CHAPTER XLVIII.

'Tis hard and ill-paid task to order all things beforehand by the rule
of our own security, as is well hinted by Machiavelli concerning
Caesar Borgia, who, saith he, had thought of all that might occur on
his father's death, and had provided against every evil chance save
only one: it had never come into his mind that when his father died,
his own death would quickly follow.


Grandcourt's importance as a subject of this realm was of the grandly
passive kind which consists in the inheritance of land. Political and
social movements touched him only through the wire of his rental, and his
most careful biographer need not have read up on Schleswig-Holstein, the
policy of Bismarck, trade-unions, household suffrage, or even the last
commercial panic. He glanced over the best newspaper columns on these
topics, and his views on them can hardly be said to have wanted breadth,
since he embraced all Germans, all commercial men, and all voters liable
to use the wrong kind of soap, under the general epithet of "brutes;" but
he took no action on these much-agitated questions beyond looking from
under his eyelids at any man who mentioned them, and retaining a silence
which served to shake the opinions of timid thinkers.

But Grandcourt, within his own sphere of interest, showed some of the
qualities which have entered into triumphal diplomacy of the wildest
continental sort.

No movement of Gwendolen in relation to Deronda escaped him. He would have
denied that he was jealous; because jealousy would have implied some doubt
of his own power to hinder what he had determined against. That his wife
should have more inclination to another man's society than to his own
would not pain him: what he required was that she should be as fully aware
as she would have been of a locked hand-cuff, that her inclination was
helpless to decide anything in contradiction with his resolve. However
much of vacillating whim there might have been in his entrance on
matrimony, there was no vacillating in his interpretation of the bond. He
had not repented of his marriage; it had really brought more of aim into
his life, new objects to exert his will upon; and he had not repented of
his choice. His taste was fastidious, and Gwendolen satisfied it: he would
not have liked a wife who had not received some elevation of rank from
him; nor one who did not command admiration by her mien and beauty; nor
one whose nails were not of the right shape; nor one the lobe of whose ear
was at all too large and red; nor one who, even if her nails and ears were
right, was at the same time a ninny, unable to make spirited answers.
These requirements may not seem too exacting to refined contemporaries
whose own ability to fall in love has been held in suspense for lack of
indispensable details; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment
that his wife should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if
she dared, and that she should have been urged into marrying him by other
feelings than passionate attachment. Still, for those who prefer command
to love, one does not see why the habit of mind should change precisely at
the point of matrimony.

Grandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having
taken on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be
fooled, or allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded as
pitiable. This was his state of mind--not jealousy; still, his behavior in
some respects was as like jealousy as yellow is to yellow, which color we
know may be the effect of very different causes.

He had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on the
spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the
transference of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about the
succession to Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly dangled
without importunity, had finally won him to agree upon. But another
acceptable accompaniment of his being in town was the presentation of
himself with the beautiful bride whom he had chosen to marry in spite of
what other people might have expected of him. It is true that Grandcourt
went about with the sense that he did not care a languid curse for any
one's admiration: but this state of not-caring, just as much as desire,
required its related object--namely, a world of admiring or envying
spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily at smiling persons--the
persons must be and they must smile--a rudimentary truth which is surely
forgotten by those who complain of mankind as generally contemptible,
since any other aspect of the race must disappoint the voracity of their
contempt. Grandcourt, in town for the first time with his wife, had his
non-caring abstinence from curses enlarged and diversified by splendid
receptions, by conspicuous rides and drives, by presentations of himself
with her on all distinguished occasions. He wished her to be sought after;
he liked that "fellows" should be eager to talk with her and escort her
within his observation; there was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her
part that he would not have objected to. But what he did not like were her
ways in relation to Deronda.

After the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, when Grandcourt had observed
the dialogue on the settee as keenly as Hans had done, it was
characteristic of him that he named Deronda for invitation along with the
Mallinger's, tenaciously avoiding the possible suggestion to anybody
concerned that Deronda's presence or absence could be of the least
importance to him; and he made no direct observation to Gwendolen on her
behavior that evening, lest the expression of his disgust should be a
little too strong to satisfy his own pride. But a few days afterward he
remarked, without being careful of the _a propos_--

"Nothing makes a woman more of a gawky than looking out after people and
showing tempers in public. A woman ought to have good manners. Else it's
intolerable to appear with her."

Gwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at the
notion of being a gawky. For she, too, with her melancholy distaste for
things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. But the sense
of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of expectation toward
any meeting with Deronda. The novelty and excitement of her town life was
like the hurry and constant change of foreign travel; whatever might be
the inward despondency, there was a programme to be fulfilled, not without
gratification to many-sided self. But, as always happens with a deep
interest, the comparatively rare occasions on which she could exchange any
words with Deronda had a diffusive effect in her consciousness, magnifying
their communication with each other, and therefore enlarging the place she
imagined it to have in his mind. How could Deronda help this? He certainly
did not avoid her; rather he wished to convince her by every delicate
indirect means that her confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it
had not lowered his respect. Moreover he liked being near her--how could
it be otherwise? She was something more than a problem: she was a lovely
woman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however
futile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps all
the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it lying
far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he had once
been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might have seized
her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where there was danger,
had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need.

