a friend of his,\" said Deronda. \"Although the chest has\nbeen lying there these twenty years, I have an unreasonable sort of\nnervous eagerness to get it away under my care, as if it were more\nlikely now than before that something might happen to it. And perhaps I\nam the more uneasy, because I lingered after my mother left, instead of\nsetting out immediately. Yet I can't regret that I was here--else Mrs.\nGrandcourt would have had none but servants to act for her.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said Sir Hugo, with a flippancy which was an escape of some\nvexation hidden under his more serious speech; \"I hope you are not\ngoing to set a dead Jew above a living Christian.\"\n\nDeronda colored, and repressed a retort. They were just turning into\nthe _Italia_.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LX.\n\n    \"But I shall say no more of this at this time; for this is to be felt\n    and not to be talked of; and they who never touched it with their\n    fingers may secretly perhaps laugh at it in their hearts and be never\n    the wiser.\"--JEREMY TAYLOR.\n\n    The Roman Emperor in the legend put to death ten learned Israelites to\n    avenge the sale of Joseph by his brethren. And there have always been\n    enough of his kidney, whose piety lies in punishing who can see the\n    justice of grudges but not of gratitude. For you shall never convince\n    the stronger feeling that it hath not the stronger reason, or incline\n    him who hath no love to believe that there is good ground for loving.\n    As we may learn from the order of word-making, wherein _love_\n    precedeth _lovable_.\n\n\nWhen Deronda presented his letter at the banking-house in the _Schuster\nStrasse_ at Mainz, and asked for Joseph Kalonymos, he was presently\nshown into an inner room, where, seated at a table arranging open\nletters, was the white-bearded man whom he had seen the year before in\nthe synagogue at Frankfort. He wore his hat--it seemed to be the same\nold felt hat as before--and near him was a packed portmanteau with a\nwrap and overcoat upon it. On seeing Deronda enter he rose, but did not\nadvance or put out his hand. Looking at him with small penetrating eyes\nwhich glittered like black gems in the midst of his yellowish face and\nwhite hair, he said in German--\n\n\"Good! It is now you who seek me, young man.\"\n\n\"Yes; I seek you with gratitude, as a friend of my grandfather's,\" said\nDeronda, \"and I am under an obligation to you for giving yourself much\ntrouble on my account.\" He spoke without difficulty in that liberal\nGerman tongue which takes many strange accents to its maternal bosom.\n\nKalonymos now put out his hand and said cordially, \"So you are no\nlonger angry at being something more than an Englishman?\"\n\n\"On the contrary. I thank you heartily for helping to save me from\nremaining in ignorance of my parentage, and for taking care of the\nchest that my grandfather left in trust for me.\"\n\n\"Sit down, sit down,\" said Kalonymos, in a quick undertone, seating\nhimself again, and pointing to a chair near him. Then deliberately\nlaying aside his hat and showing a head thickly covered, with white\nhair, he stroked and clutched his beard while he looked examiningly at\nthe young face before him. The moment wrought strongly on Deronda's\nimaginative susceptibility: in the presence of one linked still in\nzealous friendship with the grandfather whose hope had yearned toward\nhim when he was unborn, and who, though dead, was yet to speak with him\nin those written memorials which, says Milton, \"contain a potency of\nlife in them to be as active as that soul whose progeny they are,\" he\nseemed to himself to be touching the electric chain of his own\nancestry; and he bore the scrutinizing look of Kalonymos with a\ndelighted awe, something like what one feels in the solemn\ncommemoration of acts done long ago but still telling markedly on the\nlife of to-day. Impossible for men of duller, fibre--men whose\naffection is not ready to diffuse itself through the wide travel of\nimagination, to comprehend, perhaps even to credit this sensibility of\nDeronda's; but it subsisted, like their own dullness, notwithstanding\ntheir lack of belief in it--and it gave his face an expression which\nseemed very satisfactory to the observer.\n\nHe said in Hebrew, quoting from one of the fine hymns in the Hebrew\nliturgy, \"As thy goodness has been great to the former generations,\neven so may it be to the latter.\" Then after pausing a little he began,\n\"Young man, I rejoice that I was not yet set off again on my travels,\nand that you are come in time for me to see the image of my friend as\nhe was in his youth--no longer perverted from the fellowship of your\npeople--no longer shrinking in proud wrath from the touch of him who\nseemed to be claiming you as a Jew. You come with thankfulness yourself\nto claim the kindred and heritage that wicked contrivance would have\nrobbed you of. You come with a willing soul to declare, 'I am the\ngrandson of Daniel Charisi.' Is it not so?\"\n\n\"Assuredly it is,\" said Deronda. \"But let me say that I should at no\ntime have been inclined to treat a Jew with incivility simply because\nhe was a Jew. You can understand that I shrank from saying to a\nstranger, 'I know nothing of my mother.'\"\n\n\"A sin, a sin!\" said Kalonymos, putting up his hand and closing his\neyes in disgust. \"A robbery of our people--as when our youths and\nmaidens were reared for the Roman Edom. But it is frustrated. I have\nfrustrated it. When Daniel Charisi--may his Rock and his Redeemer guard\nhim!--when Daniel Charisi was a stripling and I was a lad little above\nhis shoulder, we made a solemn vow always to be friends. He said, 'Let\nus bind ourselves with duty, as if we were sons of the same mother.'\nThat was his bent from first to last--as he said, to fortify his soul\nwith bonds. It was a saying of his, 'Let us bind love with duty; for\nduty is the love of law; and law is the nature of the Eternal.' So we\nbound ourselves. And though we were much apart in our later life, the\nbond has never been broken. When he was dead, they sought to rob him;\nbut they could not rob him of me. I rescued that remainder of him which\nhe had prized and preserved for his offspring. And I have restored to\nhim the offspring they had robbed him of. I will bring you the chest\nforthwith.\"\n\nKalonymos left the room for a few minutes, and returned with a clerk\nwho carried the chest, set it down on the floor, drew off a leather\ncover, and went out again. It was not very large, but was made heavy by\nornamental bracers and handles of gilt iron. The wood was beautifully\nincised with Arabic lettering.\n\n\"So!\" said Kalonymos, returning to his seat. \"And here is the curious\nkey,\" he added, taking it from a small leathern bag. \"Bestow it\ncarefully. I trust you are methodic and wary.\" He gave Deronda the\nmonitory and slightly suspicious look with which age is apt to commit\nany object to the keeping of youth.\n\n\"I shall be more careful of this than of any other property,\" said\nDeronda, smiling and putting the key in his breast-pocket. \"I never\nbefore possessed anything that was a sign to me of so much cherished\nhope and effort. And I shall never forget that the effort was partly\nyours. Have you time to tell me more of my grandfather? Or shall I be\ntrespassing in staying longer?\"\n\n\"Stay yet a while. In an hour and eighteen minutes I start for\nTrieste,\" said Kalonymos, looking at his watch, \"and presently my sons\nwill expect my attention. Will you let me make you known to them, so\nthat they may have the pleasure of showing hospitality to my friend's\ngrandson? They dwell here in ease and luxury, though I choose to be a\nwanderer.\"\n\n\"I shall be glad if you will commend me to their acquaintance for some\nfuture opportunity,\" said Deronda. \"There are pressing claims calling\nme to England--friends who may be much in need of my presence. I have\nbeen kept away from them too long by unexpected circumstances. But to\nknow more of you and your family would be motive enough to bring me\nagain to Mainz.\"\n\n\"Good! Me you will hardly find, for I am beyond my threescore years and\nten, and I am a wanderer, carrying my shroud with me. But my sons and\ntheir children dwell here in wealth and unity. The days are changed for\nus since Karl the Great fetched my ancestors from Italy to bring some\ntincture of knowledge to our rough German brethren. I and my\ncontemporaries have had to fight for it too. Our youth fell on evil\ndays; but this we have won; we increase our wealth in safety, and the\nlearning of all Germany is fed and fattened by Jewish brains--though\nthey keep not always their Jewish hearts. Have you been left altogether\nignorant of your people's life, young man?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Deronda, \"I have lately, before I had any true suspicion of\nmy parentage, been led to study everything belonging to their history\nwith more interest than any other subject. It turns out that I have\nbeen making myself ready to understand my grandfather a little.\" He was\nanxious less the time should be consumed before this circuitous course\nof talk could lead them back to the topic he most cared about. Age does\nnot easily distinguish between what it needs to express and what youth\nneeds to know-distance seeming to level the objects of memory; and\nkeenly active as Joseph Kalonymos showed himself, an inkstand in the\nwrong place would have hindered his imagination from getting to\nBeyrout: he had been used to unite restless travel with punctilious\nobservation. But Deronda's last sentence answered its purpose.\n\n\"So-you would perhaps have been such a man as he if your education had\nnot hindered; for you are like him in features:--yet not altogether,\nyoung man. He had an iron will in his face: it braced up everybody\nabout him. When he was quite young he had already got one deep upright\nline in his brow. I see none of that in you. Daniel Charisi used to\nsay, 'Better, a wrong will than a wavering; better a steadfast enemy\nthan an uncertain friend; better a false belief than no belief at all.'\nWhat he despised most was indifference. He had longer reasons than I\ncan give you.\"\n\n\"Yet his knowledge was not narrow?\" said Deronda, with a tacit\nreference to the usual excuse for indecision--that it comes from\nknowing too much.\n\n\"Narrow? no,\" said Kalonymos, shaking his head with a compassionate\nsmile \"From his childhood upward, he drank in learning as easily as the\nplant sucks up water. But he early took to medicine and theories about\nlife and health. He traveled to many countries, and spent much of his\nsubstance in seeing and knowing. What he used to insist on was that the\nstrength and wealth of mankind depended on the balance of separateness\nand communication, and he was bitterly against our people losing\nthemselves among the Gentiles; 'It's no better,' said he, 'than the\nmany sorts of grain going back from their variety into sameness.' He\nmingled all sorts of learning; and in that he was like our Arabic\nwriters in the golden time. We studied together, but he went beyond me.\nThough we were bosom friends, and he poured himself out to me, we were\nas different as the inside and outside of the bowl. I stood up for two\nnotions of my own: I took Charisi's sayings as I took the shape of the\ntrees: they were there, not to be disputed about. It came to the same\nthing in both of us; we were both faithful Jews, thankful not to be\nGentiles. And since I was a ripe man, I have been what I am now, for\nall but age-loving to wander, loving transactions, loving to behold all\nthings, and caring nothing about hardship. Charisi thought continually\nof our people's future: he went with all his soul into that part of our\nreligion: I, not. So we have freedom, I am content. Our people wandered\nbefore they were driven. Young man when I am in the East, I lie much on\ndeck and watch the greater stars. The sight of them satisfies me. I\nknow them as they rise, and hunger not to know more. Charisi was\nsatisfied with no sight, but pieced it out with what had been before\nand what would come after. Yet we loved each other, and as he said, he\nbound our love with duty; we solemnly pledged ourselves to help and\ndefend each other to the last. I have fulfilled my pledge.\" Here\nKalonymos rose, and Deronda, rising also, said--\n\n\"And in being faithful to him you have caused justice to be done to me.\nIt would have been a robbery of me too that I should never have known\nof the inheritance he had prepared for me. I thank you with my whole\nsoul.\"\n\n\"Be worthy of him, young man. What is your vocation?\" This question was\nput with a quick abruptness which embarrassed Deronda, who did not feel\nit quite honest to allege his law-reading as a vocation. He answered--\n\n\"I cannot say that I have any.\"\n\n\"Get one, get one. The Jew must be diligent. You will call yourself a\nJew and profess the faith of your fathers?\" said Kalonymos, putting his\nhand on Deronda's shoulder and looking sharply in his face.\n\n\"I shall call myself a Jew,\" said Deronda, deliberately, becoming\nslightly paler under the piercing eyes of his questioner. \"But I will\nnot say that I shall profess to believe exactly as my fathers have\nbelieved. Our fathers themselves changed the horizon of their belief\nand learned of other races. But I think I can maintain my grandfather's\nnotion of separateness with communication. I hold that my first duty is\nto my own people, and if there is anything to be done toward restoring\nor perfecting their common life, I shall make that my vocation.\"\n\nIt happened to Deronda at that moment, as it has often happened to\nothers, that the need for speech made an epoch in resolve. His respect\nfor the questioner would not let him decline to answer, and by the\nnecessity to answer he found out the truth for himself.\n\n\"Ah, you argue and you look forward--you are Daniel Charisi's\ngrandson,\" said Kalonymos, adding a benediction in Hebrew.\n\nWith that they parted; and almost as soon as Deronda was in London, the\naged man was again on shipboard, greeting the friendly stars without\nany eager curiosity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXI.\n\n  \"Within the gentle heart Love shelters him,\n    As birds within the green shade of the grove.\n  Before the gentle heart, in Nature's scheme,\n    Love was not, nor the gentle heart ere Love.\"\n            --GUIDO GUNICELLI (_Rossetti's Translation_).\n\n\nThere was another house besides the white house at Pennicote, another\nbreast besides Rex Gascoigne's, in which the news of Grandcourt's death\ncaused both strong agitation and the effort to repress it.\n\nIt was Hans Meyrick's habit to send or bring in the _Times_ for his\nmother's reading. She was a great reader of news, from the\nwidest-reaching politics to the list of marriages; the latter, she\nsaid, giving her the pleasant sense of finishing the fashionable novels\nwithout having read them, and seeing the heroes and heroines happy\nwithout knowing what poor creatures they were. On a Wednesday, there\nwere reasons why Hans always chose to bring the paper, and to do so\nabout the time that Mirah had nearly ended giving Mab her weekly\nlesson, avowing that he came then because he wanted to hear Mirah sing.\nBut on the particular Wednesday now in question, after entering the\nhouse as quietly as usual with his latch-key, he appeared in the\nparlor, shaking the _Times_ aloft with a crackling noise, in\nremorseless interruption of Mab's attempt to render _Lascia ch'io\npianga_ with a remote imitation of her teacher. Piano and song ceased\nimmediately; Mirah, who had been playing the accompaniment,\ninvoluntarily started up and turned round, the crackling sound, after\nthe occasional trick of sounds, having seemed to her something\nthunderous; and Mab said--\n\n\"O-o-o, Hans! why do you bring a more horrible noise than my singing?\"\n\n\"What on earth is the wonderful news?\" said Mrs. Meyrick, who was the\nonly other person in the room. \"Anything about Italy--anything about\nthe Austrians giving up Venice?\"\n\n\"Nothing about Italy, but something from Italy,\" said Hans, with a\npeculiarity in his tone and manner which set his mother interpreting.\nImagine how some of us feel and behave when an event, not disagreeable\nseems to be confirming and carrying out our private constructions. We\nsay, \"What do you think?\" in a pregnant tone to some innocent person\nwho has not embarked his wisdom in the same boat with ours, and finds\nour information flat.\n\n\"Nothing bad?\" said Mrs. Meyrick anxiously, thinking immediately of\nDeronda; and Mirah's heart had been already clutched by the same\nthought.\n\n\"Not bad for anybody we care much about,\" said Hans, quickly; \"rather\nuncommonly lucky, I think. I never knew anybody die conveniently\nbefore. Considering what a dear gazelle I am, I am constantly wondering\nto find myself alive.\"\n\n\"Oh me, Hans!\" said Mab, impatiently, \"if you must talk of yourself,\nlet it be behind your own back. What _is_ it that has happened?\"\n\n\"Duke Alfonso is drowned, and the Duchess is alive, that's all,\" said\nHans, putting the paper before Mrs. Meyrick, with his finger against a\nparagraph. \"But more than all is--Deronda was at Genoa in the same\nhotel with them, and he saw her brought in by the fishermen who had got\nher out of the water time enough to save her from any harm. It seems\nthey saw her jump in after her husband, which was a less judicious\naction than I should have expected of the Duchess. However Deronda is a\nlucky fellow in being there to take care of her.\"\n\nMirah had sunk on the music stool again, with her eyelids down and her\nhands tightly clasped; and Mrs. Meyrick, giving up the paper to Mab,\nsaid--\n\n\"Poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after\nhim.\"\n\n\"It was an inadvertence--a little absence of mind,\" said Hans, creasing\nhis face roguishly, and throwing himself into a chair not far from\nMirah. \"Who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances,\nalways singing asides?--that was the husband's _rôle_, depend upon it.\nNothing can be neater than his getting drowned. The Duchess is at\nliberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that\nwill melt instead of freezing her. And I shall be invited to the\nwedding.\"\n\nHere Mirah started from her sitting posture, and fixing her eyes on\nHans, with an angry gleam in them, she said, in a deeply-shaken voice\nof indignation--\n\n\"Mr. Hans, you ought not to speak in that way. Mr. Deronda would not\nlike you to speak so. Why will you say he is lucky--why will you use\nwords of that sort about life and death--when what is life to one is\ndeath to another? How do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs.\nGrandcourt? It might be a great evil to him. She would take him away\nfrom my brother--I know she would. Mr. Deronda would not call that\nlucky to pierce my brother's heart.\"\n\nAll three were struck with the sudden transformation. Mirah's face,\nwith a look of anger that might have suited Ithuriel, pale, even to the\nlips that were usually so rich of tint, was not far from poor Hans, who\nsat transfixed, blushing under it as if he had been a girl, while he\nsaid, nervously--\n\n\"I am a fool and a brute, and I withdraw every word. I'll go and hang\nmyself like Judas--if it's allowable to mention him.\" Even in Hans's\nsorrowful moments, his improvised words had inevitably some drollery.\n\nBut Mirah's anger was not appeased: how could it be? She had burst into\nindignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth\nmeet even through their own flesh, by way of making their agony\nbearable. She said no more, but, seating herself at the piano, pressed\nthe sheet of music before her, as if she thought of beginning to play\nagain.\n\nIt was Mab who spoke, while Mrs. Meyrick's face seemed to reflect some\nof Hans' discomfort.\n\n\"Mirah is quite right to scold you, Hans. You are always taking Mr.\nDeronda's name in vain. And it is horrible, joking in that way about\nhis marrying Mrs. Grandcourt. Men's minds must be very black, I think,\"\nended Mab, with much scorn.\n\n\"Quite true, my dear,\" said Hans, in a low tone, rising and turning on\nhis heel to walk toward the back window.\n\n\"We had better go on, Mab; you have not given your full time to the\nlesson,\" said Mirah, in a higher tone than usual. \"Will you sing this\nagain, or shall I sing it to you?\"\n\n\"Oh, please sing it to me,\" said Mab, rejoiced to take no more notice\nof what had happened.\n\nAnd Mirah immediately sang _Lascia ch'io pianga_, giving forth its\nmelodious sobs and cries with new fullness and energy. Hans paused in\nhis walk and leaned against the mantel-piece, keeping his eyes\ncarefully away from his mother's. When Mirah had sung her last note and\ntouched the last chord, she rose and said, \"I must go home now. Ezra\nexpects me.\"\n\nShe gave her hand silently to Mrs. Meyrick and hung back a little, not\ndaring to look at her, instead of kissing her, as usual. But the little\nmother drew Mirah's face down to hers, and said, soothingly, \"God bless\nyou, my dear.\" Mirah felt that she had committed an offense against\nMrs. Meyrick by angrily rebuking Hans, and mixed with the rest of her\nsuffering was the sense that she had shown something like a proud\ningratitude, an unbecoming assertion of superiority. And her friend had\ndivined this compunction.\n\nMeanwhile Hans had seized his wide-awake, and was ready to open the\ndoor.\n\n\"Now, Hans,\" said Mab, with what was really a sister's tenderness\ncunningly disguised, \"you are not going to walk home with Mirah. I am\nsure she would rather not. You are so dreadfully disagreeable to-day.\"\n\n\"I shall go to take care of her, if she does not forbid me,\" said Hans,\nopening the door.\n\nMirah said nothing, and when he had opened the outer door for her and\nclosed it behind him, he walked by her side unforbidden. She had not\nthe courage to begin speaking to him again--conscious that she had\nperhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him, yet finding only\nseverer words behind them in her heart. Besides, she was pressed upon\nby a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of\nthat consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself.\n\nHans, on his side, had a mind equally busy. Mirah's anger had waked in\nhim a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a\ndolt not to have had it before. Suppose Mirah's heart were entirely\npreoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and\nher brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans's mind\nwith anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish.\nHe had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary\ncould have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment\nbetween Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt; he had pieced together many\nfragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed\nby what his sisters had heard from Anna Gascoigne, which convinced him\nnot only that Mrs. Grandcourt had a passion for Deronda, but also,\nnotwithstanding his friend's austere self-repression, that Deronda's\nsusceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love. Some men,\nhaving such a conviction, would have avoided allusions that could have\nroused that susceptibility; but Hans's talk naturally fluttered toward\nmischief, and he was given to a form of experiment on live animals\nwhich consisted in irritating his friends playfully. His experiments\nhad ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true.\n\nOn the other hand, any susceptibility Deronda had manifested about a\nlover's attentions being shown to Mirah, Hans took to be sufficiently\naccounted for by the alleged reason, namely, her dependent position;\nfor he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for\nthose whom he could rescue and protect. And Deronda's insistence that\nMirah would never marry one who was not a Jew necessarily seemed to\nexclude himself, since Hans shared the ordinary opinion, which he knew\nnothing to disturb, that Deronda was the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger.\n\nThus he felt himself in clearness about the state of Deronda's\naffections; but now, the events which really struck him as concurring\ntoward the desirable union with Mrs. Grandcourt, had called forth a\nflash of revelation from Mirah--a betrayal of her passionate feeling on\nthis subject which had made him melancholy on her account as well as\nhis own--yet on the whole less melancholy than if he had imagined\nDeronda's hopes fixed on her. It is not sublime, but it is common, for\na man to see the beloved object unhappy because his rival loves\nanother, with more fortitude and a milder jealousy than if he saw her\nentirely happy in his rival. At least it was so with the mercurial\nHans, who fluctuated between the contradictory states of feeling,\nwounded because Mirah was wounded, and of being almost obliged to\nDeronda for loving somebody else. It was impossible for him to give\nMirah any direct sign of the way in which he had understood her anger,\nyet he longed that his speechless companionship should be eloquent in a\ntender, penitent sympathy which is an admissible form of wooing a\nbruised heart.\n\nThus the two went side by side in a companionship that yet seemed an\nagitated communication, like that of two chords whose quick vibrations\nlie outside our hearing. But when they reached the door of Mirah's\nhome, and Hans said \"Good-bye,\" putting out his hand with an appealing\nlook of penitence, she met the look with melancholy gentleness, and\nsaid, \"Will you not come in and see my brother?\"\n\nHans could not but interpret this invitation as a sign of pardon. He\nhad not enough understanding of what Mirah's nature had been wrought\ninto by her early experience, to divine how the very strength of her\nlate excitement had made it pass more quickly into the resolute\nacceptance of pain. When he had said, \"If you will let me,\" and they\nwent in together, half his grief was gone, and he was spinning a little\nromance of how his devotion might make him indispensable to Mirah in\nproportion as Deronda gave his devotion elsewhere. This was quite fair,\nsince his friend was provided for according to his own heart; and on\nthe question of Judaism Hans felt thoroughly fortified:--who ever heard\nin tale or history that a woman's love went in the track of her race\nand religion? Moslem and Jewish damsels were always attracted toward\nChristians, and now if Mirah's heart had gone forth too precipitately\ntoward Deronda, here was another case in point. Hans was wont to make\nmerry with his own arguments, to call himself a Giaour, and antithesis\nthe sole clue to events; but he believed a little in what he laughed\nat. And thus his bird-like hope, constructed on the lightest\nprinciples, soared again in spite of heavy circumstances.\n\nThey found Mordecai looking singularly happy, holding a closed letter\nin his hand, his eyes glowing with a quiet triumph which in his\nemaciated face gave the idea of a conquest over assailing death. After\nthe greeting between him and Hans, Mirah put her arm round her\nbrother's neck and looked down at the letter in his hand, without the\ncourage to ask about it, though she felt sure that it was the cause of\nhis happiness.\n\n\"A letter from Daniel Deronda,\" said Mordecai, answering her look.\n\"Brief--only saying that he hopes soon to return. Unexpected claims\nhave detained him. The promise of seeing him again is like the bow in\nthe cloud to me,\" continued Mordecai, looking at Hans; \"and to you it\nmust be a gladness. For who has two friends like him?\"\n\nWhile Hans was answering Mirah slipped away to her own room; but not to\nindulge in any outburst of the passion within her. If the angels, once\nsupposed to watch the toilet of women, had entered the little chamber\nwith her and let her shut the door behind them, they would only have\nseen her take off her hat, sit down and press her hands against her\ntemples as if she had suddenly reflected that her head ached; then rise\nto dash cold water on her eyes and brow and hair till her backward\ncurls were full of crystal beads, while she had dried her brow and\nlooked out like a freshly-opened flower from among the dewy tresses of\nthe woodland; then give deep sighs of relief, and putting on her little\nslippers, sit still after that action for a couple of minutes, which\nseemed to her so long, so full of things to come, that she rose with an\nair of recollection, and went down to make tea.\n\nSomething of the old life had returned. She had been used to remember\nthat she must learn her part, must go to rehearsal, must act and sing\nin the evening, must hide her feelings from her father; and the more\npainful her life grew, the more she had been used to hide. The force of\nher nature had long found its chief action in resolute endurance, and\nto-day the violence of feeling which had caused the first jet of anger\nhad quickly transformed itself into a steady facing of trouble, the\nwell-known companion of her young years. But while she moved about and\nspoke as usual, a close observer might have discerned a difference\nbetween this apparent calm, which was the effect of restraining energy,\nand the sweet genuine calm of the months when she first felt a return\nof her infantine happiness.\n\nThose who have been indulged by fortune and have always thought of\ncalamity as what happens to others, feel a blind incredulous rage at\nthe reversal of their lot, and half believe that their wild cries will\nalter the course of the storm. Mirah felt no such surprise when\nfamiliar Sorrow came back from brief absence, and sat down with her\naccording to the old use and wont. And this habit of expecting trouble\nrather than joy, hindered her from having any persistent belief in\nopposition to the probabilities which were not merely suggested by\nHans, but were supported by her own private knowledge and long-growing\npresentiment. An attachment between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt, to end\nin their future marriage, had the aspect of a certainty for her\nfeeling. There had been no fault in him: facts had ordered themselves\nso that there was a tie between him and this woman who belonged to\nanother world than hers and Ezra's--nay, who seemed another sort of\nbeing than Deronda, something foreign that would be a disturbance in\nhis life instead of blending with it. Well, well--but if it could have\nbeen deferred so as to make no difference while Ezra was there! She did\nnot know all the momentousness of the relation between Deronda and her\nbrother, but she had seen, and instinctively felt enough to forebode\nits being incongruous with any close tie to Mrs. Grandcourt; at least\nthis was the clothing that Mirah first gave to her mortal repugnance.\nBut in the still, quick action of her consciousness, thoughts went on\nlike changing states of sensation unbroken by her habitual acts; and\nthis inward language soon said distinctly that the mortal repugnance\nwould remain even if Ezra were secured from loss.\n\n\"What I have read about and sung about and seen acted, is happening to\nme--this that I am feeling is the love that makes jealousy;\" so\nimpartially Mirah summed up the charge against herself. But what\ndifference could this pain of hers make to any one else? It must remain\nas exclusively her own, and hidden, as her early yearning and devotion\nto her lost mother. But unlike that devotion, it was something that she\nfelt to be a misfortune of her nature--a discovery that what should\nhave been pure gratitude and reverence had sunk into selfish pain, that\nthe feeling she had hitherto delighted to pour out in words was\ndegraded into something she was ashamed to betray--an absurd longing\nthat she who had received all and given nothing should be of importance\nwhere she was of no importance--an angry feeling toward another woman\nwho possessed the good she wanted. But what notion, what vain reliance\ncould it be that had lain darkly within her and was now burning itself\ninto sight as disappointment and jealousy? It was as if her soul had\nbeen steeped in poisonous passion by forgotten dreams of deep sleep,\nand now flamed out in this unaccountable misery. For with her waking\nreason she had never entertained what seemed the wildly unfitting\nthought that Deronda could love her. The uneasiness she had felt before\nhad been comparatively vague and easily explained as part of a general\nregret that he was only a visitant in her and her brother's world, from\nwhich the world where his home lay was as different as a portico with\nlights and lacqueys was different from the door of a tent, where the\nonly splendor came from the mysterious inaccessible stars. But her\nfeeling was no longer vague: the cause of her pain--the image of Mrs.\nGrandcourt by Deronda's side, drawing him farther and farther into the\ndistance, was as definite as pincers on her flesh. In the Psyche-mould\nof Mirah's frame there rested a fervid quality of emotion, sometimes\nrashly supposed to require the bulk of a Cleopatra; her impressions had\nthe thoroughness and tenacity that give to the first selection of\npassionate feeling the character of a lifelong faithfulness. And now a\nselection had declared itself, which gave love a cruel heart of\njealousy: she had been used to a strong repugnance toward certain\nobjects that surrounded her, and to walk inwardly aloof from them while\nthey touched her sense. And now her repugnance concentrated itself on\nMrs. Grandcourt, of whom she involuntarily conceived more evil than she\nknew. \"I could bear everything that used to be--but this is worse--this\nis worse,--I used not to have horrible feelings!\" said the poor child\nin a loud whisper to her pillow. Strange that she should have to pray\nagainst any feeling which concerned Deronda!\n\nBut this conclusion had been reached through an evening spent in\nattending to Mordecai, whose exaltation of spirit in the prospect of\nseeing his friend again, disposed him to utter many thoughts aloud to\nMirah, though such communication was often interrupted by intervals\napparently filled with an inward utterance that animated his eyes and\ngave an occasional silent action to his lips. One thought especially\noccupied him.\n\n\"Seest thou, Mirah,\" he said once, after a long silence, \"the _Shemah_,\nwherein we briefly confess the divine Unity, is the chief devotional\nexercise of the Hebrew; and this made our religion the fundamental\nreligion for the whole world; for the divine Unity embraced as its\nconsequence the ultimate unity of mankind. See, then--the nation which\nhas been scoffed at for its separateness, has given a binding theory to\nthe human race. Now, in complete unity a part possesses the whole as\nthe whole possesses every part: and in this way human life is tending\ntoward the image of the Supreme Unity: for as our life becomes more\nspiritual by capacity of thought, and joy therein, possession tends to\nbecome more universal, being independent of gross material contact; so\nthat in a brief day the soul of man may know in fuller volume the good\nwhich has been and is, nay, is to come, than all he could possess in a\nwhole life where he had to follow the creeping paths of the senses. In\nthis moment, my sister, I hold the joy of another's future within me: a\nfuture which these eyes will not see, and which my spirit may not then\nrecognize as mine. I recognize it now, and love it so, that I can lay\ndown this poor life upon its altar and say: 'Burn, burn indiscernibly\ninto that which shall be, which is my love and not me.' Dost thou\nunderstand, Mirah?\"\n\n\"A little,\" said Mirah, faintly, \"but my mind is too poor to have felt\nit.\"\n\n\"And yet,\" said Mordecai, rather insistently, \"women are specially\nframed for the love which feels possession in renouncing, and is thus a\nfit image of what I mean. Somewhere in the later _Midrash_, I think, is\nthe story of a Jewish maiden who loved a Gentile king so well, that\nthis was what she did:--she entered into prison and changed clothes\nwith the woman who was beloved by the king, that she might deliver that\nwoman from death by dying in her stead, and leave the king to be happy\nin his love which was not for her. This is the surpassing love, that\nloses self in the object of love.\"\n\n\"No, Ezra, no,\" said Mirah, with low-toned intensity, \"that was not it.\nShe wanted the king when she was dead to know what she had done, and\nfeel that she was better than the other. It was her strong self,\nwanting to conquer, that made her die.\"\n\nMordecai was silent a little, and then argued--\n\n\"That might be, Mirah. But if she acted so, believing the king would\nnever know.\"\n\n\"You can make the story so in your mind, Ezra, because you are great,\nand like to fancy the greatest that could be. But I think it was not\nreally like that. The Jewish girl must have had jealousy in her heart,\nand she wanted somehow to have the first place in the king's mind. That\nis what she would die for.\"\n\n\"My sister, thou hast read too many plays, where the writers delight in\nshowing the human passions as indwelling demons, unmixed with the\nrelenting and devout elements of the soul. Thou judgest by the plays,\nand not by thy own heart, which is like our mother's.\"\n\nMirah made no answer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXII.\n\n  \"Das Gluck ist eine leichte Dirne,\n  Und weilt nicht gern am selben Ort;\n  Sie streicht das Haar dir von der Stirn\n  Und kusst dich rasch und flattert fort\n\n  Frau Ungluck hat im Gegentheile\n  Dich liebefest an's Herz gedruckt;\n  Sie sagt, sie habe keine Eile,\n  Setzt sich zu dir ans Bett und strickt.\"\n                                     --HEINE.\n\n\nSomething which Mirah had lately been watching for as the fulfilment of\na threat, seemed now the continued visit of that familiar sorrow which\nhad lately come back, bringing abundant luggage.\n\nTurning out of Knightsbridge, after singing at a charitable morning\nconcert in a wealthy house, where she had been recommended by Klesmer,\nand where there had been the usual groups outside to see the departing\ncompany, she began to feel herself dogged by footsteps that kept an\neven pace with her own. Her concert dress being simple black, over\nwhich she had thrown a dust cloak, could not make her an object of\nunpleasant attention, and render walking an imprudence; but this\nreflection did not occur to Mirah: another kind of alarm lay uppermost\nin her mind. She immediately thought of her father, and could no more\nlook round than if she had felt herself tracked by a ghost. To turn and\nface him would be voluntarily to meet the rush of emotions which\nbeforehand seemed intolerable. If it were her father he must mean to\nclaim recognition, and he would oblige her to face him. She must wait\nfor that compulsion. She walked on, not quickening her pace--of what\nuse was that?--but picturing what was about to happen as if she had the\nfull certainty that the man behind her was her father; and along with\nher picturing went a regret that she had given her word to Mrs. Meyrick\nnot to use any concealment about him. The regret at last urged her, at\nleast, to try and hinder any sudden betrayal that would cause her\nbrother an unnecessary shock. Under the pressure of this motive, she\nresolved to turn before she reached her own door, and firmly will the\nencounter instead of merely submitting to it. She had already reached\nthe entrance of the small square where her home lay, and had made up\nher mind to turn, when she felt her embodied presentiment getting\ncloser to her, then slipping to her side, grasping her wrist, and\nsaying, with a persuasive curl of accent, \"Mirah!\"\n\nShe paused at once without any start; it was the voice she expected,\nand she was meeting the expected eyes. Her face was as grave as if she\nhad been looking at her executioner, while his was adjusted to the\nintention of soothing and propitiating her. Once a handsome face, with\nbright color, it was now sallow and deep-lined, and had that peculiar\nimpress of impudent suavity which comes from courting favor while\naccepting disrespect. He was lightly made and active, with something of\nyouth about him which made the signs of age seem a disguise; and in\nreality he was hardly fifty-seven. His dress was shabby, as when she\nhad seen him before. The presence of this unreverend father now, more\nthan ever, affected Mirah with the mingled anguish of shame and grief,\nrepulsion and pity--more than ever, now that her own world was changed\ninto one where there was no comradeship to fence him from scorn and\ncontempt.\n\nSlowly, with a sad, tremulous voice, she said, \"It is you, father.\"\n\n\"Why did you run away from me, child?\" he began with rapid speech which\nwas meant to have a tone of tender remonstrance, accompanied with\nvarious quick gestures like an abbreviated finger-language. \"What were\nyou afraid of? You knew I never made you do anything against your will.\nIt was for your sake I broke up your engagement in the Vorstadt,\nbecause I saw it didn't suit you, and you repaid me by leaving me to\nthe bad times that came in consequence. I had made an easier engagement\nfor you at the Vorstadt Theater in Dresden: I didn't tell you, because\nI wanted to take you by surprise. And you left me planted\nthere--obliged to make myself scarce because I had broken contract.\nThat was hard lines for me, after I had given up everything for the\nsake of getting you an education which was to be a fortune to you. What\nfather devoted himself to his daughter more than I did to you? You know\nhow I bore that disappointment in your voice, and made the best of it:\nand when I had nobody besides you, and was getting broken, as a man\nmust who has had to fight his way with his brains--you chose that time\nto leave me. Who else was it you owed everything to, if not to me? and\nwhere was your feeling in return? For what my daughter cared, I might\nhave died in a ditch.\"\n\nLapidoth stopped short here, not from lack of invention, but because he\nhad reached a pathetic climax, and gave a sudden sob, like a woman's,\ntaking out hastily an old yellow silk handkerchief. He really felt that\nhis daughter had treated him ill--a sort of sensibility which is\nnaturally strong in unscrupulous persons, who put down what is owing to\nthem, without any _per contra_. Mirah, in spite of that sob, had energy\nenough not to let him suppose that he deceived her. She answered more\nfirmly, though it was the first time she had ever used accusing words\nto him.\n\n\"You know why I left you, father; and I had reason to distrust you,\nbecause I felt sure that you had deceived my mother. If I could have\ntrusted you, I would have stayed with you and worked for you.\"\n\n\"I never meant to deceive your mother, Mirah,\" said Lapidoth, putting\nback his handkerchief, but beginning with a voice that seemed to\nstruggle against further sobbing. \"I meant to take you back to her, but\nchances hindered me just at the time, and then there came information\nof her death. It was better for you that I should stay where I was, and\nyour brother could take care of himself. Nobody had any claim on me but\nyou. I had word of your mother's death from a particular friend, who\nhad undertaken to manage things for me, and I sent him over money to\npay expenses. There's one chance to be sure--\" Lapidoth had quickly\nconceived that he must guard against something unlikely, yet\npossible--\"he may have written me lies for the sake of getting the\nmoney out of me.\"\n\nMirah made no answer; she could not bear to utter the only true one--\"I\ndon't believe one word of what you say\"--and she simply showed a wish\nthat they should walk on, feeling that their standing still might draw\ndown unpleasant notice. Even as they walked along, their companionship\nmight well have made a passer-by turn back to look at them. The figure\nof Mirah, with her beauty set off by the quiet, careful dress of an\nEnglish lady, made a strange pendant to this shabby, foreign-looking,\neager, and gesticulating man, who withal had an ineffaceable jauntiness\nof air, perhaps due to the bushy curls of his grizzled hair, the\nsmallness of his hands and feet, and his light walk.\n\n\"You seem to have done well for yourself, Mirah? _You_ are in no want,\nI see,\" said the father, looking at her with emphatic examination.\n\n\"Good friends who found me in distress have helped me to get work,\"\nsaid Mirah, hardly knowing what she actually said, from being occupied\nwith what she would presently have to say. \"I give lessons. I have sung\nin private houses. I have just been singing at a private concert.\" She\npaused, and then added, with significance, \"I have very good friends,\nwho know all about me.\"\n\n\"And you would be ashamed they should see your father in this plight?\nNo wonder. I came to England with no prospect, but the chance of\nfinding you. It was a mad quest; but a father's heart is\nsuperstitious--feels a loadstone drawing it somewhere or other. I might\nhave done very well, staying abroad: when I hadn't you to take care of,\nI could have rolled or settled as easily as a ball; but it's hard being\nlonely in the world, when your spirit's beginning to break. And I\nthought my little Mirah would repent leaving her father when she came\nto look back. I've had a sharp pinch to work my way; I don't know what\nI shall come down to next. Talents like mine are no use in this\ncountry. When a man's getting out at elbows nobody will believe in him.\nI couldn't get any decent employ with my appearance. I've been obliged\nto get pretty low for a shilling already.\"\n\nMirah's anxiety was quick enough to imagine her father's sinking into a\nfurther degradation, which she was bound to hinder if she could. But\nbefore she could answer his string of inventive sentences, delivered\nwith as much glibness as if they had been learned by rote, he added\npromptly--\n\n\"Where do you live, Mirah?\"\n\n\"Here, in this square. We are not far from the house.\"\n\n\"In lodgings?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Any one to take care of you?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Mirah again, looking full at the keen face which was turned\ntoward hers--\"my brother.\"\n\nThe father's eyelids fluttered as if the lightning had come across\nthem, and there was a slight movement of the shoulders. But he said,\nafter a just perceptible pause: \"Ezra? How did you know--how did you\nfind him?\"\n\n\"That would take long to tell. Here we are at the door. My brother\nwould not wish me to close it on you.\"\n\nMirah was already on the doorstep, but had her face turned toward her\nfather, who stood below her on the pavement. Her heart had begun to\nbeat faster with the prospect of what was coming in the presence of\nEzra; and already in this attitude of giving leave to the father whom\nshe had been used to obey--in this sight of him standing below her,\nwith a perceptible shrinking from the admission which he had been\nindirectly asking for, she had a pang of the peculiar, sympathetic\nhumiliation and shame--the stabbed heart of reverence--which belongs to\na nature intensely filial.\n\n\"Stay a minute, _Liebchen_,\" said Lapidoth, speaking in a lowered tone;\n\"what sort of man has Ezra turned out?\"\n\n\"A good man--a wonderful man,\" said Mirah, with slow emphasis, trying\nto master the agitation which made her voice more tremulous as she went\non. She felt urged to prepare her father for the complete penetration\nof himself which awaited him. \"But he was very poor when my friends\nfound him for me--a poor workman. Once--twelve years ago--he was strong\nand happy, going to the East, which he loved to think of; and my mother\ncalled him back because--because she had lost me. And he went to her,\nand took care of her through great trouble, and worked for her till she\ndied--died in grief. And Ezra, too, had lost his health and strength.\nThe cold had seized him coming back to my mother, because she was\nforsaken. For years he has been getting weaker--always poor, always\nworking--but full of knowledge, and great-minded. All who come near him\nhonor him. To stand before him is like standing before a prophet of\nGod\"--Mirah ended with difficulty, her heart throbbing--\"falsehoods are\nno use.\"\n\nShe had cast down her eyes that she might not see her father while she\nspoke the last words--unable to bear the ignoble look of frustration\nthat gathered in his face. But he was none the less quick in invention\nand decision.\n\n\"Mirah, _Liebchen_,\" he said, in the old caressing way, \"shouldn't you\nlike me to make myself a little more respectable before my son sees me?\nIf I had a little sum of money, I could fit myself out and come home to\nyou as your father ought, and then I could offer myself for some decent\nplace. With a good shirt and coat on my back, people would be glad\nenough to have me. I could offer myself for a courier, if I didn't look\nlike a broken-down mountebank. I should like to be with my children,\nand forget and forgive. But you have never seen your father look like\nthis before. If you had ten pounds at hand--or I could appoint you to\nbring it me somewhere--I could fit myself out by the day after\nto-morrow.\"\n\nMirah felt herself under a temptation which she must try to overcome.\nShe answered, obliging herself to look at him again--\n\n\"I don't like to deny you what you ask, father; but I have given a\npromise not to do things for you in secret. It _is_ hard to see you\nlooking needy; but we will bear that for a little while; and then you\ncan have new clothes, and we can pay for them.\" Her practical sense\nmade her see now what was Mrs. Meyrick's wisdom in exacting a promise\nfrom her.\n\nLapidoth's good humor gave way a little. He said, with a sneer, \"You\nare a hard and fast young lady--you have been learning useful\nvirtues--keeping promises not to help your father with a pound or two\nwhen you are getting money to dress yourself in silk--your father who\nmade an idol of you, and gave up the best part of his life to providing\nfor you.\"\n\n\"It seems cruel--I know it seems cruel,\" said Mirah, feeling this a\nworse moment than when she meant to drown herself. Her lips were\nsuddenly pale. \"But, father, it is more cruel to break the promises\npeople trust in. That broke my mother's heart--it has broken Ezra's\nlife. You and I must eat now this bitterness from what has been. Bear\nit. Bear to come in and be cared for as you are.\"\n\n\"To-morrow, then,\" said Lapidoth, almost turning on his heel away from\nthis pale, trembling daughter, who seemed now to have got the\ninconvenient world to back her; but he quickly turned on it again, with\nhis hands feeling about restlessly in his pockets, and said, with some\nreturn to his appealing tone, \"I'm a little cut up with all this,\nMirah. I shall get up my spirits by to-morrow. If you've a little money\nin your pocket, I suppose it isn't against your promise to give me a\ntrifle--to buy a cigar with.\"\n\nMirah could not ask herself another question--could not do anything\nelse than put her cold trembling hands in her pocket for her\n_portemonnaie_ and hold it out. Lapidoth grasped it at once, pressed\nher fingers the while, said, \"Good-bye, my little girl--to-morrow\nthen!\" and left her. He had not taken many steps before he looked\ncarefully into all the folds of the purse, found two half-sovereigns\nand odd silver, and, pasted against the folding cover, a bit of paper\non which Ezra had inscribed, in a beautiful Hebrew character, the name\nof his mother, the days of her birth, marriage, and death, and the\nprayer, \"May Mirah be delivered from evil.\" It was Mirah's liking to\nhave this little inscription on many articles that she used. The father\nread it, and had a quick vision of his marriage day, and the bright,\nunblamed young fellow he was at that time; teaching many things, but\nexpecting by-and-by to get money more easily by writing; and very fond\nof his beautiful bride Sara--crying when she expected him to cry, and\nreflecting every phase of her feeling with mimetic susceptibility.\nLapidoth had traveled a long way from that young self, and thought of\nall that this inscription signified with an unemotional memory, which\nwas like the ocular perception of a touch to one who has lost the sense\nof touch, or like morsels on an untasting palate, having shape and\ngrain, but no flavor. Among the things we may gamble away in a lazy\nselfish life is the capacity for ruth, compunction, or any unselfish\nregret--which we may come to long for as one in slow death longs to\nfeel laceration, rather than be conscious of a widening margin where\nconsciousness once was. Mirah's purse was a handsome one--a gift to\nher, which she had been unable to reflect about giving away--and\nLapidoth presently found himself outside of his reverie, considering\nwhat the purse would fetch in addition to the sum it contained, and\nwhat prospect there was of his being able to get more from his daughter\nwithout submitting to adopt a penitential form of life under the eyes\nof that formidable son. On such a subject his susceptibilities were\nstill lively.\n\nMeanwhile Mirah had entered the house with her power of reticence\novercome by the cruelty of her pain. She found her brother quietly\nreading and sifting old manuscripts of his own, which he meant to\nconsign to Deronda. In the reaction from the long effort to master\nherself, she fell down before him and clasped his knees, sobbing, and\ncrying, \"Ezra, Ezra!\"\n\nHe did not speak. His alarm for her spending itself on conceiving the\ncause of her distress, the more striking from the novelty in her of\nthis violent manifestation. But Mirah's own longing was to be able to\nspeak and tell him the cause. Presently she raised her hand, and still\nsobbing, said brokenly--\n\n\"Ezra, my father! our father! He followed me. I wanted him to come in.\nI said you would let him come in. And he said No, he would not--not\nnow, but to-morrow. And he begged for money from me. And I gave him my\npurse, and he went away.\"\n\nMirah's words seemed to herself to express all the misery she felt in\nthem. Her brother found them less grievous than his preconceptions, and\nsaid gently, \"Wait for calm, Mirah, and then tell me all,\"--putting off\nher hat and laying his hands tenderly on her head. She felt the\nsoothing influence, and in a few minutes told him as exactly as she\ncould all that had happened.\n\n\"He will not come to-morrow,\" said Mordecai. Neither of them said to\nthe other what they both thought, namely, that he might watch for\nMirah's outgoings and beg from her again.\n\n\"Seest thou,\" he presently added, \"our lot is the lot of Israel. The\ngrief and the glory are mingled as the smoke and the flame. It is\nbecause we children have inherited the good that we feel the evil.\nThese things are wedded for us, as our father was wedded to our mother.\"\n\nThe surroundings were of Brompton, but the voice might have come from a\nRabbi transmitting the sentences of an elder time to be registered in\n_Babli_--by which (to our ears) affectionate-sounding diminutive is\nmeant the voluminous Babylonian Talmud. \"The Omnipresent,\" said a\nRabbi, \"is occupied in making marriages.\" The levity of the saying lies\nin the ear of him who hears it; for by marriages the speaker meant all\nthe wondrous combinations of the universe whose issue makes our good\nand evil.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIII.\n\n    \"Moses, trotz seiner Bafeindung der Kunst, dennoch selber ein grosser\n    Künstler war und den wahren Künstlergeist besass. Nur war dieser\n    Künstlergeist bei ihm, wie bei seinen ägyptischen Landsleuteu, nurauf\n    das Colossale und Unverwustliche gerichtet. Aber nicht vie die\n    Aegypter formirte er seine Kunstwerke aus Backstem und Granit, sondern\n    er baute Menchen-pyramiden, er meisselte Menschen Obelisken, ernahm\n    einen armen Hirtenstamm und Schuf daraus ein Volk, das ebenfalls den\n    Jahrhahunderten, trotzen sollte * * * er Schuf Israel.\"--HEINE:\n    _Gestandnisse_.\n\n\nImagine the difference in Deronda's state of mind when he left England\nand when he returned to it. He had set out for Genoa in total\nuncertainty how far the actual bent of his wishes and affections would\nbe encouraged--how far the claims revealed to him might draw him into\nnew paths, far away from the tracks his thoughts had lately been\npursuing with a consent of desire which uncertainty made dangerous. He\ncame back with something like a discovered charter warranting the\ninherited right that his ambition had begun to yearn for: he came back\nwith what was better than freedom--with a duteous bond which his\nexperience had been preparing him to accept gladly, even if it had been\nattended with no promise of satisfying a secret passionate longing\nnever yet allowed to grow into a hope. But now he dared avow to himself\nthe hidden selection of his love. Since the hour when he left the house\nat Chelsea in full-hearted silence under the effect of Mirah's farewell\nlook and words--their exquisite appealingness stirring in him that\ndeep-laid care for womanhood which had begun when his own lip was like\na girl's--her hold on his feeling had helped him to be blameless in\nword and deed under the difficult circumstances we know of. There\nseemed no likelihood that he could ever woo this creature who had\nbecome dear to him amidst associations that forbade wooing; yet she had\ntaken her place in his soul as a beloved type--reducing the power of\nother fascination and making a difference in it that became deficiency.\nThe influence had been continually strengthened. It had lain in the\ncourse of poor Gwendolen's lot that her dependence on Deronda tended to\nrouse in him the enthusiasm of self-martyring pity rather than of\npersonal love, and his less constrained tenderness flowed with the\nfuller stream toward an indwelling image in all things unlike\nGwendolen. Still more, his relation to Mordecai had brought with it a\nnew nearness to Mirah which was not the less agitating because there\nwas no apparent change in his position toward her; and she had\ninevitably been bound up in all the thoughts that made him shrink from\nan issue disappointing to her brother. This process had not gone on\nunconsciously in Deronda: he was conscious of it as we are of some\ncovetousness that it would be better to nullify by encouraging other\nthoughts than to give it the insistency of confession even to\nourselves: but the jealous fire had leaped out at Hans's pretensions,\nand when his mother accused him of being in love with a Jewess any\nevasion suddenly seemed an infidelity. His mother had compelled him to\na decisive acknowledgment of his love, as Joseph Kalonymos had\ncompelled him to a definite expression of his resolve. This new state\nof decision wrought on Deronda with a force which surprised even\nhimself. There was a release of all the energy which had long been\nspent in self-checking and suppression because of doubtful conditions;\nand he was ready to laugh at his own impetuosity when, as he neared\nEngland on his way from Mainz, he felt the remaining distance more and\nmore of an obstruction. It was as if he had found an added soul in\nfinding his ancestry--his judgment no longer wandering in the mazes of\nimpartial sympathy, but choosing, with that partiality which is man's\nbest strength, the closer fellowship that makes sympathy\npractical--exchanging that bird's eye reasonableness which soars to\navoid preference and loses all sense of quality for the generous\nreasonableness of drawing shoulder to shoulder with men of like\ninheritance. He wanted now to be again with Mordecai, to pour forth\ninstead of restraining his feeling, to admit agreement and maintain\ndissent, and all the while to find Mirah's presence without the\nembarrassment of obviously seeking it, to see her in the light of a new\npossibility, to interpret her looks and words from a new\nstarting-point. He was not greatly alarmed about the effect of Hans's\nattentions, but he had a presentiment that her feeling toward himself\nhad from the first lain in a channel from which it was not likely to be\ndiverted into love. To astonish a woman by turning into her lover when\nshe has been thinking of you merely as a Lord Chancellor is what a man\nnaturally shrinks from: he is anxious to create an easier transition.\n\nWhat wonder that Deronda saw no other course than to go straight from\nthe London railway station to the lodgings in that small square in\nBrompton? Every argument was in favor of his losing no time. He had\npromised to run down the next day to see Lady Mallinger at the Abbey,\nand it was already sunset. He wished to deposit the precious chest with\nMordecai, who would study its contents, both in his absence and in\ncompany with him; and that he should pay this visit without pause would\ngratify Mordecai's heart. Hence, and for other reasons, it gratified\nDeronda's heart. The strongest tendencies of his nature were rushing in\none current--the fervent affectionateness which made him delight in\nmeeting the wish of beings near to him, and the imaginative need of\nsome far-reaching relation to make the horizon of his immediate, daily\nacts. It has to be admitted that in this classical, romantic,\nworld-historic position of his, bringing as it were from its\nhiding-place his hereditary armor, he wore--but so, one must suppose,\ndid the most ancient heroes, whether Semitic or Japhetic--the summer\ncostume of his contemporaries. He did not reflect that the drab tints\nwere becoming to him, for he rarely went to the expense of such\nthinking; but his own depth of coloring, which made the becomingness,\ngot an added radiance in the eyes, a fleeting and returning glow in the\nskin, as he entered the house wondering what exactly he should find. He\nmade his entrance as noiseless as possible.\n\nIt was the evening of that same afternoon on which Mirah had had the\ninterview with her father. Mordecai, penetrated by her grief, and also\nthe sad memories which the incident had awakened, had not resumed his\ntask of sifting papers: some of them had fallen scattered on the floor\nin the first moments of anxiety, and neither he nor Mirah had thought\nof laying them in order again. They had sat perfectly still together,\nnot knowing how long; while the clock ticked on the mantelpiece, and\nthe light was fading, Mirah, unable to think of the food that she ought\nto have been taking, had not moved since she had thrown off her\ndust-cloak and sat down beside Mordecai with her hand in his, while he\nhad laid his head backward, with closed eyes and difficult breathing,\nlooking, Mirah thought, as he would look when the soul within him could\nno longer live in its straitened home. The thought that his death might\nbe near was continually visiting her when she saw his face in this way,\nwithout its vivid animation; and now, to the rest of her grief, was\nadded the regret that she had been unable to control the violent\noutburst which had shaken him. She sat watching him--her oval cheeks\npallid, her eyes with the sorrowful brilliancy left by young tears, her\ncurls in as much disorder as a just-awakened child's--watching that\nemaciated face, where it might have been imagined that a veil had been\ndrawn never to be lifted, as if it were her dead joy which had left her\nstrong enough to live on in sorrow. And life at that moment stretched\nbefore Mirah with more than a repetition of former sadness. The shadow\nof the father was there, and more than that, a double bereavement--of\none living as well as one dead.\n\nBut now the door was opened, and while none entered, a well-known voice\nsaid: \"Daniel Deronda--may he come in?\"\n\n\"Come! come!\" said Mordecai, immediately rising with an irradiated face\nand opened eyes--apparently as little surprised as if he had seen\nDeronda in the morning, and expected this evening visit; while Mirah\nstarted up blushing with confused, half-alarmed expectation.\n\nYet when Deronda entered, the sight of him was like the clearness after\nrain: no clouds to come could hinder the cherishing beam of that\nmoment. As he held out his right hand to Mirah, who was close to her\nbrother's left, he laid his other hand on Mordecai's right shoulder,\nand stood so a moment, holding them both at once, uttering no word, but\nreading their faces, till he said anxiously to Mirah, \"Has anything\nhappened?--any trouble?\"\n\n\"Talk not of trouble now,\" said Mordecai, saving her from the need to\nanswer. \"There is joy in your face--let the joy be ours.\"\n\nMirah thought, \"It is for something he cannot tell us.\" But they all\nsat down, Deronda drawing a chair close in front of Mordecai.\n\n\"That is true,\" he said, emphatically. \"I have a joy which will remain\nto us even in the worst trouble. I did not tell you the reason of my\njourney abroad, Mordecai, because--never mind--I went to learn my\nparentage. And you were right. I am a Jew.\"\n\nThe two men clasped hands with a movement that seemed part of the flash\nfrom Mordecai's eyes, and passed through Mirah like an electric shock.\nBut Deronda went on without pause, speaking from Mordecai's mind as\nmuch as from his own--\n\n\"We have the same people. Our souls have the same vocation. We shall\nnot be separated by life or by death.\"\n\nMordecai's answer was uttered in Hebrew, and in no more than a loud\nwhisper. It was in the liturgical words which express the religious\nbond: \"Our God and the God of our fathers.\"\n\nThe weight of feeling pressed too strongly on that ready-winged speech\nwhich usually moved in quick adaptation to every stirring of his fervor.\n\nMirah fell on her knees by her brother's side, and looked at his now\nilluminated face, which had just before been so deathly. The action was\nan inevitable outlet of the violent reversal from despondency to a\ngladness which came over her as solemnly as if she had been beholding a\nreligious rite. For the moment she thought of the effect on her own\nlife only through the effect on her brother.\n\n\"And it is not only that I am a Jew,\" Deronda went on, enjoying one of\nthose rare moments when our yearnings and our acts can be completely\none, and the real we behold is our ideal good; \"but I come of a strain\nthat has ardently maintained the fellowship of our race--a line of\nSpanish Jews that has borne many students and men of practical power.\nAnd I possess what will give us a sort of communion with them. My\ngrandfather, Daniel Charisi, preserved manuscripts, family records\nstretching far back, in the hope that they would pass into the hands of\nhis grandson. And now his hope is fulfilled, in spite of attempts to\nthwart it by hiding my parentage from me. I possess the chest\ncontaining them, with his own papers, and it is down below in this\nhouse. I mean to leave it with you, Mordecai, that you may help me to\nstudy the manuscripts. Some of them I can read easily enough--those in\nSpanish and Italian. Others are in Hebrew, and, I think, Arabic; but\nthere seem to be Latin translations. I was only able to look at them\ncursorily while I stayed at Mainz. We will study them together.\"\n\nDeronda ended with that bright smile which, beaming out from the\nhabitual gravity of his face, seemed a revelation (the reverse of the\ncontinual smile that discredits all expression). But when this happy\nglance passed from Mordecai to rest on Mirah, it acted like a little\ntoo much sunshine, and made her change her attitude. She had knelt\nunder an impulse with which any personal embarrassment was incongruous,\nand especially any thoughts about how Mrs. Grandcourt might stand to\nthis new aspect of things--thoughts which made her color under\nDeronda's glance, and rise to take her seat again in her usual posture\nof crossed hands and feet, with the effort to look as quiet as\npossible. Deronda, equally sensitive, imagined that the feeling of\nwhich he was conscious, had entered too much into his eyes, and had\nbeen repugnant to her. He was ready enough to believe that any\nunexpected manifestation might spoil her feeling toward him--and then\nhis precious relation to brother and sister would be marred. If Mirah\ncould have no love for him, any advances of love on his part would make\nher wretched in that continual contact with him which would remain\ninevitable.\n\nWhile such feelings were pulsating quickly in Deronda and Mirah,\nMordecai, seeing nothing in his friend's presence and words but a\nblessed fulfillment, was already speaking with his old sense of\nenlargement in utterance--\n\n\"Daniel, from the first, I have said to you, we know not all the\npathways. Has there not been a meeting among them, as of the operations\nin one soul, where an idea being born and breathing draws the elements\ntoward it, and is fed and glows? For all things are bound together in\nthat Omnipresence which is the place and habitation of the world, and\nevents are of a glass wherethrough our eyes see some of the pathways.\nAnd if it seems that the erring and unloving wills of men have helped\nto prepare you, as Moses was prepared, to serve your people the better,\nthat depends on another order than the law which must guide our\nfootsteps. For the evil will of man makes not a people's good except by\nstirring the righteous will of man; and beneath all the clouds with\nwhich our thought encompasses the Eternal, this is clear--that a people\ncan be blessed only by having counsellors and a multitude whose will\nmoves in obedience to the laws of justice and love. For see, now, it\nwas your loving will that made a chief pathway, and resisted the effect\nof evil; for, by performing the duties of brotherhood to my sister, and\nseeking out her brother in the flesh, your soul has been prepared to\nreceive with gladness this message of the Eternal, 'behold the\nmultitude of your brethren.'\"\n\n\"It is quite true that you and Mirah have been my teachers,\" said\nDeronda. \"If this revelation had been made to me before I knew you\nboth, I think my mind would have rebelled against it. Perhaps I should\nhave felt then--'If I could have chosen, I would not have been a Jew.'\nWhat I feel now is--that my whole being is a consent to the fact. But\nit has been the gradual accord between your mind and mine which has\nbrought about that full consent.\"\n\nAt the moment Deronda was speaking, that first evening in the book-shop\nwas vividly in his remembrance, with all the struggling aloofness he\nhad then felt from Mordecai's prophetic confidence. It was his nature\nto delight in satisfying to the utmost the eagerly-expectant soul,\nwhich seemed to be looking out from the face before him, like the\nlong-enduring watcher who at last sees the mountain signal-flame; and\nhe went on with fuller fervor--\n\n\"It is through your inspiration that I have discerned what may be my\nlife's task. It is you who have given shape to what, I believe, was an\ninherited yearning--the effect of brooding, passionate thoughts in many\nancestors--thoughts that seem to have been intensely present in my\ngrandfather. Suppose the stolen offspring of some mountain tribe\nbrought up in a city of the plain, or one with an inherited genius for\npainting, and born blind--the ancestral life would lie within them as a\ndim longing for unknown objects and sensations, and the spell-bound\nhabit of their inherited frames would be like a cunningly-wrought\nmusical instrument, never played on, but quivering throughout in uneasy\nmysterious meanings of its intricate structure that, under the right\ntouch, gives music. Something like that, I think, has been my\nexperience. Since I began to read and know, I have always longed for\nsome ideal task, in which I might feel myself the heart and brain of a\nmultitude--some social captainship, which would come to me as a duty,\nand not be striven for as a personal prize. You have raised the image\nof such a task for me--to bind our race together in spite of heresy.\nYou have said to me--'Our religion united us before it divided us--it\nmade us a people before it made Rabbanites and Karaites.' I mean to try\nwhat can be done with that union--I mean to work in your spirit.\nFailure will not be ignoble, but it would be ignoble for me not to try.\"\n\n\"Even as my brother that fed at the breasts of my mother,\" said\nMordecai, falling back in his chair with a look of exultant repose, as\nafter some finished labor.\n\nTo estimate the effect of this ardent outpouring from Deronda we must\nremember his former reserve, his careful avoidance of premature assent\nor delusive encouragement, which gave to this decided pledge of himself\na sacramental solemnity, both for his own mind and Mordecai's. On Mirah\nthe effect was equally strong, though with a difference: she felt a\nsurprise which had no place in her brother's mind, at Deronda's\nsuddenly revealed sense of nearness to them: there seemed to be a\nbreaking of day around her which might show her other facts unlike her\nforebodings in the darkness. But after a moment's silence Mordecai\nspoke again--\n\n\"It has begun already--the marriage of our souls. It waits but the\npassing away of this body, and then they who are betrothed shall unite\nin a stricter bond, and what is mine shall be thine. Call nothing mine\nthat I have written, Daniel; for though our masters delivered rightly\nthat everything should be quoted in the name of him that said it--and\ntheir rule is good--yet it does not exclude the willing marriage which\nmelts soul into soul, and makes thought fuller as the clear waters are\nmade fuller, where the fullness is inseparable and the clearness is\ninseparable. For I have judged what I have written, and I desire the\nbody that I gave my thought to pass away as this fleshly body will\npass; but let the thought be born again from our fuller soul which\nshall be called yours.\"\n\n\"You must not ask me to promise that,\" said Deronda, smiling. \"I must\nbe convinced first of special reasons for it in the writings\nthemselves. And I am too backward a pupil yet. That blent transmission\nmust go on without any choice of ours; but what we can't hinder must\nnot make our rule for what we ought to choose. I think our duty is\nfaithful tradition where we can attain it. And so you would insist for\nany one but yourself. Don't ask me to deny my spiritual parentage, when\nI am finding the clue of my life in the recognition of natural\nparentage.\"\n\n\"I will ask for no promise till you see the reason,\" said Mordecai.\n\"You have said the truth: I would obey the Master's rule for another.\nBut for years my hope, nay, my confidence, has been, not that the\nimperfect image of my thought, which is an ill-shaped work of the\nyouthful carver who has seen a heavenly pattern, and trembles in\nimitating the vision--not that this should live, but that my vision and\npassion should enter into yours--yea, into yours; for he whom I longed\nfor afar, was he not you whom I discerned as mine when you came near?\nNevertheless, you shall judge. For my soul is satisfied.\" Mordecai\npaused, and then began in a changed tone, reverting to previous\nsuggestions from Deronda's disclosure: \"What moved your parents----?\"\nbut he immediately checked himself, and added, \"Nay, I ask not that you\nshould tell me aught concerning others, unless it is your pleasure.\"\n\n\"Some time--gradually--you will know all,\" said Deronda. \"But now tell\nme more about yourselves, and how the time has passed since I went\naway. I am sure there has been some trouble. Mirah has been in distress\nabout something.\"\n\nHe looked at Mirah, but she immediately turned to her brother,\nappealing to him to give the difficult answer. She hoped he would not\nthink it necessary to tell Deronda the facts about her father on such\nan evening as this. Just when Deronda had brought himself so near, and\nidentified himself with her brother, it was cutting to her that he\nshould hear of this disgrace clinging about them, which seemed to have\nbecome partly his. To relieve herself she rose to take up her hat and\ncloak, thinking she would go to her own room: perhaps they would speak\nmore easily when she had left them. But meanwhile Mordecai said--\n\n\"To-day there has been a grief. A duty which seemed to have gone far\ninto the distance, has come back and turned its face upon us, and\nraised no gladness--has raised a dread that we must submit to. But for\nthe moment we are delivered from any visible yoke. Let us defer\nspeaking of it as if this evening which is deepening about us were the\nbeginning of the festival in which we must offer the first fruits of\nour joy, and mingle no mourning with them.\"\n\nDeronda divined the hinted grief, and left it in silence, rising as he\nsaw Mirah rise, and saying to her, \"Are you going? I must leave almost\nimmediately--when I and Mrs. Adam have mounted the precious chest, and\nI have delivered the key to Mordecai--no, Ezra,--may I call him Ezra\nnow? I have learned to think of him as Ezra since I have heard you call\nhim so.\"\n\n\"Please call him Ezra,\" said Mirah, faintly, feeling a new timidity\nunder Deronda's glance and near presence. Was there really something\ndifferent about him, or was the difference only in her feeling? The\nstrangely various emotions of the last few hours had exhausted her; she\nwas faint with fatigue and want of food. Deronda, observing her pallor\nand tremulousness, longed to show more feeling, but dared not. She put\nout her hand with an effort to smile, and then he opened the door for\nher. That was all.\n\nA man of refined pride shrinks from making a lover's approaches to a\nwoman whose wealth or rank might make them appear presumptuous or\nlow-motived; but Deronda was finding a more delicate difficulty in a\nposition which, superficially taken, was the reverse of that--though to\nan ardent reverential love, the loved woman has always a kind of wealth\nand rank which makes a man keenly susceptible about the aspect of his\naddresses. Deronda's difficulty was what any generous man might have\nfelt in some degree; but it affected him peculiarly through his\nimaginative sympathy with a mind in which gratitude was strong. Mirah,\nhe knew, felt herself bound to him by deep obligations, which to her\nsensibilities might give every wish of his the aspect of a claim; and\nan inability to fulfill it would cause her a pain continually revived\nby their inevitable communion in care of Ezra. Here were fears not of\npride only, but of extreme tenderness. Altogether, to have the\ncharacter of a benefactor seemed to Deronda's anxiety an insurmountable\nobstacle to confessing himself a lover, unless in some inconceivable\nway it could be revealed to him that Mirah's heart had accepted him\nbeforehand. And the agitation on his own account, too, was not small.\n\nEven a man who has practised himself in love-making till his own\nglibness has rendered him sceptical, may at last be overtaken by the\nlover's awe--may tremble, stammer, and show other signs of recovered\nsensibility no more in the range of his acquired talents than pins and\nneedles after numbness: how much more may that energetic timidity\npossess a man whose inward history has cherished his susceptibilities\ninstead of dulling them, and has kept all the language of passion fresh\nand rooted as the lovely leafage about the hill-side spring!\n\nAs for Mirah her dear head lay on its pillow that night with its former\nsuspicions thrown out of shape but still present, like an ugly story\nwhich had been discredited but not therefore dissipated. All that she\nwas certain of about Deronda seemed to prove that he had no such\nfetters upon him as she had been allowing herself to believe in. His\nwhole manner as well as his words implied that there were no hidden\nbonds remaining to have any effect in determining his future. But\nnotwithstanding this plainly reasonable inference, uneasiness still\nclung about Mirah's heart. Deronda was not to blame, but he had an\nimportance for Mrs. Grandcourt which must give her some hold on him.\nAnd the thought of any close confidence between them stirred the little\nbiting snake that had long lain curled and harmless in Mirah's gentle\nbosom.\n\nBut did she this evening feel as completely as before that her jealousy\nwas no less remote from any possibility for herself personally than if\nher human soul had been lodged in the body of a fawn that Deronda had\nsaved from the archers? Hardly. Something indefinable had happened and\nmade a difference. The soft warm rain of blossoms which had fallen just\nwhere she was--did it really come because she was there? What spirit\nwas there among the boughs?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIV.\n\n        \"Questa montagna e tale,\n  Che sempre al cominciar di sotto a grave.\n  E quanto uom piu va su e men fa male.\"\n                  --DANTE: _Il Purgatorio_.\n\n\nIt was not many days after her mother's arrival that Gwendolen would\nconsent to remain at Genoa. Her desire to get away from that gem of the\nsea, helped to rally her strength and courage. For what place, though\nit were the flowery vale of Enna, may not the inward sense turn into a\ncircle of punishment where the flowers are no better than a crop of\nflame-tongues burning the soles of our feet?\n\n\"I shall never like to see the Mediterranean again,\" said Gwendolen, to\nher mother, who thought that she quite understood her child's\nfeeling--even in her tacit prohibition of any express reference to her\nlate husband.\n\nMrs. Davilow, indeed, though compelled formally to regard this time as\none of severe calamity, was virtually enjoying her life more than she\nhad ever done since her daughter's marriage. It seemed that her darling\nwas brought back to her not merely with all the old affection, but with\na conscious cherishing of her mother's nearness, such as we give to a\npossession that we have been on the brink of losing.\n\n\"Are you there, mamma?\" cried Gwendolen, in the middle of the night (a\nbed had been made for her mother in the same room with hers), very much\nas she would have done in her early girlhood, if she had felt\nfrightened in lying awake.\n\n\"Yes, dear; can I do anything for you?\"\n\n\"No, thank you; only I like so to know you are there. Do you mind my\nwaking you?\" (This question would hardly have been Gwendolen's in her\nearly girlhood.)\n\n\"I was not asleep, darling.\"\n\n\"It seemed not real that you were with me. I wanted to make it real. I\ncan bear things if you are with me. But you must not lie awake, anxious\nabout me. You must be happy now. You must let me make you happy now at\nlast--else what shall I do?\"\n\n\"God bless you, dear; I have the best happiness I can have, when you\nmake much of me.\"\n\nBut the next night, hearing that she was sighing and restless Mrs.\nDavilow said, \"Let me give you your sleeping-draught, Gwendolen.\"\n\n\"No, mamma, thank you; I don't want to sleep.\"\n\n\"It would be so good for you to sleep more, my darling.\"\n\n\"Don't say what would be good for me, mamma,\" Gwendolen answered,\nimpetuously. \"You don't know what would be good for me. You and my\nuncle must not contradict me and tell me anything is good for me when I\nfeel it is not good.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow was silent, not wondering that the poor child was\nirritable. Presently Gwendolen said--\n\n\"I was always naughty to you, mamma.\"\n\n\"No, dear, no.\"\n\n\"Yes, I was,\" said Gwendolen insistently. \"It is because I was always\nwicked that I am miserable now.\"\n\nShe burst into sobs and cries. The determination to be silent about all\nthe facts of her married life and its close, reacted in these escapes\nof enigmatic excitement.\n\nBut dim lights of interpretation were breaking on the mother's mind\nthrough the information that came from Sir Hugo to Mr. Gascoigne, and,\nwith some omissions, from Mr. Gascoigne to herself. The good-natured\nbaronet, while he was attending to all decent measures in relation to\nhis nephew's death, and the possible washing ashore of the body,\nthought it the kindest thing he could do to use his present friendly\nintercourse with the rector as an opportunity for communicating with\nhim, in the mildest way, the purport of Grandcourt's will, so as to\nsave him the additional shock that would be in store for him if he\ncarried his illusions all the way home. Perhaps Sir Hugo would have\nbeen communicable enough without that kind motive, but he really felt\nthe motive. He broke the unpleasant news to the rector by degrees: at\nfirst he only implied his fear that the widow was not so splendidly\nprovided for as Mr. Gascoigne, nay, as the baronet himself had\nexpected; and only at last, after some previous vague reference to\nlarge claims on Grandcourt, he disclosed the prior relations which, in\nthe unfortunate absence of a legitimate heir, had determined all the\nsplendor in another direction.\n\nThe rector was deeply hurt, and remembered, more vividly than he had\never done before, how offensively proud and repelling the manners of\nthe deceased had been toward him--remembered also that he himself, in\nthat interesting period just before the arrival of the new occupant at\nDiplow, had received hints of former entangling dissipations, and an\nundue addiction to pleasure, though he had not foreseen that the\npleasure which had probably, so to speak, been swept into private\nrubbish-heaps, would ever present itself as an array of live\ncaterpillars, disastrous to the green meat of respectable people. But\nhe did not make these retrospective thoughts audible to Sir Hugo, or\nlower himself by expressing any indignation on merely personal grounds,\nbut behaved like a man of the world who had become a conscientious\nclergyman. His first remark was--\n\n\"When a young man makes his will in health, he usually counts on living\na long while. Probably Mr. Grandcourt did not believe that this will\nwould ever have its present effect.\" After a moment, he added, \"The\neffect is painful in more ways than one. Female morality is likely to\nsuffer from this marked advantage and prominence being given to\nillegitimate offspring.\"\n\n\"Well, in point of fact,\" said Sir Hugo, in his comfortable way, \"since\nthe boy is there, this was really the best alternative for the disposal\nof the estates. Grandcourt had nobody nearer than his cousin. And it's\na chilling thought that you go out of this life only for the benefit of\na cousin. A man gets a little pleasure in making his will, if it's for\nthe good of his own curly heads; but it's a nuisance when you're giving\nthe bequeathing to a used-up fellow like yourself, and one you don't\ncare two straws for. It's the next worse thing to having only a life\ninterest in your estates. No; I forgive Grandcourt for that part of his\nwill. But, between ourselves, what I don't forgive him for, is the\nshabby way he has provided for your niece--_our_ niece, I will say--no\nbetter a position than if she had been a doctor's widow. Nothing grates\non me more than that posthumous grudgingness toward a wife. A man ought\nto have some pride and fondness for his widow. _I_ should, I know. I\ntake it as a test of a man, that he feels the easier about his death\nwhen he can think of his wife and daughters being comfortable after it.\nI like that story of the fellows in the Crimean war, who were ready to\ngo to the bottom of the sea if their widows were provided for.\"\n\n\"It has certainly taken me by surprise,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, \"all the\nmore because, as the one who stood in the place of father to my niece,\nI had shown my reliance on Mr. Grandcourt's apparent liberality in\nmoney matters by making no claims for her beforehand. That seemed to me\ndue to him under the circumstances. Probably you think me blamable.\"\n\n\"Not blamable exactly. I respect a man for trusting another. But take\nmy advice. If you marry another niece, though it may be to the\nArchbishop of Canterbury, bind him down. Your niece can't be married\nfor the first time twice over. And if he's a good fellow, he'll wish to\nbe bound. But as to Mrs. Grandcourt, I can only say that I feel my\nrelation to her all the nearer because I think that she has not been\nwell treated. And I hope you will urge her to rely on me as a friend.\"\n\nThus spake the chivalrous Sir Hugo, in his disgust at the young and\nbeautiful widow of a Mallinger Grandcourt being left with only two\nthousand a year and a house in a coal-mining district. To the rector\nthat income naturally appeared less shabby and less accompanied with\nmortifying privations; but in this conversation he had devoured a much\nkeener sense than the baronet's of the humiliation cast over his niece,\nand also over her nearest friends, by the conspicuous publishing of her\nhusband's relation to Mrs. Glasher. And like all men who are good\nhusbands and fathers, he felt the humiliation through the minds of the\nwomen who would be chiefly affected by it; so that the annoyance of\nfirst hearing the facts was far slighter than what he felt in\ncommunicating them to Mrs. Davilow, and in anticipating Gwendolen's\nfeeling whenever her mother saw fit to tell her of them. For the good\nrector had an innocent conviction that his niece was unaware of Mrs.\nGlasher's existence, arguing with masculine soundness from what maidens\nand wives were likely to know, do, and suffer, and having had a most\nimperfect observation of the particular maiden and wife in question.\nNot so Gwendolen's mother, who now thought that she saw an explanation\nof much that had been enigmatic in her child's conduct and words before\nand after her engagement, concluding that in some inconceivable way\nGwendolen had been informed of this left-handed marriage and the\nexistence of the children. She trusted to opportunities that would\narise in moments of affectionate confidence before and during their\njourney to England, when she might gradually learn how far the actual\nstate of things was clear to Gwendolen, and prepare her for anything\nthat might be a disappointment. But she was spared from devices on the\nsubject.\n\n\"I hope you don't expect that I am going to be rich and grand, mamma,\"\nsaid Gwendolen, not long after the rector's communication; \"perhaps I\nshall have nothing at all.\"\n\nShe was dressed, and had been sitting long in quiet meditation. Mrs.\nDavilow was startled, but said, after a moment's reflection--\n\n\"Oh yes, dear, you will have something. Sir Hugo knows all about the\nwill.\"\n\n\"That will not decide,\" said Gwendolen, abruptly.\n\n\"Surely, dear: Sir Hugo says you are to have two thousand a year and\nthe house at Gadsmere.\"\n\n\"What I have will depend on what I accept,\" said Gwendolen. \"You and my\nuncle must not attempt to cross me and persuade me about this. I will\ndo everything I can do to make you happy, but in anything about my\nhusband I must not be interfered with. Is eight hundred a year enough\nfor you, mamma?\"\n\n\"More than enough, dear. You must not think of giving me so much.\" Mrs.\nDavilow paused a little, and then said, \"Do you know who is to have the\nestates and the rest of the money?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Gwendolen, waving her hand in dismissal of the subject. \"I\nknow everything. It is all perfectly right, and I wish never to have it\nmentioned.\"\n\nThe mother was silent, looked away, and rose to fetch a fan-screen,\nwith a slight flush on her delicate cheeks. Wondering, imagining, she\ndid not like to meet her daughter's eyes, and sat down again under a\nsad constraint. What wretchedness her child had perhaps gone through,\nwhich yet must remain as it always had been, locked away from their\nmutual speech. But Gwendolen was watching her mother with that new\ndivination which experience had given her; and in tender relenting at\nher own peremptoriness, said, \"Come and sit nearer to me, mamma, and\ndon't be unhappy.\"\n\nMrs. Davilow did as she was told, but bit her lips in the vain attempt\nto hinder smarting tears. Gwendolen leaned toward her caressingly and\nsaid, \"I mean to be very wise; I do, really. And good--oh, so good to\nyou, dear, old, sweet mamma, you won't know me. Only you must not cry.\"\n\nThe resolve that Gwendolen had in her mind was that she would ask\nDeronda whether she ought to accept any of her husband's money--whether\nshe might accept what would enable her to provide for her mother. The\npoor thing felt strong enough to do anything that would give her a\nhigher place in Deronda's mind.\n\nAn invitation that Sir Hugo pressed on her with kind urgency was that\nshe and Mrs. Davilow should go straight with him to Park Lane, and make\nhis house their abode as long as mourning and other details needed\nattending to in London. Town, he insisted, was just then the most\nretired of places; and he proposed to exert himself at once in getting\nall articles belonging to Gwendolen away from the house in Grosvenor\nSquare. No proposal could have suited her better than this of staying a\nlittle while in Park Lane. It would be easy for her there to have an\ninterview with Deronda, if she only knew how to get a letter into his\nhands, asking him to come to her. During the journey, Sir Hugo, having\nunderstood that she was acquainted with the purport of her husband's\nwill, ventured to talk before her and to her about her future\narrangements, referring here and there to mildly agreeable prospects as\nmatters of course, and otherwise shedding a decorous cheerfulness over\nher widowed position. It seemed to him really the more graceful course\nfor a widow to recover her spirits on finding that her husband had not\ndealt as handsomely by her as he might have done; it was the testator's\nfault if he compromised all her grief at his departure by giving a\ntestamentary reason for it, so that she might be supposed to look sad,\nnot because he had left her, but because he had left her poor. The\nbaronet, having his kindliness doubly fanned by the favorable wind on\nhis fortunes and by compassion for Gwendolen, had become quite fatherly\nin his behavior to her, called her \"my dear,\" and in mentioning\nGadsmere to Mr. Gascoigne, with its various advantages and\ndisadvantages, spoke of what \"we\" might do to make the best of that\nproperty. Gwendolen sat by in pale silence while Sir Hugo, with his\nface turned toward Mrs. Davilow or Mr. Gascoigne, conjectured that Mrs.\nGrandcourt might perhaps prefer letting Gadsmere to residing there\nduring any part of the year, in which case he thought that it might be\nleased on capital terms to one of the fellows engaged with the coal:\nSir Hugo had seen enough of the place to know that it was as\ncomfortable and picturesque a box as any man need desire, providing his\ndesires were circumscribed within a coal area.\n\n\"_I_ shouldn't mind about the soot myself,\" said the baronet, with that\ndispassionateness which belongs to the potential mood. \"Nothing is more\nhealthy. And if one's business lay there, Gadsmere would be a paradise.\nIt makes quite a feature in Scrogg's history of the county, with the\nlittle tower and the fine piece of water--the prettiest print in the\nbook.\"\n\n\"A more important place than Offendene, I suppose?\" said Mr. Gascoigne.\n\n\"Much,\" said the baronet, decisively. \"I was there with my poor\nbrother--it is more than a quarter of a century ago, but I remember it\nvery well. The rooms may not be larger, but the grounds are on a\ndifferent scale.\"\n\n\"Our poor dear Offendene is empty after all,\" said Mrs. Davilow. \"When\nit came to the point, Mr. Haynes declared off, and there has been no\none to take it since. I might as well have accepted Lord Brackenshaw's\nkind offer that I should remain in it another year rent-free: for I\nshould have kept the place aired and warmed.\"\n\n\"I hope you've something snug instead,\" said Sir Hugo.\n\n\"A little too snug,\" said Mr. Gascoigne, smiling at his sister-in-law.\n\"You are rather thick upon the ground.\"\n\nGwendolen had turned with a changed glance when her mother spoke of\nOffendene being empty. This conversation passed during one of the long\nunaccountable pauses often experienced in foreign trains at some\ncountry station. There was a dreamy, sunny stillness over the hedgeless\nfields stretching to the boundary of poplars; and to Gwendolen the talk\nwithin the carriage seemed only to make the dreamland larger with an\nindistinct region of coal-pits, and a purgatorial Gadsmere which she\nwould never visit; till at her mother's words, this mingled, dozing\nview seemed to dissolve and give way to a more wakeful vision of\nOffendene and Pennicote under their cooler lights. She saw the gray\nshoulders of the downs, the cattle-specked fields, the shadowy\nplantations with rutted lanes where the barked timber lay for a wayside\nseat, the neatly-clipped hedges on the road from the parsonage to\nOffendene, the avenue where she was gradually discerned from the\nwindow, the hall-door opening, and her mother or one of the troublesome\nsisters coming out to meet her. All that brief experience of a quiet\nhome which had once seemed a dullness to be fled from, now came back to\nher as a restful escape, a station where she found the breath of\nmorning and the unreproaching voice of birds after following a lure\nthrough a long Satanic masquerade, which she had entered on with an\nintoxicated belief in its disguises, and had seen the end of in\nshrieking fear lest she herself had become one of the evil spirits who\nwere dropping their human mummery and hissing around her with serpent\ntongues.\n\nIn this way Gwendolen's mind paused over Offendene and made it the\nscene of many thoughts; but she gave no further outward sign of\ninterest in this conversation, any more than in Sir Hugo's opinion on\nthe telegraphic cable or her uncle's views of the Church Rate Abolition\nBill. What subjects will not our talk embrace in leisurely\nday-journeying from Genoa to London? Even strangers, after glancing\nfrom China to Peru and opening their mental stores with a liberality\nthreatening a mutual impression of poverty on any future meeting, are\nliable to become excessively confidential. But the baronet and the\nrector were under a still stronger pressure toward cheerful\ncommunication: they were like acquaintances compelled to a long drive\nin a mourning-coach who having first remarked that the occasion is a\nmelancholy one, naturally proceed to enliven it by the most\nmiscellaneous discourse. \"I don't mind telling _you_,\" said Sir Hugo to\nthe rector, in mentioning some private details; while the rector,\nwithout saying so, did not mind telling the baronet about his sons, and\nthe difficulty of placing them in the world. By the dint of discussing\nall persons and things within driving-reach of Diplow, Sir Hugo got\nhimself wrought to a pitch of interest in that former home, and of\nconviction that it was his pleasant duty to regain and strengthen his\npersonal influence in the neighborhood, that made him declare his\nintention of taking his family to the place for a month or two before\nthe autumn was over; and Mr. Gascoigne cordially rejoiced in that\nprospect. Altogether, the journey was continued and ended with mutual\nliking between the male fellow-travellers.\n\nMeanwhile Gwendolen sat by like one who had visited the spirit-world\nand was full to the lips of an unutterable experience that threw a\nstrange unreality over all the talk she was hearing of her own and the\nworld's business; and Mrs. Davilow was chiefly occupied in imagining\nwhat her daughter was feeling, and in wondering what was signified by\nher hinted doubt whether she would accept her husband's bequest.\nGwendolen in fact had before her the unsealed wall of an immediate\npurpose shutting off every other resolution. How to scale the wall? She\nwanted again to see and consult Deronda, that she might secure herself\nagainst any act he would disapprove. Would her remorse have maintained\nits power within her, or would she have felt absolved by secrecy, if it\nhad not been for that outer conscience which was made for her by\nDeronda? It is hard to say how much we could forgive ourselves if we\nwere secure from judgment by another whose opinion is the\nbreathing-medium of all our joy--who brings to us with close pressure\nand immediate sequence that judgment of the Invisible and Universal\nwhich self-flattery and the world's tolerance would easily melt and\ndisperse. In this way our brother may be in the stead of God to us, and\nhis opinion which has pierced even to the joints and marrow, may be our\nvirtue in the making. That mission of Deronda to Gwendolen had begun\nwith what she had felt to be his judgment of her at the gaming-table.\nHe might easily have spoiled it:--much of our lives is spent in marring\nour own influence and turning others' belief in us into a widely\nconcluding unbelief which they call knowledge of the world, while it is\nreally disappointment in you or me. Deronda had not spoiled his mission.\n\nBut Gwendolen had forgotten to ask him for his address in case she\nwanted to write, and her only way of reaching him was through Sir Hugo.\nShe was not in the least blind to the construction that all witnesses\nmight put on her giving signs of dependence on Deronda, and her seeking\nhim more than he sought her: Grandcourt's rebukes had sufficiently\nenlightened her pride. But the force, the tenacity of her nature had\nthrown itself into that dependence, and she would no more let go her\nhold on Deronda's help, or deny herself the interview her soul needed,\nbecause of witnesses, than if she had been in prison in danger of being\ncondemned to death. When she was in Park Lane and knew that the baronet\nwould be going down to the Abbey immediately (just to see his family\nfor a couple of days and then return to transact needful business for\nGwendolen), she said to him without any air of hesitation, while her\nmother was present--\n\n\"Sir Hugo, I wish to see Mr. Deronda again as soon as possible. I don't\nknow his address. Will you tell it me, or let him know that I want to\nsee him?\"\n\nA quick thought passed across Sir Hugo's face, but made no difference\nto the ease with which he said, \"Upon my word, I don't know whether\nhe's at his chambers or the Abbey at this moment. But I'll make sure of\nhim. I'll send a note now to his chambers telling him to come, and if\nhe's at the Abbey I can give him your message and send him up at once.\nI am sure he will want to obey your wish,\" the baronet ended, with\ngrave kindness, as if nothing could seem to him more in the appropriate\ncourse of things than that she should send such a message.\n\nBut he was convinced that Gwendolen had a passionate attachment to\nDeronda, the seeds of which had been laid long ago, and his former\nsuspicion now recurred to him with more strength than ever, that her\nfeeling was likely to lead her into imprudences--in which kind-hearted\nSir Hugo was determined to screen and defend her as far as lay in his\npower. To him it was as pretty a story as need be that this fine\ncreature and his favorite Dan should have turned out to be formed for\neach other, and that the unsuitable husband should have made his exit\nin such excellent time. Sir Hugo liked that a charming woman should be\nmade as happy as possible. In truth, what most vexed his mind in this\nmatter at present was a doubt whether the too lofty and inscrutable Dan\nhad not got some scheme or other in his head, which would prove to be\ndearer to him than the lovely Mrs. Grandcourt, and put that\nneatly-prepared marriage with her out of the question. It was among the\nusual paradoxes of feeling that Sir Hugo, who had given his fatherly\ncautions to Deronda against too much tenderness in his relations with\nthe bride, should now feel rather irritated against him by the\nsuspicion that he had not fallen in love as he ought to have done. Of\ncourse all this thinking on Sir Hugo's part was eminently premature,\nonly a fortnight or so after Grandcourt's death. But it is the trick of\nthinking to be either premature or behind-hand.\n\nHowever, he sent the note to Deronda's chambers, and it found him there.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXV.\n\n  \"O, welcome, pure-eyed Faith, white-handed Hope,\n  Thou hovering angel, girt with golden wings!\"\n                                         --MILTON.\n\n\nDeronda did not obey Gwendolen's new summons without some agitation.\nNot his vanity, but his keen sympathy made him susceptible to the\ndanger that another's heart might feel larger demands on him than he\nwould be able to fulfill; and it was no longer a matter of argument\nwith him, but of penetrating consciousness, that Gwendolen's soul clung\nto his with a passionate need. We do not argue the existence of the\nanger or the scorn that thrills through us in a voice; we simply feel\nit, and it admits of no disproof. Deronda felt this woman's destiny\nhanging on his over a precipice of despair. Any one who knows him\ncannot wonder at his inward confession, that if all this had happened\nlittle more than a year ago, he would hardly have asked himself whether\nhe loved her; the impetuous determining impulse which would have moved\nhim would have been to save her from sorrow, to shelter her life\nforevermore from the dangers of loneliness, and carry out to the last\nthe rescue he had begun in that monitory redemption of the necklace.\nBut now, love and duty had thrown other bonds around him, and that\nimpulse could no longer determine his life; still, it was present in\nhim as a compassionate yearning, a painful quivering at the very\nimagination of having again and again to meet the appeal of her eyes\nand words. The very strength of the bond, the certainty of the resolve,\nthat kept him asunder from her, made him gaze at her lot apart with the\nmore aching pity.\n\nHe awaited her coming in the back drawing-room--part of that white and\ncrimson space where they had sat together at the musical party, where\nGwendolen had said for the first time that her lot depended on his not\nforsaking her, and her appeal had seemed to melt into the melodic\ncry--_Per pietà non dirmi addio_. But the melody had come from Mirah's\ndear voice.\n\nDeronda walked about this room, which he had for years known by heart,\nwith a strange sense of metamorphosis in his own life. The familiar\nobjects around him, from Lady Mallinger's gently smiling portrait to\nthe also human and urbane faces of the lions on the pilasters of the\nchimney-piece, seemed almost to belong to a previous state of existence\nwhich he was revisiting in memory only, not in reality; so deep and\ntransforming had been the impressions he had lately experienced, so new\nwere the conditions under which he found himself in the house he had\nbeen accustomed to think of as a home--standing with his hat in his\nhand awaiting the entrance of a young creature whose life had also been\nundergoing a transformation--a tragic transformation toward a wavering\nresult, in which he felt with apprehensiveness that his own action was\nstill bound up.\n\nBut Gwendolen was come in, looking changed; not only by her mourning\ndress, but by a more satisfied quietude of expression than he had seen\nin her face at Genoa. Her satisfaction was that Deronda was there; but\nthere was no smile between them as they met and clasped hands; each was\nfull of remembrance--full of anxious prevision. She said, \"It was good\nof you to come. Let us sit down,\" immediately seating herself in the\nnearest chair. He placed himself opposite to her.\n\n\"I asked you to come because I want you to tell me what I ought to do,\"\nshe began, at once. \"Don't be afraid of telling me what you think is\nright, because it seems hard. I have made up my mind to do it. I was\nafraid once of being poor; I could not bear to think of being under\nother people; and that was why I did something--why I married. I have\nborne worse things now. I think I could bear to be poor, if you think I\nought. Do you know about my husband's will?\"\n\n\"Yes, Sir Hugo told me,\" said Deronda, already guessing the question\nshe had to ask.\n\n\"Ought I to take anything he has left me? I will tell you what I have\nbeen thinking,\" said Gwendolen, with a more nervous eagerness. \"Perhaps\nyou may not quite know that I really did think a good deal about my\nmother when I married. I _was_ selfish, but I did love her, and feel\nabout her poverty; and what comforted me most at first, when I was\nmiserable, was her being better off because I had married. The thing\nthat would be hardest to me now would be to see her in poverty again;\nand I have been thinking that if I took enough to provide for her, and\nno more--nothing for myself--it would not be wrong; for I was very\nprecious to my mother--and he took me from her--and he meant--and if\nshe had known--\"\n\nGwendolen broke off. She had been preparing herself for this interview\nby thinking of hardly anything else than this question of right toward\nher mother; but the question had carried with it thoughts and reasons\nwhich it was impossible for her to utter, and these perilous\nremembrances swarmed between her words, making her speech more and more\nagitated and tremulous. She looked down helplessly at her hands, now\nunladen of all rings except her wedding-ring.\n\n\"Do not hurt yourself by speaking of that,\" said Deronda, tenderly.\n\"There is no need; the case is very simple. I think I can hardly judge\nwrongly about it. You consult me because I am the only person to whom\nyou have confided the most painful part of your experience: and I can\nunderstand your scruples.\" He did not go on immediately, waiting for\nher to recover herself. The silence seemed to Gwendolen full of the\ntenderness that she heard in his voice, and she had courage to lift up\nher eyes and look at him as he said, \"You are conscious of something\nwhich you feel to be a crime toward one who is dead. You think that you\nhave forfeited all claim as a wife. You shrink from taking what was\nhis. You want to keep yourself from profiting by his death. Your\nfeeling even urges you to some self-punishment--some scourging of the\nself that disobeyed your better will--the will that struggled against\ntemptation. I have known something of that myself. Do I understand you?\"\n\n\"Yes--at least, I want to be good--not like what I have been,\" said\nGwendolen. \"I will try to bear what you think I ought to bear. I have\ntried to tell you the worst about myself. What ought I to do?\"\n\n\"If no one but yourself were concerned in this question of income,\"\nsaid Deronda, \"I should hardly dare to urge you against any remorseful\nprompting; but I take as a guide now, your feeling about Mrs. Davilow,\nwhich seems to me quite just. I cannot think that your husband's dues\neven to yourself are nullified by any act you have committed. He\nvoluntarily entered into your life, and affected its course in what is\nalways the most momentous way. But setting that aside, it was due from\nhim in his position that he should provide for your mother, and he of\ncourse understood that if this will took effect she would share the\nprovision he had made for you.\"\n\n\"She has had eight hundred a year. What I thought of was to take that\nand leave the rest,\" said Gwendolen. She had been so long inwardly\narguing for this as a permission, that her mind could not at once take\nanother attitude.\n\n\"I think it is not your duty to fix a limit in that way,\" said Deronda.\n\"You would be making a painful enigma for Mrs. Davilow; an income from\nwhich you shut yourself out must be embittered to her. And your own\ncourse would become too difficult. We agreed at Genoa that the burden\non your conscience is one what no one ought to be admitted to the\nknowledge of. The future beneficence of your life will be best\nfurthered by your saving all others from the pain of that knowledge. In\nmy opinion you ought simply to abide by the provisions of your\nhusband's will, and let your remorse tell only on the use that you will\nmake of your monetary independence.\"\n\nIn uttering the last sentence Deronda automatically took up his hat\nwhich he had laid on the floor beside him. Gwendolen, sensitive to his\nslightest movement, felt her heart giving a great leap, as if it too\nhad a consciousness of its own, and would hinder him from going: in the\nsame moment she rose from her chair, unable to reflect that the\nmovement was an acceptance of his apparent intention to leave her; and\nDeronda, of course, also rose, advancing a little.\n\n\"I will do what you tell me,\" said Gwendolen, hurriedly; \"but what else\nshall I do?\" No other than these simple words were possible to her; and\neven these were too much for her in a state of emotion where her proud\nsecrecy was disenthroned: as the child-like sentences fell from her\nlips they re-acted on her like a picture of her own helplessness, and\nshe could not check the sob which sent the large tears to her eyes.\nDeronda, too, felt a crushing pain; but imminent consequences were\nvisible to him, and urged him to the utmost exertion of conscience.\nWhen she had pressed her tears away, he said, in a gently questioning\ntone--\n\n\"You will probably be soon going with Mrs. Davilow into the country.\"\n\n\"Yes, in a week or ten days.\" Gwendolen waited an instant, turning her\neyes vaguely toward the window, as if looking at some imagined\nprospect. \"I want to be kind to them all--they can be happier than I\ncan. Is that the best I can do?\"\n\n\"I think so. It is a duty that cannot be doubtful,\" said Deronda. He\npaused a little between his sentences, feeling a weight of anxiety on\nall his words. \"Other duties will spring from it. Looking at your life\nas a debt may seem the dreariest view of things at a distance; but it\ncannot really be so. What makes life dreary is the want of motive: but\nonce beginning to act with that penitential, loving purpose you have in\nyour mind, there will be unexpected satisfactions--there will be\nnewly-opening needs--continually coming to carry you on from day to\nday. You will find your life growing like a plant.\"\n\nGwendolen turned her eyes on him with the look of one athirst toward\nthe sound of unseen waters. Deronda felt the look as if she had been\nstretching her arms toward him from a forsaken shore. His voice took an\naffectionate imploringness when he said--\n\n\"This sorrow, which has cut down to the root, has come to you while you\nare so young--try to think of it not as a spoiling of your life, but as\na preparation for it. Let it be a preparation----\" Any one overhearing\nhis tones would have thought he was entreating for his own happiness.\n\"See! you have been saved from the worst evils that might have come\nfrom your marriage, which you feel was wrong. You have had a vision of\ninjurious, selfish action--a vision of possible degradation; think that\na severe angel, seeing you along the road of error, grasped you by the\nwrist and showed you the horror of the life you must avoid. And it has\ncome to you in your spring-time. Think of it as a preparation. You can,\nyou will, be among the best of women, such as make others glad that\nthey were born.\"\n\nThe words were like the touch of a miraculous hand to Gwendolen.\nMingled emotions streamed through her frame with a strength that seemed\nthe beginning of a new existence, having some new power or other which\nstirred in her vaguely. So pregnant is the divine hope of moral\nrecovery with the energy that fulfills it. So potent in us is the\ninfused action of another soul, before which we bow in complete love.\nBut the new existence seemed inseparable from Deronda: the hope seemed\nto make his presence permanent. It was not her thought, that he loved\nher, and would cling to her--a thought would have tottered with\nimprobability; it was her spiritual breath. For the first time since\nthat terrible moment on the sea a flush rose and spread over her cheek,\nbrow and neck, deepened an instant or two, and then gradually\ndisappeared. She did not speak.\n\nDeronda advanced and put out his hand, saying, \"I must not weary you.\"\n\nShe was startled by the sense that he was going, and put her hand in\nhis, still without speaking.\n\n\"You look ill yet--unlike yourself,\" he added, while he held her hand.\n\n\"I can't sleep much,\" she answered, with some return of her dispirited\nmanner. \"Things repeat themselves in me so. They come back--they will\nall come back,\" she ended, shudderingly, a chill fear threatening her.\n\n\"By degrees they will be less insistent,\" said Deronda. He could not\ndrop her hand or move away from her abruptly.\n\n\"Sir Hugo says he shall come to stay at Diplow,\" said Gwendolen,\nsnatching at previously intended words which had slipped away from her.\n\"You will come too.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" said Deronda, and then feeling that the word was cold, he\nadded, correctively, \"Yes, I shall come,\" and then released her hand,\nwith the final friendly pressure of one who has virtually said good-bye.\n\n\"And not again here, before I leave town?\" said Gwendolen, with timid\nsadness, looking as pallid as ever.\n\nWhat could Deronda say? \"If I can be of any use--if you wish\nme--certainly I will.\"\n\n\"I must wish it,\" said Gwendolen, impetuously; \"you know I must wish\nit. What strength have I? Who else is there?\" Again a sob was rising.\n\nDeronda felt a pang, which showed itself in his face. He looked\nmiserable as he said, \"I will certainly come.\"\n\nGwendolen perceived the change in his face; but the intense relief of\nexpecting him to come again could not give way to any other feeling,\nand there was a recovery of the inspired hope and courage in her.\n\n\"Don't be unhappy about me,\" she said, in a tone of affectionate\nassurance. \"I shall remember your words--every one of them. I shall\nremember what you believe about me; I shall try.\"\n\nShe looked at him firmly, and put out her hand again as if she had\nforgotten what had passed since those words of his which she promised\nto remember. But there was no approach to a smile on her lips. She had\nnever smiled since her husband's death. When she stood still and in\nsilence, she looked like a melancholy statue of the Gwendolen whose\nlaughter had once been so ready when others were grave.\n\nIt is only by remembering the searching anguish which had changed the\naspect of the world for her that we can understand her behavior to\nDeronda--the unreflecting openness, nay, the importunate pleading, with\nwhich she expressed her dependence on him. Considerations such as would\nhave filled the minds of indifferent spectators could not occur to her,\nany more than if flames had been mounting around her, and she had flung\nherself into his open arms and clung about his neck that he might carry\nher into safety. She identified him with the struggling regenerative\nprocess in her which had begun with his action. Is it any wonder that\nshe saw her own necessity reflected in his feeling? She was in that\nstate of unconscious reliance and expectation which is a common\nexperience with us when we are preoccupied with our own trouble or our\nown purposes. We diffuse our feeling over others, and count on their\nacting from our motives. Her imagination had not been turned to a\nfuture union with Deronda by any other than the spiritual tie which had\nbeen continually strengthening; but also it had not been turned toward\na future separation from him. Love-making and marriage--how could they\nnow be the imagery in which poor Gwendolen's deepest attachment could\nspontaneously clothe itself? Mighty Love had laid his hand upon her;\nbut what had he demanded of her? Acceptance of rebuke--the hard task of\nself-change--confession--endurance. If she cried toward him, what then?\nShe cried as the child cries whose little feet have fallen\nbackward--cried to be taken by the hand, lest she should lose herself.\n\nThe cry pierced Deronda. What position could have been more difficult\nfor a man full of tenderness, yet with clear foresight? He was the only\ncreature who knew the real nature of Gwendolen's trouble: to withdraw\nhimself from any appeal of hers would be to consign her to a dangerous\nloneliness. He could not reconcile himself to the cruelty of apparently\nrejecting her dependence on him; and yet in the nearer or farther\ndistance he saw a coming wrench, which all present strengthening of\ntheir bond would make the harder.\n\nHe was obliged to risk that. He went once and again to Park Lane before\nGwendolen left; but their interviews were in the presence of Mrs.\nDavilow, and were therefore less agitating. Gwendolen, since she had\ndetermined to accept her income, had conceived a project which she\nliked to speak of: it was, to place her mother and sisters with herself\nin Offendene again, and, as she said, piece back her life unto that\ntime when they first went there, and when everything was happiness\nabout her, only she did not know it. The idea had been mentioned to Sir\nHugo, who was going to exert himself about the letting of Gadsmere for\na rent which would more than pay the rent of Offendene. All this was\ntold to Deronda, who willingly dwelt on a subject that seemed to give\nsome soothing occupation to Gwendolen. He said nothing and she asked\nnothing, of what chiefly occupied himself. Her mind was fixed on his\ncoming to Diplow before the autumn was over; and she no more thought of\nthe Lapidoths--the little Jewess and her brother--as likely to make a\ndifference in her destiny, than of the fermenting political and social\nleaven which was making a difference in the history of the world. In\nfact poor Gwendolen's memory had been stunned, and all outside the\nlava-lit track of her troubled conscience, and her effort to get\ndeliverance from it, lay for her in dim forgetfulness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVI.\n\n\n  \"One day still fierce 'mid many a day struck calm.\"\n                    --BROWNING: _The King and the Book_.\n\n\nMeanwhile Ezra and Mirah, whom Gwendolen did not include in her\nthinking about Deronda, were having their relation to him drawn closer\nand brought into fuller light.\n\nThe father Lapidoth had quitted his daughter at the doorstep, ruled by\nthat possibility of staking something in play or betting which\npresented itself with the handling of any sum beyond the price of\nstaying actual hunger, and left no care for alternative prospects or\nresolutions. Until he had lost everything he never considered whether\nhe would apply to Mirah again or whether he would brave his son's\npresence. In the first moment he had shrunk from encountering Ezra as\nhe would have shrunk from any other situation of disagreeable\nconstraint; and the possession of Mirah's purse was enough to banish\nthe thought of future necessities. The gambling appetite is more\nabsolutely dominant than bodily hunger, which can be neutralized by an\nemotional or intellectual excitation; but the passion for watching\nchances--the habitual suspensive poise of the mind in actual or\nimaginary play--nullifies the susceptibility of other excitation. In\nits final, imperious stage, it seems the unjoyous dissipation of\ndemons, seeking diversion on the burning marl of perdition.\n\nBut every form of selfishness, however abstract and unhuman, requires\nthe support of at least one meal a day; and though Lapidoth's appetite\nfor food and drink was extremely moderate, he had slipped into a\nshabby, unfriendly form of life in which the appetite could not be\nsatisfied without some ready money. When, in a brief visit at a house\nwhich announced \"Pyramids\" on the window-blind, he had first doubled\nand trebled and finally lost Mirah's thirty shillings, he went out with\nher empty purse in his pocket, already balancing in his mind whether he\nshould get another immediate stake by pawning the purse, or whether he\nshould go back to her giving himself a good countenance by restoring\nthe purse, and declaring that he had used the money in paying a score\nthat was standing against him. Besides, among the sensibilities still\nleft strong in Lapidoth was the sensibility to his own claims, and he\nappeared to himself to have a claim on any property his children might\npossess, which was stronger than the justice of his son's resentment.\nAfter all, to take up his lodging with his children was the best thing\nhe could do; and the more he thought of meeting Ezra the less he winced\nfrom it, his imagination being more wrought on by the chances of his\ngetting something into his pocket with safety and without exertion,\nthan by the threat of a private humiliation. Luck had been against him\nlately; he expected it to turn--and might not the turn begin with some\nopening of supplies which would present itself through his daughter's\naffairs and the good friends she had spoken of? Lapidoth counted on the\nfascination of his cleverness--an old habit of mind which early\nexperience had sanctioned: and it is not only women who are unaware of\ntheir diminished charm, or imagine that they can feign not to be worn\nout.\n\nThe result of Lapidoth's rapid balancing was that he went toward the\nlittle square in Brompton with the hope that, by walking about and\nwatching, he might catch sight of Mirah going out or returning, in\nwhich case his entrance into the house would be made easier. But it was\nalready evening--the evening of the day next to that which he had first\nseen her; and after a little waiting, weariness made him reflect that\nhe might ring, and if she were not at home he might ask the time at\nwhich she was expected. But on coming near the house he knew that she\nwas at home: he heard her singing.\n\nMirah, seated at the piano, was pouring forth \"_Herz, mein Herz_,\"\nwhile Ezra was listening with his eyes shut, when Mrs. Adam opened the\ndoor, and said in some embarrassment--\n\n\"A gentleman below says he is your father, miss.\"\n\n\"I will go down to him,\" said Mirah, starting up immediately and\nlooking at her brother.\n\n\"No, Mirah, not so,\" said Ezra, with decision. \"Let him come up, Mrs.\nAdam.\"\n\nMirah stood with her hands pinching each other, and feeling sick with\nanxiety, while she continued looking at Ezra, who had also risen, and\nwas evidently much shaken. But there was an expression in his face\nwhich she had never seen before; his brow was knit, his lips seemed\nhardened with the same severity that gleamed from his eye.\n\nWhen Mrs. Adam opened the door to let in the father, she could not help\ncasting a look at the group, and after glancing from the younger man to\nthe elder, said to herself as she closed the door, \"Father, sure\nenough.\" The likeness was that of outline, which is always most\nstriking at the first moment; the expression had been wrought into the\nstrongest contrasts by such hidden or inconspicuous differences as can\nmake the genius of a Cromwell within the outward type of a father who\nwas no more than a respectable parishioner.\n\nLapidoth had put on a melancholy expression beforehand, but there was\nsome real wincing in his frame as he said--\n\n\"Well, Ezra, my boy, you hardly know me after so many years.\"\n\n\"I know you--too well--father,\" said Ezra, with a slow biting solemnity\nwhich made the word father a reproach.\n\n\"Ah, you are not pleased with me. I don't wonder at it. Appearances\nhave been against me. When a man gets into straits he can't do just as\nhe would by himself or anybody else, _I_'ve suffered enough, I know,\"\nsaid Lapidoth, quickly. In speaking he always recovered some glibness\nand hardihood; and now turning toward Mirah, he held out her purse,\nsaying, \"Here's your little purse, my dear. I thought you'd be anxious\nabout it because of that bit of writing. I've emptied it, you'll see,\nfor I had a score to pay for food and lodging. I knew you would like me\nto clear myself, and here I stand--without a single farthing in my\npocket--at the mercy of my children. You can turn me out if you like,\nwithout getting a policeman. Say the word, Mirah; say, 'Father, I've\nhad enough of you; you made a pet of me, and spent your all on me, when\nI couldn't have done without you; but I can do better without you\nnow,'--say that, and I'm gone out like a spark. I shan't spoil your\npleasure again.\" The tears were in his voice as usual, before he had\nfinished.\n\n\"You know I could never say it, father,\" answered Mirah, with not the\nless anguish because she felt the falsity of everything in his speech\nexcept the implied wish to remain in the house.\n\n\"Mirah, my sister, leave us!\" said Ezra, in a tone of authority.\n\nShe looked at her brother falteringly, beseechingly--in awe of his\ndecision, yet unable to go without making a plea for this father who\nwas like something that had grown in her flesh with pain. She went\nclose to her brother, and putting her hand in his, said, in a low\nvoice, but not so low as to be unheard by Lapidoth, \"Remember,\nEzra--you said my mother would not have shut him out.\"\n\n\"Trust me, and go,\" said Ezra.\n\nShe left the room, but after going a few steps up the stairs, sat down\nwith a palpitating heart. If, because of anything her brother said to\nhim, he went away---\n\nLapidoth had some sense of what was being prepared for him in his son's\nmind, but he was beginning to adjust himself to the situation and find\na point of view that would give him a cool superiority to any attempt\nat humiliating him. This haggard son, speaking as from a sepulchre, had\nthe incongruity which selfish levity learns to see in suffering, and\nuntil the unrelenting pincers of disease clutch its own flesh. Whatever\npreaching he might deliver must be taken for a matter of course, as a\nman finding shelter from hail in an open cathedral might take a little\nreligious howling that happened to be going on there.\n\nLapidoth was not born with this sort of callousness: he had achieved it.\n\n\"This home that we have here,\" Ezra began, \"is maintained partly by the\ngenerosity of a beloved friend who supports me, and partly by the\nlabors of my sister, who supports herself. While we have a home we will\nnot shut you out from it. We will not cast you out to the mercy of your\nvices. For you are our father, and though you have broken your bond, we\nacknowledge ours. But I will never trust you. You absconded with money,\nleaving your debts unpaid; you forsook my mother; you robbed her of her\nlittle child and broke her heart; you have become a gambler, and where\nshame and conscience were there sits an insatiable desire; you were\nready to sell my sister--you had sold her, but the price was denied\nyou. The man who has done these things must never expect to be trusted\nany more. We will share our food with you--you shall have a bed, and\nclothing. We will do this duty to you, because you are our father. But\nyou will never be trusted. You are an evil man: you made the misery of\nour mother. That such a man is our father is a brand on our flesh which\nwill not cease smarting. But the Eternal has laid it upon us; and\nthough human justice were to flog you for crimes, and your body fell\nhelpless before the public scorn, we would still say, 'This is our\nfather; make way, that we may carry him out of your sight.'\"\n\nLapidoth, in adjusting himself to what was coming, had not been able to\nforesee the exact intensity of the lightning or the exact course it\nwould take--that it would not fall outside his frame but through it. He\ncould not foresee what was so new to him as this voice from the soul of\nhis son. It touched that spring of hysterical excitability which Mirah\nused to witness in him when he sat at home and sobbed. As Ezra ended,\nLapidoth threw himself into a chair and cried like a woman, burying his\nface against the table--and yet, strangely, while this hysterical\ncrying was an inevitable reaction in him under the stress of his son's\nwords, it was also a conscious resource in a difficulty; just as in\nearly life, when he was a bright-faced curly young man, he had been\nused to avail himself of this subtly-poised physical susceptibility to\nturn the edge of resentment or disapprobation.\n\nEzra sat down again and said nothing--exhausted by the shock of his own\nirrepressible utterance, the outburst of feelings which for years he\nhad borne in solitude and silence. His thin hands trembled on the arms\nof the chair; he would hardly have found voice to answer a question; he\nfelt as if he had taken a step toward beckoning Death. Meanwhile\nMirah's quick expectant ear detected a sound which her heart\nrecognized: she could not stay out of the room any longer. But on\nopening the door her immediate alarm was for Ezra, and it was to his\nside that she went, taking his trembling hand in hers, which he pressed\nand found support in; but he did not speak or even look at her. The\nfather with his face buried was conscious that Mirah had entered, and\npresently lifted up his head, pressed his handkerchief against his\neyes, put out his hand toward her, and said with plaintive hoarseness,\n\"Good-bye, Mirah; your father will not trouble you again. He deserves\nto die like a dog by the roadside, and he will. If your mother had\nlived, she would have forgiven me--thirty-four years ago I put the ring\non her finger under the _Chuppa_, and we were made one. She would have\nforgiven me, and we should have spent our old age together. But I\nhaven't deserved it. Good-bye.\"\n\nHe rose from the chair as he said the last \"good-bye.\" Mirah had put\nher hand in his and held him. She was not tearful and grieving, but\nfrightened and awe-struck, as she cried out--\n\n\"No, father, no!\" Then turning to her brother, \"Ezra, you have not\nforbidden him?--Stay, father, and leave off wrong things. Ezra, I\ncannot bear it. How can I say to my father, 'Go and die!'\"\n\n\"I have not said it,\" Ezra answered, with great effort. \"I have said,\nstay and be sheltered.\"\n\n\"Then you will stay, father--and be taken care of--and come with me,\"\nsaid Mirah, drawing him toward the door.\n\nThis was really what Lapidoth wanted. And for the moment he felt a sort\nof comfort in recovering his daughter's dutiful attendance, that made a\nchange of habits seem possible to him. She led him down to the parlor\nbelow, and said--\n\n\"This is my sitting-room when I am not with Ezra, and there is a\nbed-room behind which shall be yours. You will stay and be good,\nfather. Think that you are come back to my mother, and that she has\nforgiven you--she speaks to you through me.\" Mirah's tones were\nimploring, but she could not give one of her former caresses.\n\nLapidoth quickly recovered his composure, began to speak to Mirah of\nthe improvement in her voice, and other easy subjects, and when Mrs.\nAdam came to lay out his supper, entered into converse with her in\norder to show her that he was not a common person, though his clothes\nwere just now against him.\n\nBut in his usual wakefulness at night, he fell to wondering what money\nMirah had by her, and went back over old Continental hours at\n_Roulette_, reproducing the method of his play, and the chances that\nhad frustrated it. He had had his reasons for coming to England, but\nfor most things it was a cursed country.\n\nThese were the stronger visions of the night with Lapidoth, and not the\nworn frame of his ireful son uttering a terrible judgment. Ezra did\npass across the gaming-table, and his words were audible; but he passed\nlike an insubstantial ghost, and his words had the heart eaten out of\nthem by numbers and movements that seemed to make the very tissue of\nLapidoth's consciousness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVII.\n\n  The godhead in us wrings our noble deeds\n  From our reluctant selves.\n\n\nIt was an unpleasant surprise to Deronda when he returned from the\nAbbey to find the undesirable father installed in the lodgings at\nBrompton. Mirah had felt it necessary to speak of Deronda to her\nfather, and even to make him as fully aware as she could of the way in\nwhich the friendship with Ezra had begun, and of the sympathy which had\ncemented it. She passed more lightly over what Deronda had done for\nher, omitting altogether the rescue from drowning, and speaking of the\nshelter she had found in Mrs. Meyrick's family so as to leave her\nfather to suppose that it was through these friends Deronda had become\nacquainted with her. She could not persuade herself to more\ncompleteness in her narrative: she could not let the breath of her\nfather's soul pass over her relation to Deronda. And Lapidoth, for\nreasons, was not eager in his questioning about the circumstances of\nher flight and arrival in England. But he was much interested in the\nfact of his children having a beneficent friend apparently high in the\nworld.\n\nIt was the brother who told Deronda of this new condition added to\ntheir life. \"I am become calm in beholding him now,\" Ezra ended, \"and I\ntry to think it possible that my sister's tenderness, and the daily\ntasting a life of peace, may win him to remain aloof from temptation. I\nhave enjoined her, and she has promised, to trust him with no money. I\nhave convinced her that he will buy with it his own destruction.\"\n\nDeronda first came on the third day from Ladipoth's arrival. The new\nclothes for which he had been measured were not yet ready, and wishing\nto make a favorable impression, he did not choose to present himself in\nthe old ones. He watched for Deronda's departure, and, getting a view\nof him from the window, was rather surprised at his youthfulness, which\nMirah had not mentioned, and which he had somehow thought out of the\nquestion in a personage who had taken up a grave friendship and hoary\nstudies with the sepulchral Ezra. Lapidoth began to imagine that\nDeronda's real or chief motive must be that he was in love with Mirah.\nAnd so much the better; for a tie to Mirah had more promise of\nindulgence for her father than a tie to Ezra: and Lapidoth was not\nwithout the hope of recommending himself to Deronda, and of softening\nany hard prepossessions. He was behaving with much amiability, and\ntrying in all ways at his command to get himself into easy\ndomestication with his children--entering into Mirah's music, showing\nhimself docile about smoking, which Mrs. Adam could not tolerate in her\nparlor, and walking out in the square with his German pipe, and the\ntobacco with which Mirah supplied him. He was too acute to offer any\npresent remonstrance against the refusal of money, which Mirah told him\nthat she must persist in as a solemn duty promised to her brother. He\nwas comfortable enough to wait.\n\nThe next time Deronda came, Lapidoth, equipped in his new clothes, and\nsatisfied with his own appearance, was in the room with Ezra, who was\nteaching himself, as a part of his severe duty, to tolerate his\nfather's presence whenever it was imposed. Deronda was cold and\ndistant, the first sight of this man, who had blighted the lives of his\nwife and children, creating in him a repulsion that was even a physical\ndiscomfort. But Lapidoth did not let himself be discouraged, asked\nleave to stay and hear the reading of papers from the old chest, and\nactually made himself useful in helping to decipher some difficult\nGerman manuscript. This led him to suggest that it might be desirable\nto make a transcription of the manuscript, and he offered his services\nfor this purpose, and also to make copies of any papers in Roman\ncharacters. Though Ezra's young eyes he observed were getting weak, his\nown were still strong. Deronda accepted the offer, thinking that\nLapidoth showed a sign of grace in the willingness to be employed\nusefully; and he saw a gratified expression in Ezra's face, who,\nhowever, presently said, \"Let all the writing be done here; for I\ncannot trust the papers out of my sight, lest there be an accident by\nburning or otherwise.\" Poor Ezra felt very much as if he had a convict\non leave under his charge. Unless he saw his father working, it was not\npossible to believe that he would work in good faith. But by this\narrangement he fastened on himself the burden of his father's presence,\nwhich was made painful not only through his deepest, longest\nassociations, but also through Lapidoth's restlessness of temperament,\nwhich showed itself the more as he become familiarized with his\nsituation, and lost any awe he had felt of his son. The fact was, he\nwas putting a strong constraint on himself in confining his attention\nfor the sake of winning Deronda's favor; and like a man in an\nuncomfortable garment he gave himself relief at every opportunity,\ngoing out to smoke, or moving about and talking, or throwing himself\nback in his chair and remaining silent, but incessantly carrying on a\ndumb language of facial movement or gesticulation: and if Mirah were in\nthe room, he would fall into his old habit of talk with her, gossiping\nabout their former doings and companions, or repeating quirks and\nstories, and plots of the plays he used to adapt, in the belief that he\ncould at will command the vivacity of his earlier time. All this was a\nmortal infliction to Ezra; and when Mirah was at home she tried to\nrelieve him, by getting her father down into the parlor and keeping\nwatch over him there. What duty is made of a single difficult resolve?\nThe difficulty lies in the daily unflinching support of consequences\nthat mar the blessed return of morning with the prospect of irritation\nto be suppressed or shame to be endured. And such consequences were\nbeing borne by these, as by many other heroic children of an unworthy\nfather--with the prospect, at least to Mirah, of their stretching\nonward through the solid part of life.\n\nMeanwhile Lapidoth's presence had raised a new impalpable partition\nbetween Deronda and Mirah--each of them dreading the soiling inferences\nof his mind, each of them interpreting mistakenly the increased reserve\nand diffidence of the other. But it was not very long before some light\ncame to Deronda.\n\nAs soon as he could, after returning from his brief visit to the Abbey,\nhe had called at Hans Meyrick's rooms, feeling it, on more grounds than\none, a due of friendship that Hans should be at once acquainted with\nthe reasons of his late journey, and the changes of intention it had\nbrought about. Hans was not there; he was said to be in the country for\na few days; and Deronda, after leaving a note, waited a week, rather\nexpecting a note in return. But receiving no word, and fearing some\nfreak of feeling in the incalculably susceptible Hans, whose proposed\nsojourn at the Abbey he knew had been deferred, he at length made a\nsecond call, and was admitted into the painting-room, where he found\nhis friend in a light coat, without a waistcoat, his long hair still\nwet from a bath, but with a face looking worn and wizened--anything but\ncountry-like. He had taken up his palette and brushes, and stood before\nhis easel when Deronda entered, but the equipment and attitude seemed\nto have been got up on short notice.\n\nAs they shook hands, Deronda said, \"You don't look much as if you had\nbeen in the country, old fellow. Is it Cambridge you have been to?\"\n\n\"No,\" said Hans, curtly, throwing down his palette with the air of one\nwho has begun to feign by mistake; then pushing forward a chair for\nDeronda, he threw himself into another, and leaned backward with his\nhands behind his head, while he went on, \"I've been to\nI-don't-know-where--No man's land--and a mortally unpleasant country it\nis.\"\n\n\"You don't mean to say you have been drinking, Hans,\" said Deronda, who\nhad seated himself opposite, in anxious survey.\n\n\"Nothing so good. I've been smoking opium. I always meant to do it some\ntime or other, to try how much bliss could be got by it; and having\nfound myself just now rather out of other bliss, I thought it judicious\nto seize the opportunity. But I pledge you my word I shall never tap a\ncask of that bliss again. It disagrees with my constitution.\"\n\n\"What has been the matter? You were in good spirits enough when you\nwrote to me.\"\n\n\"Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy--a sort of\ncabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may\nbe sure,\" said Hans, creasing his face into a smile; \"and, in fact, I\nwas tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot\nLondon weather.\"\n\n\"Nothing else? No real vexation?\" said Deronda.\n\nHans shook his head.\n\n\"I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can't do it with a good\ngrace if you are to hide yours.\"\n\n\"Haven't an affair in the world,\" said Hans, in a flighty way, \"except\na quarrel with a bric-à-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in\nour lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are\nonly beginning to pay a pretty long debt.\"\n\nDeronda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he\ntrusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own\nconfidence.\n\n\"You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans,\" he began.\n\"It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I\nhad never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa\nto meet my mother. My father has been long dead--died when I was an\ninfant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her\ncousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a\nprobability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that\nI was glad of it--glad to find myself a Jew.\"\n\n\"You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda,\" said Hans, who had\nchanged his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the\nheel of his slipper.\n\n\"You knew it?\"\n\n\"My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had\nbeen there--brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can't\nrejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be\nglad of in the end--_when_ exactly the end may be I can't predict,\"\nsaid Hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it\nwas to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss\nabout it.\n\n\"I quite understand that you can't share my feeling,\" said Deronda;\n\"but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new\nlight over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai's ideas, and I\nmean to try and carry them out, so far as one man's efforts can go. I\ndare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some\nyears.\"\n\nHans said nothing, but rose, seized his palette and began to work his\nbrush on it, standing before his picture with his back to Deronda, who\nalso felt himself at a break in his path embarrassed by Hans's\nembarrassment.\n\nPresently Hans said, again speaking low, and without turning, \"Excuse\nthe question, but does Mrs. Grandcourt know of all this?\"\n\n\"No; and I must beg of you, Hans,\" said Deronda, rather angrily, \"to\ncease joking on that subject. Any notions you have are wide of the\ntruth--are the very reverse of the truth.\"\n\n\"I am no more inclined to joke than I shall be at my own funeral,\" said\nHans. \"But I am not at all sure that you are aware what are my notions\non that subject.\"\n\n\"Perhaps not,\" said Deronda. \"But let me say, once for all, that in\nrelation to Mrs. Grandcourt, I never have had, and never shall have the\nposition of a lover. If you have ever seriously put that interpretation\non anything you have observed, you are supremely mistaken.\"\n\nThere was silence a little while, and to each the silence was like an\nirritating air, exaggerating discomfort.\n\n\"Perhaps I have been mistaken in another interpretation, also,\" said\nHans, presently.\n\n\"What is that?\"\n\n\"That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another\nwoman, who is neither wife nor widow.\"\n\n\"I can't pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our\nwishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for\nsupposing that you would succeed.\"\n\n\"That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda,\" said\nHans, with some irritation.\n\n\"Why superfluous?\"\n\n\"Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject--and probably have\nhad the very best evidence to convince you.\"\n\n\"I will be more frank with you than you are with me,\" said Deronda,\nstill heated by Hans' show of temper, and yet sorry for him. \"I have\nnever had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact,\nI have very little hope.\"\n\nHans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his\npicture again.\n\n\"And in our present situation,\" said Deronda, hurt by the idea that\nHans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to\nhis words, \"I don't see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to\nher. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best\ncomfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we\nshould have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of\npain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than\na mischievous animal.\"\n\n\"I don't know that I have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her,\" said\nHans, as if he were vindicating himself.\n\n\"You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me.\"\n\n\"Oh, not the slightest,\" said Hans, with bitter irony. \"You have\nmeasured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages.\"\n\n\"I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can't help it,\"\nsaid Deronda, rising. \"After what passed between us before, I wished to\nhave this explanation; and I don't see that any pretensions of mine\nhave made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any\npleasant difference to myself under present circumstances. Now the\nfather is there--did you know that the father is there?\"\n\n\"Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to damn him--with\nfaint praise, I mean,\" said Hans, but with no smile.\n\n\"She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on\nin this way for two years without my getting any insight into her\nfeeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither\nyou nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with\nthis sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to\nnothing. Our friendship can bear that strain, surely.\"\n\n\"No, it can't,\" said Hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools,\nthrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face\nDeronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans\nwent on in the same tone--\n\n\"Our friendship--my friendship--can't bear the strain of behaving to\nyou like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you\n_are_ the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than\nher brother, _you are the man_.\"\n\nHans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at\nDeronda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a\nshock passed through Deronda, and, after an instant, he said--\n\n\"It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans.\"\n\n\"I am not in a good-natured mood. I assure you I found the fact\ndisagreeable when it was thrust on me--all the more, or perhaps all the\nless, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the\nduchess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right\nplace--a Jew--and everything eligible.\"\n\n\"Tell me what convinced you--there's a good fellow,\" said Deronda,\ndistrusting a delight that he was unused to.\n\n\"Don't ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is\njealous of the duchess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the\nbetter. There! I've cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to\nswear at you for getting what you deserve--which is just the very best\nluck I know of.\"\n\n\"God bless you, Hans!\" said Deronda, putting out his hand, which the\nother took and wrung in silence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXVIII.\n\n  \"All thoughts, all passions, all delights,\n  Whatever stirs this mortal frame,\n  All are but ministers of Love,\n  And feed his sacred flame.\"\n                                --COLERIDGE.\n\n\nDeronda's eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a\nstronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his assurance that Mirah\nneeded relief from jealousy. He went on his next visit to Ezra with the\ndetermination to be resolute in using--nay, in requesting--an\nopportunity of private conversation with her. If she accepted his love,\nhe felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed\nhusband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable\ndefense for her in future difficulties with her father. Deronda had not\nobserved any signs of growing restlessness in Lapidoth, or of\ndiminished desire to recommend himself; but he had forebodings of some\nfuture struggle, some mortification, or some intolerable increase of\ndomestic disquietude in which he might save Ezra and Mirah from being\nhelpless victims.\n\nHis forebodings would have been strengthened if he had known what was\ngoing on in the father's mind. That amount of restlessness, that\ndesultoriness of attention, which made a small torture to Ezra, was to\nLapidoth an irksome submission to restraint, only made bearable by his\nthinking of it as a means of by-and-by securing a well-conditioned\nfreedom. He began with the intention of awaiting some really good\nchance, such as an opening for getting a considerable sum from Deronda;\nbut all the while he was looking about curiously, and trying to\ndiscover where Mirah deposited her money and her keys. The imperious\ngambling desire within him, which carried on its activity through every\nother occupation, and made a continuous web of imagination that held\nall else in its meshes, would hardly have been under the control of a\ncontracted purpose, if he had been able to lay his hands on any sum\nworth capturing. But Mirah, with her practical clear-sightedness,\nguarded against any frustration of the promise she had given to Ezra,\nby confiding all money, except what she was immediately in want of, to\nMrs. Meyrick's care, and Lapidoth felt himself under an irritating\ncompleteness of supply in kind as in a lunatic asylum where everything\nwas made safe against him. To have opened a desk or drawer of Mirah's,\nand pocketed any bank-notes found there, would have been to his mind a\nsort of domestic appropriation which had no disgrace in it; the degrees\nof liberty a man allows himself with other people's property being\noften delicately drawn, even beyond the boundary where the law begins\nto lay its hold--which is the reason why spoons are a safer investment\nthan mining shares. Lapidoth really felt himself injuriously treated by\nhis daughter, and thought that he ought to have had what he wanted of\nher other earnings as he had of her apple-tart. But he remained\nsubmissive; indeed, the indiscretion that most tempted him, was not any\ninsistance with Mirah, but some kind of appeal to Deronda. Clever\npersons who have nothing else to sell can often put a good price on\ntheir absence, and Lapidoth's difficult search for devices forced upon\nhim the idea that his family would find themselves happier without him,\nand that Deronda would be willing to advance a considerable sum for the\nsake of getting rid of him. But, in spite of well-practiced hardihood,\nLapidoth was still in some awe of Ezra's imposing friend, and deferred\nhis purpose indefinitely.\n\nOn this day, when Deronda had come full of a gladdened consciousness,\nwhich inevitably showed itself in his air and speech, Lapidoth was at a\ncrisis of discontent and longing that made his mind busy with schemes\nof freedom, and Deronda's new amenity encouraged them. This\npre-occupation was at last so strong as to interfere with his usual\nshow of interest in what went forward, and his persistence in sitting\nby even when there was reading which he could not follow. After sitting\na little while, he went out to smoke and walk in the square, and the\ntwo friends were all the easier. Mirah was not at home, but she was\nsure to be in again before Deronda left, and his eyes glowed with a\nsecret anticipation: he thought that when he saw her again he should\nsee some sweetness of recognition for himself to which his eyes had\nbeen sealed before. There was an additional playful affectionateness in\nhis manner toward Ezra.\n\n\"This little room is too close for you, Ezra,\" he said, breaking off\nhis reading. \"The week's heat we sometimes get here is worse than the\nheat in Genoa, where one sits in the shaded coolness of large rooms.\nYou must have a better home now. I shall do as I like with you, being\nthe stronger half.\" He smiled toward Ezra, who said--\n\n\"I am straitened for nothing except breath. But you, who might be in a\nspacious palace, with the wide green country around you, find this a\nnarrow prison. Nevertheless, I cannot say, 'Go.'\"\n\n\"Oh, the country would be a banishment while you are here,\" said\nDeronda, rising and walking round the double room, which yet offered no\nlong promenade, while he made a great fan of his handkerchief. \"This is\nthe happiest room in the world to me. Besides, I will imagine myself in\nthe East, since I am getting ready to go there some day. Only I will\nnot wear a cravat and a heavy ring there,\" he ended emphatically,\npausing to take off those superfluities and deposit them on a small\ntable behind Ezra, who had the table in front of him covered with books\nand papers.\n\n\"I have been wearing my memorable ring ever since I came home,\" he went\non, as he reseated himself. \"But I am such a Sybarite that I constantly\nput it off as a burden when I am doing anything. I understand why the\nRomans had summer rings--_if_ they had them. Now then, I shall get on\nbetter.\"\n\nThey were soon absorbed in their work again. Deronda was reading a\npiece of rabbinical Hebrew under Ezra's correction and comment, and\nthey took little notice when Lapidoth re-entered and took a seat\nsomewhat in the background.\n\nHis rambling eyes quickly alighted on the ring that sparkled on the bit\nof dark mahogany. During his walk, his mind had been occupied with the\nfiction of an advantageous opening for him abroad, only requiring a sum\nof ready money, which, on being communicated to Deronda in private,\nmight immediately draw from him a question as to the amount of the\nrequired sum: and it was this part of his forecast that Lapidoth found\nthe most debatable, there being a danger in asking too much, and a\nprospective regret in asking too little. His own desire gave him no\nlimit, and he was quite without guidance as to the limit of Deronda's\nwillingness. But now, in the midst of these airy conditions preparatory\nto a receipt which remained indefinite, this ring, which on Deronda's\nfinger had become familiar to Lapidoth's envy, suddenly shone detached\nand within easy grasp. Its value was certainly below the smallest of\nthe imaginary sums that his purpose fluctuated between; but then it was\nbefore him as a solid fact, and his desire at once leaped into the\nthought (not yet an intention) that if he were quietly to pocket that\nring and walk away he would have the means of comfortable escape from\npresent restraint, without trouble, and also without danger; for any\nproperty of Deronda's (available without his formal consent) was all\none with his children's property, since their father would never be\nprosecuted for taking it. The details of this thinking followed each\nother so quickly that they seemed to rise before him as one picture.\nLapidoth had never committed larceny; but larceny is a form of\nappropriation for which people are punished by law; and, take this ring\nfrom a virtual relation, who would have been willing to make a much\nheavier gift, would not come under the head of larceny. Still, the\nheavier gift was to be preferred, if Lapidoth could only make haste\nenough in asking for it, and the imaginary action of taking the ring,\nwhich kept repeating itself like an inward tune, sank into a rejected\nidea. He satisfied his urgent longing by resolving to go below, and\nwatch for the moment of Deronda's departure, when he would ask leave to\njoin him in his walk and boldly carry out his meditated plan. He rose\nand stood looking out of the window, but all the while he saw what lay\nbeyond him--the brief passage he would have to make to the door close\nby the table where the ring was. However he was resolved to go down;\nbut--by no distinct change of resolution, rather by a dominance of\ndesire, like the thirst of the drunkard--it so happened that in passing\nthe table his fingers fell noiselessly on the ring, and he found\nhimself in the passage with the ring in his hand. It followed that he\nput on his hat and quitted the house. The possibility of again throwing\nhimself on his children receded into the indefinite distance, and\nbefore he was out on the square his sense of haste had concentrated\nitself on selling the ring and getting on shipboard.\n\nDeronda and Ezra were just aware of his exit; that was all. But,\nby-and-by, Mirah came in and made a real interruption. She had not\ntaken off her hat; and when Deronda rose and advanced to shake hands\nwith her, she said, in a confusion at once unaccountable and\ntroublesome to herself--\n\n\"I only came in to see that Ezra had his new draught. I must go\ndirectly to Mrs. Meyrick's to fetch something.\"\n\n\"Pray allow me to walk with you,\" said Deronda urgently. \"I must not\ntire Ezra any further; besides my brains are melting. I want to go to\nMrs. Meyrick's: may I go with you?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Mirah, blushing still more, with the vague sense of\nsomething new in Deronda, and turning away to pour out Ezra's draught;\nEzra meanwhile throwing back his head with his eyes shut, unable to get\nhis mind away from the ideas that had been filling it while the reading\nwas going on. Deronda for a moment stood thinking of nothing but the\nwalk, till Mirah turned round again and brought the draught, when he\nsuddenly remembered that he had laid aside his cravat, and\nsaying--\"Pray excuse my dishabille--I did not mean you to see it,\" he\nwent to the little table, took up his cravat, and exclaimed with a\nviolent impulse of surprise, \"Good heavens, where is my ring gone?\"\nbeginning to search about on the floor.\n\nEzra looked round the corner of his chair. Mirah, quick as thought,\nwent to the spot where Deronda was seeking, and said, \"Did you lay it\ndown?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Deronda, still unvisited by any other explanation than that\nthe ring had fallen and was lurking in shadow, indiscernable on the\nvariegated carpet. He was moving the bits of furniture near, and\nsearching in all possible and impossible places with hand and eyes.\n\nBut another explanation had visited Mirah and taken the color from her\ncheeks. She went to Ezra's ear and whispered \"Was my father here?\" He\nbent his head in reply, meeting her eyes with terrible understanding.\nShe darted back to the spot where Deronda was still casting down his\neyes in that hopeless exploration which are apt to carry on over a\nspace we have examined in vain. \"You have not found it?\" she said,\nhurriedly.\n\nHe, meeting her frightened gaze, immediately caught alarm from it and\nanswered, \"I perhaps put it in my pocket,\" professing to feel for it\nthere.\n\nShe watched him and said, \"It is not there?--you put it on the table,\"\nwith a penetrating voice that would not let him feign to have found it\nin his pocket; and immediately she rushed out of the room. Deronda\nfollowed her--she was gone into the sitting-room below to look for her\nfather--she opened the door of the bedroom to see if he were there--she\nlooked where his hat usually hung--she turned with her hands clasped\ntight and her lips pale, gazing despairingly out of the window. Then\nshe looked up at Deronda, who had not dared to speak to her in her\nwhite agitation. She looked up at him, unable to utter a word--the look\nseemed a tacit acceptance of the humiliation she felt in his presence.\nBut he, taking her clasped hands between both his, said, in a tone of\nreverent adoration--\n\n\"Mirah, let me think that he is my father as well as yours--that we can\nhave no sorrow, no disgrace, no joy apart. I will rather take your\ngrief to be mine than I would take the brightest joy of another woman.\nSay you will not reject me--say you will take me to share all things\nwith you. Say you will promise to be my wife--say it now. I have been\nin doubt so long--I have had to hide my love so long. Say that now and\nalways I may prove to you that I love you with complete love.\"\n\nThe change in Mirah had been gradual. She had not passed at once from\nanguish to the full, blessed consciousness that, in this moment of\ngrief and shame, Deronda was giving her the highest tribute man can\ngive to woman. With the first tones and the first words, she had only a\nsense of solemn comfort, referring this goodness of Deronda's to his\nfeeling for Ezra. But by degrees the rapturous assurance of unhoped-for\ngood took possession of her frame: her face glowed under Deronda's as\nhe bent over her; yet she looked up still with intense gravity, as when\nshe had first acknowledged with religious gratitude that he had thought\nher \"worthy of the best;\" and when he had finished, she could say\nnothing--she could only lift up her lips to his and just kiss them, as\nif that were the simplest \"yes.\" They stood then, only looking at each\nother, he holding her hands between his--too happy to move, meeting so\nfully in their new consciousness that all signs would have seemed to\nthrow them farther apart, till Mirah said in a whisper: \"Let us go and\ncomfort Ezra.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXIX.\n\n  \"The human nature unto which I felt\n  That I belonged, and reverenced with love,\n  Was not a punctual presence, but a spirit\n  Diffused through time and space, with aid derived\n  Of evidence from monuments, erect,\n  Prostrate, or leaning toward their common rest\n  In earth, the widely scattered wreck sublime\n  Of vanished nations.\"\n                       --WORDSWORTH: _The Prelude_.\n\n\nSir Hugo carried out his plan of spending part of the autumn at Diplow,\nand by the beginning of October his presence was spreading some\ncheerfulness in the neighborhood, among all ranks and persons\nconcerned, from the stately home of Brackenshaw and Quetcham to the\nrespectable shop-parlors in Wanchester. For Sir Hugo was a man who\nliked to show himself and be affable, a Liberal of good lineage, who\nconfided entirely in reform as not likely to make any serious\ndifference in English habits of feeling, one of which undoubtedly is\nthe liking to behold society well fenced and adorned with hereditary\nrank. Hence he made Diplow a most agreeable house, extending his\ninvitations to old Wanchester solicitors and young village curates, but\nalso taking some care in the combination of the guests, and not feeding\nall the common poultry together, so that they should think their meal\nno particular compliment. Easy-going Lord Brackenshaw, for example,\nwould not mind meeting Robinson the attorney, but Robinson would have\nbeen naturally piqued if he had been asked to meet a set of people who\npassed for his equals. On all these points Sir Hugo was well informed\nenough at once to gain popularity for himself and give pleasure to\nothers--two results which eminently suited his disposition. The rector\nof Pennicote now found a reception at Diplow very different from the\nhaughty tolerance he had undergone during the reign of Grandcourt. It\nwas not that the baronet liked Mr. Gascoigne; it was that he desired to\nkeep up a marked relation of friendliness with him on account of Mrs.\nGrandcourt, for whom Sir Hugo's chivalry had become more and more\nengaged. Why? The chief reason was one that he could not fully\ncommunicate, even to Lady Mallinger--for he would not tell what he\nthought one woman's secret to another, even though the other was his\nwife--which shows that his chivalry included a rare reticence.\n\nDeronda, after he had become engaged to Mirah, felt it right to make a\nfull statement of his position and purposes to Sir Hugo, and he chose\nto make it by letter. He had more than a presentiment that his fatherly\nfriend would feel some dissatisfaction, if not pain, at this turn of\nhis destiny. In reading unwelcome news, instead of hearing it, there is\nthe advantage that one avoids a hasty expression of impatience which\nmay afterward be repented of. Deronda dreaded that verbal collision\nwhich makes otherwise pardonable feeling lastingly offensive.\n\nAnd Sir Hugo, though not altogether surprised, was thoroughly vexed.\nHis immediate resource was to take the letter to Lady Mallinger, who\nwould be sure to express an astonishment which her husband could argue\nagainst as unreasonable, and in this way divide the stress of his\ndiscontent. And in fact when she showed herself astonished and\ndistressed that all Daniel's wonderful talents, and the comfort of\nhaving him in the house, should have ended in his going mad in this way\nabout the Jews, the baronet could say--\n\n\"Oh, nonsense, my dear! depend upon it, Dan will not make a fool of\nhimself. He has large notions about Judaism--political views which you\ncan't understand. No fear but Dan will keep himself head uppermost.\"\n\nBut with regard to the prospective marriage she afforded him no\ncounter-irritant. The gentle lady observed, without rancor, that she\nhad little dreamed of what was coming when she had Mirah to sing at her\nmusical party and give lessons to Amabel. After some hesitation,\nindeed, she confessed it _had_ passed through her mind that after a\nproper time Daniel might marry Mrs. Grandcourt--because it seemed so\nremarkable that he should be at Genoa just at that time--and although\nshe herself was not fond of widows she could not help thinking that\nsuch a marriage would have been better than his going altogether with\nthe Jews. But Sir Hugo was so strongly of the same opinion that he\ncould not correct it as a feminine mistake; and his ill-humor at the\ndisproof of his disagreeable conclusions on behalf of Gwendolen was\nleft without vent. He desired Lady Mallinger not to breathe a word\nabout the affair till further notice, saying to himself, \"If it is an\nunkind cut to the poor thing (meaning Gwendolen), the longer she is\nwithout knowing it the better, in her present nervous state. And she\nwill best learn it from Dan himself.\" Sir Hugo's conjectures had worked\nso industriously with his knowledge, that he fancied himself well\ninformed concerning the whole situation.\n\nMeanwhile his residence with his family at Diplow enabled him to\ncontinue his fatherly attentions to Gwendolen; and in these Lady\nMallinger, notwithstanding her small liking for widows, was quite\nwilling to second him.\n\nThe plan of removal to Offendene had been carried out; and Gwendolen,\nin settling there, maintained a calm beyond her mother's hopes. She was\nexperiencing some of that peaceful melancholy which comes from the\nrenunciation of demands for self, and from taking the ordinary good of\nexistence, and especially kindness, even from a dog, as a gift above\nexpectation. Does one who has been all but lost in a pit of darkness\ncomplain of the sweet air and the daylight? There is a way of looking\nat our life daily as an escape, and taking the quiet return of morn and\nevening--still more the star-like out-glowing of some pure\nfellow-feeling, some generous impulse breaking our inward darkness--as\na salvation that reconciles us to hardship. Those who have a\nself-knowledge prompting such self-accusation as Hamlet's, can\nunderstand this habitual feeling of rescue. And it was felt by\nGwendolen as she lived through and through again the terrible history\nof her temptations, from their first form of illusory self-pleasing\nwhen she struggled away from the hold of conscience, to their latest\nform of an urgent hatred dragging her toward its satisfaction, while\nshe prayed and cried for the help of that conscience which she had once\nforsaken. She was now dwelling on every word of Deronda's that pointed\nto her past deliverance from the worst evil in herself, and the worst\ninfliction of it on others, and on every word that carried a force to\nresist self-despair.\n\nBut she was also upborne by the prospect of soon seeing him again: she\ndid not imagine him otherwise than always within her reach, her supreme\nneed of him blinding her to the separateness of his life, the whole\nscene of which she filled with his relation to her--no unique\npreoccupation of Gwendolen's, for we are all apt to fall into this\npassionate egoism of imagination, not only toward our fellow-men, but\ntoward God. And the future which she turned her face to with a willing\nstep was one where she would be continually assimilating herself to\nsome type that he would hold before her. Had he not first risen on her\nvision as a corrective presence which she had recognized in the\nbeginning with resentment, and at last with entire love and trust? She\ncould not spontaneously think of an end to that reliance, which had\nbecome to her imagination like the firmness of the earth, the only\ncondition of her walking.\n\nAnd Deronda was not long before he came to Diplow, which was a more\nconvenient distance from town than the Abbey. He had wished to carry\nout a plan for taking Ezra and Mirah to a mild spot on the coast, while\nhe prepared another home which Mirah might enter as his bride, and\nwhere they might unitedly watch over her brother. But Ezra begged not\nto be removed, unless it were to go with them to the East. All outward\nsolicitations were becoming more and more of a burden to him; but his\nmind dwelt on the possibility of this voyage with a visionary joy.\nDeronda, in his preparations for the marriage, which he hoped might not\nbe deferred beyond a couple of months, wished to have fuller\nconsultation as to his resources and affairs generally with Sir Hugo,\nand here was a reason for not delaying his visit to Diplow. But he\nthought quite as much of another reason--his promise to Gwendolen. The\nsense of blessedness in his own lot had yet an aching anxiety at his\nheart: this may be held paradoxical, for the beloved lover is always\ncalled happy, and happiness is considered as a well-fleshed\nindifference to sorrow outside it. But human experience is usually\nparadoxical, if that means incongruous with the phrases of current talk\nor even current philosophy. It was no treason to Mirah, but a part of\nthat full nature which made his love for her the more worthy, that his\njoy in her could hold by its side the care for another. For what is\nlove itself, for the one we love best?--an enfolding of immeasurable\ncares which yet are better than any joys outside our love.\n\nDeronda came twice to Diplow, and saw Gwendolen twice--and yet he went\nback to town without having told her anything about the change in his\nlot and prospects. He blamed himself; but in all momentous\ncommunication likely to give pain we feel dependent on some preparatory\nturn of words or associations, some agreement of the other's mood with\nthe probable effect of what we have to impart. In the first interview\nGwendolen was so absorbed in what she had to say to him, so full of\nquestions which he must answer, about the arrangement of her life, what\nshe could do to make herself less ignorant, how she could be kindest to\neverybody, and make amends for her selfishness and try to be rid of it,\nthat Deronda utterly shrank from waiving her immediate wants in order\nto speak of himself, nay, from inflicting a wound on her in these\nmoments when she was leaning on him for help in her path. In the second\ninterview, when he went with new resolve to command the conversation\ninto some preparatory track, he found her in a state of deep\ndepression, overmastered by some distasteful miserable memories which\nforced themselves on her as something more real and ample than any new\nmaterial out of which she could mould her future. She cried\nhysterically, and said that he would always despise her. He could only\nseek words of soothing and encouragement: and when she gradually\nrevived under them, with that pathetic look of renewed childlike\ninterest which we see in eyes where the lashes are still beaded with\ntears, it was impossible to lay another burden on her.\n\nBut time went on, and he felt it a pressing duty to make the difficult\ndisclosure. Gwendolen, it was true, never recognized his having any\naffairs; and it had never even occurred to her to ask him why he\nhappened to be at Genoa. But this unconsciousness of hers would make a\nsudden revelation of affairs that were determining his course in life\nall the heavier blow to her; and if he left the revelation to be made\nby different persons, she would feel that he had treated her with cruel\ninconsiderateness. He could not make the communication in writing: his\ntenderness could not bear to think of her reading his virtual farewell\nin solitude, and perhaps feeling his words full of a hard gladness for\nhimself and indifference for her. He went down to Diplow again, feeling\nthat every other peril was to be incurred rather than that of returning\nand leaving her still in ignorance.\n\nOn this third visit Deronda found Hans Meyrick installed with his easel\nat Diplow, beginning his picture of the three daughters sitting on a\nbank, \"in the Gainsborough style,\" and varying his work by rambling to\nPennicote to sketch the village children and improve his acquaintance\nwith the Gascoignes. Hans appeared to have recovered his vivacity, but\nDeronda detected some feigning in it, as we detect the artificiality of\na lady's bloom from its being a little too high-toned and steadily\npersistent (a \"Fluctuating Rouge\" not having yet appeared among the\nadvertisements). Also with all his grateful friendship and admiration\nfor Deronda, Hans could not help a certain irritation against him, such\nas extremely incautious, open natures are apt to feel when the breaking\nof a friend's reserve discloses a state of things not merely\nunsuspected but the reverse of what had been hoped and ingeniously\nconjectured. It is true that poor Hans had always cared chiefly to\nconfide in Deronda, and had been quite incurious as to any confidence\nthat might have been given in return; but what outpourer of his own\naffairs is not tempted to think any hint of his friend's affairs is an\negotistic irrelevance? That was no reason why it was not rather a sore\nreflection to Hans that while he had been all along naively opening his\nheart about Mirah, Deronda had kept secret a feeling of rivalry which\nnow revealed itself as the important determining fact. Moreover, it is\nalways at their peril that our friends turn out to be something more\nthan we were aware of. Hans must be excused for these promptings of\nbruised sensibility, since he had not allowed them to govern his\nsubstantial conduct: he had the consciousness of having done right by\nhis fortunate friend; or, as he told himself, \"his metal had given a\nbetter ring than he would have sworn to beforehand.\" For Hans had\nalways said that in point of virtue he was a _dilettante_: which meant\nthat he was very fond of it in other people, but if he meddled with it\nhimself he cut a poor figure. Perhaps in reward of his good behavior he\ngave his tongue the more freedom; and he was too fully possessed by the\nnotion of Deronda's happiness to have a conception of what he was\nfeeling about Gwendolen, so that he spoke of her without hesitation.\n\n\"When did you come down, Hans?\" said Deronda, joining him in the\ngrounds where he was making a study of the requisite bank and trees.\n\n\"Oh, ten days ago; before the time Sir Hugo fixed. I ran down with Rex\nGascoigne and stayed at the rectory a day or two. I'm up in all the\ngossip of these parts; I know the state of the wheelwright's interior,\nand have assisted at an infant school examination. Sister Anna, with\nthe good upper lip, escorted me, else I should have been mobbed by\nthree urchins and an idiot, because of my long hair and a general\nappearance which departs from the Pennicote type of the beautiful.\nAltogether, the village is idyllic. Its only fault is a dark curate\nwith broad shoulders and broad trousers who ought to have gone into the\nheavy drapery line. The Gascoignes are perfect--besides being related\nto the Vandyke duchess. I caught a glimpse of her in her black robes at\na distance, though she doesn't show to visitors.\"\n\n\"She was not staying at the rectory?\" said Deronda.\n\n\"No; but I was taken to Offendene to see the old house, and as a\nconsequence I saw the duchess' family. I suppose you have been there\nand know all about them?\"\n\n\"Yes, I have been there,\" said Deronda, quietly.\n\n\"A fine old place. An excellent setting for a widow with romantic\nfortunes. And she seems to have had several romances. I think I have\nfound out that there was one between her and my friend Rex.\"\n\n\"Not long before her marriage, then?\" said Deronda, really interested,\n\"for they had only been a year at Offendene. How came you to know\nanything of it?\"\n\n\"Oh--not ignorant of what it is to be a miserable devil, I learn to\ngloat on the signs of misery in others. I found out that Rex never goes\nto Offendene, and has never seen the duchess since she came back; and\nMiss Gascoigne let fall something in our talk about charade-acting--for\nI went through some of my nonsense to please the young ones--something\nthat proved to me that Rex was once hovering about his fair cousin\nclose enough to get singed. I don't know what was her part in the\naffair. Perhaps the duke came in and carried her off. That is always\nthe way when an exceptionally worthy young man forms an attachment. I\nunderstand now why Gascoigne talks of making the law his mistress and\nremaining a bachelor. But these are green resolves. Since the duke did\nnot get himself drowned for your sake, it may turn out to be for my\nfriend Rex's sake. Who knows?\"\n\n\"Is it absolutely necessary that Mrs. Grandcourt should marry again?\"\nsaid Deronda, ready to add that Hans's success in constructing her\nfortunes hitherto had not been enough to warrant a new attempt.\n\n\"You monster!\" retorted Hans, \"do you want her to wear weeds for _you_\nall her life--burn herself in perpetual suttee while you are alive and\nmerry?\"\n\nDeronda could say nothing, but he looked so much annoyed that Hans\nturned the current of his chat, and when he was alone shrugged his\nshoulders a little over the thought that there really had been some\nstronger feeling between Deronda and the duchess than Mirah would like\nto know of. \"Why didn't she fall in love with me?\" thought Hans,\nlaughing at himself. \"She would have had no rivals. No woman ever\nwanted to discuss theology with me.\"\n\nNo wonder that Deronda winced under that sort of joking with a\nwhip-lash. It touched sensibilities that were already quivering with\nthe anticipation of witnessing some of that pain to which even Hans's\nlight words seemed to give more reality:--any sort of recognition by\nanother giving emphasis to the subject of our anxiety. And now he had\ncome down with the firm resolve that he would not again evade the\ntrial. The next day he rode to Offendene. He had sent word that he\nintended to call and to ask if Gwendolen could receive him; and he\nfound her awaiting him in the old drawing-room where some chief crises\nof her life had happened. She seemed less sad than he had seen her\nsince her husband's death; there was no smile on her face, but a placid\nself-possession, in contrast with the mood in which he had last found\nher. She was all the more alive to the sadness perceptible in Deronda;\nand they were no sooner seated--he at a little distance opposite to\nher--than she said:\n\n\"You were afraid of coming to see me, because I was so full of grief\nand despair the last time. But I am not so today. I have been sorry\never since. I have been making it a reason why I should keep up my hope\nand be as cheerful as I can, because I would not give you any pain\nabout me.\"\n\nThere was an unwonted sweetness in Gwendolen's tone and look as she\nuttered these words that seemed to Deronda to infuse the utmost cruelty\ninto the task now laid upon him. But he felt obliged to make his answer\na beginning of the task.\n\n\"I _am_ in some trouble to-day,\" he said, looking at her rather\nmournfully; \"but it is because I have things to tell you which you will\nalmost think it a want of confidence on my part not to have spoken of\nbefore. They are things affecting my own life--my own future. I shall\nseem to have made an ill return to you for the trust you have placed in\nme--never to have given you an idea of events that make great changes\nfor me. But when we have been together we have hardly had time to enter\ninto subjects which at the moment were really less pressing to me than\nthe trials you have been going through.\" There was a sort of timid\ntenderness in Deronda's deep tones, and he paused with a pleading look,\nas if it had been Gwendolen only who had conferred anything in her\nscenes of beseeching and confession.\n\nA thrill of surprise was visible in her. Such meaning as she found in\nhis words had shaken her, but without causing fear. Her mind had flown\nat once to some change in his position with regard to Sir Hugo and Sir\nHugo's property. She said, with a sense of comfort from Deronda's way\nof asking her pardon--\n\n\"You never thought of anything but what you could do to help me; and I\nwas so troublesome. How could you tell me things?\"\n\n\"It will perhaps astonish you,\" said Deronda, \"that I have only quite\nlately known who were my parents.\"\n\nGwendolen was not astonished: she felt the more assured that her\nexpectations of what was coming were right. Deronda went on without\ncheck.\n\n\"The reason why you found me in Italy was that I had gone there to\nlearn that--in fact, to meet my mother. It was by her wish that I was\nbrought up in ignorance of my parentage. She parted with me after my\nfather's death, when I was a little creature. But she is now very ill,\nand she felt that the secrecy ought not to be any longer maintained.\nHer chief reason had been that she did not wish me to know I was a Jew.\"\n\n\"_A Jew_!\" Gwendolen exclaimed, in a low tone of amazement, with an\nutterly frustrated look, as if some confusing potion were creeping\nthrough her system.\n\nDeronda colored, and did not speak, while Gwendolen, with her eyes\nfixed on the floor, was struggling to find her way in the dark by the\naid of various reminiscences. She seemed at last to have arrived at\nsome judgment, for she looked up at Deronda again and said, as if\nremonstrating against the mother's conduct--\n\n\"What difference need that have made?\"\n\n\"It has made a great difference to me that I have known it,\" said\nDeronda, emphatically; but he could not go on easily--the distance\nbetween her ideas and his acted like a difference of native language,\nmaking him uncertain what force his words would carry.\n\nGwendolen meditated again, and then said feelingly, \"I hope there is\nnothing to make you mind. _You_ are just the same as if you were not a\nJew.\"\n\nShe meant to assure him that nothing of that external sort could affect\nthe way in which she regarded him, or the way in which he could\ninfluence her. Deronda was a little helped by this misunderstanding.\n\n\"The discovery was far from being painful to me,\" he said, \"I had been\ngradually prepared for it, and I was glad of it. I had been prepared\nfor it by becoming intimate with a very remarkable Jew, whose ideas\nhave attracted me so much that I think of devoting the best part of my\nlife to some effort at giving them effect.\"\n\nAgain Gwendolen seemed shaken--again there was a look of frustration,\nbut this time it was mingled with alarm. She looked at Deronda with\nlips childishly parted. It was not that she had yet connected his words\nwith Mirah and her brother, but that they had inspired her with a\ndreadful presentiment of mountainous travel for her mind before it\ncould reach Deronda's. Great ideas in general which she had attributed\nto him seemed to make no great practical difference, and were not\nformidable in the same way as these mysteriously-shadowed particular\nideas. He could not quite divine what was going on within her; he could\nonly seek the least abrupt path of disclosure.\n\n\"That is an object,\" he said, after a moment, \"which will by-and-by\nforce me to leave England for some time--for some years. I have\npurposes which will take me to the East.\"\n\nHere was something clearer, but all the more immediately agitating.\nGwendolen's lips began to tremble. \"But you will come back?\" she said,\ntasting her own tears as they fell, before she thought of drying them.\n\nDeronda could not sit still. He rose, and went to prop himself against\nthe corner of the mantel-piece, at a different angle from her face. But\nwhen she had pressed her handkerchief against her cheeks, she turned\nand looked up at him, awaiting an answer.\n\n\"If I live,\" said Deronda--\"_some time_.\"\n\nThey were both silent. He could not persuade himself to say more unless\nshe led up to it by a question; and she was apparently meditating\nsomething that she had to say.\n\n\"What are you going to do?\" she asked, at last, very mildly. \"Can I\nunderstand the ideas, or am I too ignorant?\"\n\n\"I am going to the East to become better acquainted with the condition\nof my race in various countries there,\" said Deronda, gently--anxious\nto be as explanatory as he could on what was the impersonal part of\ntheir separateness from each other. \"The idea that I am possessed with\nis that of restoring a political existence to my people, making them a\nnation again, giving them a national center, such as the English have,\nthough they too are scattered over the face of the globe. That is a\ntask which presents itself to me as a duty; I am resolved to begin it,\nhowever feebly. I am resolved to devote my life to it. At the least, I\nmay awaken a movement in other minds, such as has been awakened in my\nown.\"\n\nThere was a long silence between them. The world seemed getting larger\nround poor Gwendolen, and she more solitary and helpless in the midst.\nThe thought that he might come back after going to the East, sank\nbefore the bewildering vision of these wild-stretching purposes in\nwhich she felt herself reduced to a mere speck. There comes a terrible\nmoment to many souls when the great movements of the world, the larger\ndestinies of mankind, which have lain aloof in newspapers and other\nneglected reading, enter like an earthquake into their own lives--where\nthe slow urgency of growing generations turns into the tread of an\ninvading army or the dire clash of civil war, and gray fathers know\nnothing to seek for but the corpses of their blooming sons, and girls\nforget all vanity to make lint and bandages which may serve for the\nshattered limbs of their betrothed husbands. Then it is as if the\nInvisible Power that had been the object of lip-worship and\nlip-resignation became visible, according to the imagery of the Hebrew\npoet, making the flames his chariot, and riding on the wings of the\nwind, till the mountains smoke and the plains shudder under the rolling\nfiery visitations. Often the good cause seems to lie prostrate under\nthe thunder of relenting force, the martyrs live reviled, they die, and\nno angel is seen holding forth the crown and the palm branch. Then it\nis that the submission of the soul to the Highest is tested, and even\nin the eyes of frivolity life looks out from the scene of human\nstruggle with the awful face of duty, and a religion shows itself which\nis something else than a private consolation.\n\nThat was the sort of crisis which was at this moment beginning in\nGwendolen's small life: she was for the first time feeling the pressure\nof a vast mysterious movement, for the first time being dislodged from\nher supremacy in her own world, and getting a sense that her horizon\nwas but a dipping onward of an existence with which her own was\nrevolving. All the troubles of her wifehood and widowhood had still\nleft her with the implicit impression which had accompanied her from\nchildhood, that whatever surrounded her was somehow specially for her,\nand it was because of this that no personal jealousy had been roused in\nher relation to Deronda: she could not spontaneously think of him as\nrightfully belonging to others more than to her. But here had come a\nshock which went deeper than personal jealousy--something spiritual and\nvaguely tremendous that thrust her away, and yet quelled all her anger\ninto self-humiliation.\n\nThere had been a long silence. Deronda had stood still, even thankful\nfor an interval before he needed to say more, and Gwendolen had sat\nlike a statue with her wrists lying over each other and her eyes\nfixed--the intensity of her mental action arresting all other\nexcitation. At length something occurred to her that made her turn her\nface to Deronda and say in a trembling voice--\n\n\"Is that all you can tell me?\"\n\nThe question was like a dart to him. \"The Jew whom I mentioned just\nnow,\" he answered, not without a certain tremor in his tones too, \"the\nremarkable man who has greatly influenced my mind, has not perhaps been\ntotally unheard of by you. He is the brother of Miss Lapidoth, whom you\nhave often heard sing.\"\n\nA great wave of remembrance passed through Gwendolen and spread as a\ndeep, painful flush over neck and face. It had come first at the scene\nof that morning when she had called on Mirah, and heard Deronda's voice\nreading, and been told, without then heeding it, that he was reading\nHebrew with Mirah's brother.\n\n\"He is very ill--very near death now,\" Deronda went on, nervously, and\nthen stopped short. He felt that he must wait. Would she divine the\nrest?\n\n\"Did she tell you that I went to her?\" said Gwendolen, abruptly,\nlooking up at him.\n\n\"No,\" said Deronda. \"I don't understand you.\"\n\nShe turned away her eyes again, and sat thinking. Slowly the color\ndried out of face and neck, and she was as pale as before--with that\nalmost withered paleness which is seen after a painful flush. At last\nshe said--without turning toward him--in a low, measured voice, as if\nshe were only thinking aloud in preparation for future speech--\n\n\"But _can_ you marry?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" said Deronda, also in a low voice. \"I am going to marry.\"\n\nAt first there was no change in Gwendolen's attitude: she only began to\ntremble visibly; then she looked before her with dilated eyes, as at\nsomething lying in front of her, till she stretched her arms out\nstraight, and cried with a smothered voice--\n\n\"I said I should be forsaken. I have been a cruel woman. And I am\nforsaken.\"\n\nDeronda's anguish was intolerable. He could not help himself. He seized\nher outstretched hands and held them together, and kneeled at her feet.\nShe was the victim of his happiness.\n\n\"I am cruel, too, I am cruel,\" he repeated, with a sort of groan,\nlooking up at her imploringly.\n\nHis presence and touch seemed to dispel a horrible vision, and she met\nhis upward look of sorrow with something like the return of\nconsciousness after fainting. Then she dwelt on it with that growing\npathetic movement of the brow which accompanies the revival of some\ntender recollection. The look of sorrow brought back what seemed a very\nfar-off moment--the first time she had ever seen it, in the library at\nthe Abbey. Sobs rose, and great tears fell fast. Deronda would not let\nher hands go--held them still with one of his, and himself pressed her\nhandkerchief against her eyes. She submitted like a half-soothed child,\nmaking an effort to speak, which was hindered by struggling sobs. At\nlast she succeeded in saying, brokenly--\n\n\"I said--I said--it should be better--better with me--for having known\nyou.\"\n\nHis eyes too were larger with tears. She wrested one of her hands from\nhis, and returned his action, pressing his tears away.\n\n\"We shall not be quite parted,\" he said. \"I will write to you always,\nwhen I can, and you will answer?\"\n\nHe waited till she said in a whisper, \"I will try.\"\n\n\"I shall be more with you than I used to be,\" Deronda said with gentle\nurgency, releasing her hands and rising from his kneeling posture. \"If\nwe had been much together before, we should have felt our differences\nmore, and seemed to get farther apart. Now we can perhaps never see\neach other again. But our minds may get nearer.\"\n\nGwendolen said nothing, but rose too, automatically. Her withered look\nof grief, such as the sun often shines on when the blinds are drawn up\nafter the burial of life's joy, made him hate his own words: they\nseemed to have the hardness of easy consolation in them. She felt that\nhe was going, and that nothing could hinder it. The sense of it was\nlike a dreadful whisper in her ear, which dulled all other\nconsciousness; and she had not known that she was rising.\n\nDeronda could not speak again. He thought that they must part in\nsilence, but it was difficult to move toward the parting, till she\nlooked at him with a sort of intention in her eyes, which helped him.\nHe advanced to put out his hand silently, and when she had placed hers\nwithin it, she said what her mind had been laboring with--\n\n\"You have been very good to me. I have deserved nothing. I will\ntry--try to live. I shall think of you. What good have I been? Only\nharm. Don't let me be harm to _you_. It shall be the better for me--\"\n\nShe could not finish. It was not that she was sobbing, but that the\nintense effort with which she spoke made her too tremulous. The burden\nof that difficult rectitude toward him was a weight her frame tottered\nunder.\n\nShe bent forward to kiss his cheek, and he kissed hers. Then they\nlooked at each other for an instant with clasped hands, and he turned\naway.\n\nWhen he was quite gone, her mother came in and found her sitting\nmotionless.\n\n\"Gwendolen, dearest, you look very ill,\" she said, bending over her and\ntouching her cold hands.\n\n\"Yes, mamma. But don't be afraid. I am going to live,\" said Gwendolen,\nbursting out hysterically.\n\nHer mother persuaded her to go to bed, and watched by her. Through the\nday and half the night she fell continually into fits of shrieking, but\ncried in the midst of them to her mother, \"Don't be afraid. I shall\nlive. I mean to live.\"\n\nAfter all, she slept; and when she waked in the morning light, she\nlooked up fixedly at her mother and said tenderly, \"Ah, poor mamma! You\nhave been sitting up with me. Don't be unhappy. I shall live. I shall\nbe better.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER LXX.\n\n    In the checkered area of human experience the seasons are all mingled\n    as in the golden age: fruit and blossom hang together; in the same\n    moment the sickle is reaping and the seed is sprinkled; one tends the\n    green cluster and another treads the winepress. Nay, in each of our\n    lives harvest and spring-time are continually one, until himself\n    gathers us and sows us anew in his invisible fields.\n\n\nAmong the blessings of love there is hardly one more exquisite than the\nsense that in uniting the beloved life to ours we can watch over its\nhappiness, bring comfort where hardship was, and over memories of\nprivation and suffering open the sweetest fountains of joy. Deronda's\nlove for Mirah was strongly imbued with that blessed protectiveness.\nEven with infantine feet she had begun to tread among thorns; and the\nfirst time he had beheld her face it had seemed to him the girlish\nimage of despair.\n\nBut now she was glowing like a dark-tipped yet delicate ivory-tinted\nflower in the warm sunlight of content, thinking of any possible grief\nas part of that life with Deronda, which she could call by no other\nname than good. And he watched the sober gladness which gave new beauty\nto her movements; and her habitual attitudes of repose, with a delight\nwhich made him say to himself that it was enough of personal joy for\nhim to save her from pain. She knew nothing of Hans's struggle or of\nGwendolen's pang; for after the assurance that Deronda's hidden love\nhad been for her, she easily explained Gwendolen's eager solicitude\nabout him as part of a grateful dependence on his goodness, such as she\nherself had known. And all Deronda's words about Mrs. Grandcourt\nconfirmed that view of their relation, though he never touched on it\nexcept in the most distant manner. Mirah was ready to believe that he\nhad been a rescuing angel to many besides herself. The only wonder was,\nthat she among them all was to have the bliss of being continually by\nhis side.\n\nSo, when the bridal veil was around Mirah it hid no doubtful\ntremors--only a thrill of awe at the acceptance of a great gift which\nrequired great uses. And the velvet canopy never covered a more goodly\nbride and bridegroom, to whom their people might more wisely wish\noffspring; more truthful lips never touched the sacrament\nmarriage-wine; the marriage-blessing never gathered stronger promise of\nfulfillment than in the integrity of their mutual pledge. Naturally,\nthey were married according to the Jewish rite. And since no religion\nseems yet to have demanded that when we make a feast we should invite\nonly the highest rank of our acquaintances, few, it is to be hoped,\nwill be offended to learn that among the guests at Deronda's little\nwedding-feast was the entire Cohen family, with the one exception of\nthe baby who carried on her teething intelligently at home. How could\nMordecai have borne that those friends of his adversity should have\nbeen shut out from rejoicing in common with him?\n\nMrs. Meyrick so fully understood this that she had quite reconciled\nherself to meeting the Jewish pawnbroker, and was there with her three\ndaughters--all of them enjoying the consciousness that Mirah's marriage\nto Deronda crowned a romance which would always make a sweet memory to\nthem. For which of them, mother or girls, had not had a generous part\nin it--giving their best in feeling and in act to her who needed? If\nHans could have been there, it would have been better; but Mab had\nalready observed that men must suffer for being so inconvenient;\nsuppose she, Kate, and Amy had all fallen in love with Mr.\nDeronda?--but being women they were not so ridiculous.\n\nThe Meyricks were rewarded for conquering their prejudices by hearing a\nspeech from Mr. Cohen, which had the rare quality among speeches of not\nbeing quite after the usual pattern. Jacob ate beyond his years, and\ncontributed several small whinnying laughs as a free accompaniment of\nhis father's speech, not irreverently, but from a lively sense that his\nfamily was distinguishing itself; while Adelaide Rebekah, in a new\nSabbath frock, maintained throughout a grave air of responsibility.\n\nMordecai's brilliant eyes, sunken in their large sockets, dwelt on the\nscene with the cherishing benignancy of a spirit already lifted into an\naloofness which nullified only selfish requirements and left sympathy\nalive. But continually, after his gaze had been traveling round on the\nothers, it returned to dwell on Deronda with a fresh gleam of trusting\naffection.\n\nThe wedding-feast was humble, but Mirah was not without splendid\nwedding-gifts. As soon as the betrothal had been known, there were\nfriends who had entertained graceful devices. Sir Hugo and Lady\nMallinger had taken trouble to provide a complete equipment for Eastern\ntravel, as well as a precious locket containing an inscription--\"_To\nthe bride of our dear Daniel Deronda all blessings. H. and L. M._\" The\nKlesmers sent a perfect watch, also with a pretty inscription.\n\nBut something more precious than gold and gems came to Deronda from the\nneighborhood of Diplow on the morning of his marriage. It was a letter\ncontaining these words:--\n\n    Do not think of me sorrowfully on your wedding-day. I have remembered\n    your words--that I may live to be one of the best of women, who\n    make others glad that they were born. I do not yet see how that can\n    be, but you know better than I. If it ever comes true, it will be\n    because you helped me. I only thought of myself, and I made you\n    grieve. It hurts me now to think of your grief. You must not grieve\n    any more for me. It is better--it shall be better with me because I\n    have known you.\n\n    GWENDOLEN GRANDCOURT.\n\nThe preparations for the departure of all three to the East began at\nonce; for Deronda could not deny Ezra's wish that they should set out\non the voyage forthwith, so that he might go with them, instead of\ndetaining them to watch over him. He had no belief that Ezra's life\nwould last through the voyage, for there were symptoms which seemed to\nshow that the last stage of his malady had set in. But Ezra himself had\nsaid, \"Never mind where I die, so that I am with you.\"\n\nHe did not set out with them. One morning early he said to Deronda, \"Do\nnot quit me to-day. I shall die before it is ended.\"\n\nHe chose to be dressed and sit up in his easy chair as usual, Deronda\nand Mirah on each side of him, and for some hours he was unusually\nsilent, not even making the effort to speak, but looking at them\noccasionally with eyes full of some restful meaning, as if to assure\nthem that while this remnant of breathing-time was difficult, he felt\nan ocean of peace beneath him.\n\nIt was not till late in the afternoon, when the light was falling, that\nhe took a hand of each in his and said, looking at Deronda, \"Death is\ncoming to me as the divine kiss which is both parting and\nreunion--which takes me from your bodily eyes and gives me full\npresence in your soul. Where thou goest, Daniel, I shall go. Is it not\nbegun? Have I not breathed my soul into you? We shall live together.\"\n\nHe paused, and Deronda waited, thinking that there might be another\nword for him. But slowly and with effort Ezra, pressing on their hands,\nraised himself and uttered in Hebrew the confession of the divine\nUnity, which long for generations has been on the lips of the dying\nIsraelite.\n\nHe sank back gently into his chair, and did not speak again. But it was\nsome hours before he had ceased to breathe, with Mirah's and Deronda's\narms around him.\n\n  \"Nothing is here for tears, nothing to wail\n  Or knock the breast; no weakness, no contempt,\n  Dispraise or blame; nothing but well and fair,\n  And what may quiet us in a death so noble.\""