One instance in which Grandcourt stimulated a feeling in Gwendolen that he
would have liked to suppress without seeming to care about it, had
relation to Mirah. Gwendolen's inclination lingered over the project of
the singing lessons as a sort of obedience to Deronda's advice, but day
followed day with that want of perceived leisure which belongs to lives
where there is no work to mark off intervals; and the continual liability
to Grandcourt's presence and surveillance seemed to flatten every effort
to the level of the boredom which his manner expressed; his negative mind
was as diffusive as fog, clinging to all objects, and spoiling all
contact.

But one morning when they were breakfasting, Gwendolen, in a recurrent fit
of determination to exercise the old spirit, said, dallying prettily over
her prawns without eating them--

"I think of making myself accomplished while we are in town, and having
singing lessons."

"Why?" said Grandcourt, languidly.

"Why?" echoed Gwendolen, playing at sauciness; "because I can't eat _pate
de foie gras_ to make me sleepy, and I can't smoke, and I can't go to the
club to make me like to come away again--I want a variety of _ennui_. What
would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with your lawyers and
people, for me to have lessons from that little Jewess, whose singing is
getting all the rage."

"Whenever you like," said Grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and leaning
back in his chair while he looked at her with his most lizard-like
expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on his lap
(Gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned on him).

Then he said, languidly, "I don't see why a lady should sing. Amateurs
make fools of themselves. A lady can't risk herself in that way in
company. And one doesn't want to hear squalling in private."

"I like frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm," said
Gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned her
eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the boiled
ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. "But;" she added,
having devoured her mortification, "I suppose you don't object to Miss
Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought of engaging her.
Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds, who are very
particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a musician himself
and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in such good taste as
hers for a drawing-room. I think his opinion is an authority."

She meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way.

"It's very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl," said
Grandcourt in a tone of indifference.

"Indecent!" exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again,
overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable falsity
of the phrase--"to go about praising."

"Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought to
hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her."

"Men who judge of others by themselves," said Gwendolen, turning white
after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own words.

"Of course. And a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely to
run her head into the wrong place," said Grandcourt, conscious of using
pinchers on that white creature. "I suppose you take Deronda for a saint."

"Oh dear no?" said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost miraculous
power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone. "Only a little
less of a monster."

She rose, pushed her chair away without hurry, and walked out of the room
with something like the care of a man who is afraid of showing that he has
taken more wine than usual. She turned the keys inside her dressing-room
doors, and sat down for some time looking pale and quiet as when she was
leaving the breakfast-room. Even in the moments after reading the
poisonous letter she had hardly had more cruel sensations than now; for
emotion was at the acute point, where it is not distinguishable from
sensation. Deronda unlike what she had believed him to be, was an image
which affected her as a hideous apparition would have done, quite apart
from the way in which it was produced. It had taken hold of her as pain
before she could consider whether it were fiction or truth; and further to
hinder her power of resistance came the sudden perception, how very slight
were the grounds of her faith in Deronda--how little she knew of his life
--how childish she had been in her confidence. His rebukes and his
severity to her began to seem odious, along with all the poetry and lofty
doctrine in the world, whatever it might be; and the grave beauty of his
face seemed the most unpleasant mask that the common habits of men could
put on.

All this went on in her with the rapidity of a sick dream; and her start
into resistance was very much like a waking. Suddenly from out the gray
sombre morning there came a stream of sunshine, wrapping her in warmth and
light where she sat in stony stillness. She moved gently and looked round
her--there was a world outside this bad dream, and the dream proved
nothing; she rose, stretching her arms upward and clasping her hands with
her habitual attitude when she was seeking relief from oppressive feeling,
and walked about the room in this flood of sunbeams.

"It is not true! What does it matter whether _he_ believes it or not?"
This is what she repeated to herself--but this was not her faith come back
again; it was only the desperate cry of faith, finding suffocation
intolerable. And how could she go on through the day in this state? With
one of her impetuous alternations, her imagination flew to wild actions by
which she would convince herself of what she wished: she would go to Lady
Mallinger and question her about Mirah; she would write to Deronda and
upbraid him with making the world all false and wicked and hopeless to
her--to him she dared pour out all the bitter indignation of her heart.
No; she would go to Mirah. This last form taken by her need was more
definitely practicable, and quickly became imperious. No matter what came
of it. She had the pretext of asking Mirah to sing at her party on the
fourth. What was she going to say beside? How satisfy? She did not
foresee--she could not wait to foresee. If that idea which was maddening
her had been a living thing, she would have wanted to throttle it without
waiting to foresee what would come of the act. She rang her bell and asked
if Mr. Grandcourt were gone out: finding that he was, she ordered the
carriage, and began to dress for the drive; then she went down, and walked
about the large drawing-room like an imprisoned dumb creature, not
recognizing herself in the glass panels, not noting any object around her
in the painted gilded prison. Her husband would probably find out where
she had been, and punish her in some way or other--no matter--she could
neither desire nor fear anything just now but the assurance that she had
not been deluding herself in her trust.

She was provided with Mirah's address. Soon she was on the way with all
the fine equipage necessary to carry about her poor uneasy heart,
depending in its palpitations on some answer or other to questioning which
she did not know how she should put. She was as heedless of what happened
before she found that Miss Lapidoth was at home, as one is of lobbies and
passages on the way to a court of justice--heedless of everything till she
was in a room where there were folding-doors, and she heard Deronda's
voice behind it. Doubtless the identification was helped by forecast, but
she was as certain of it as if she had seen him. She was frightened at her
own agitation, and began to unbutton her gloves that she might button them
again, and bite her lips over the pretended difficulty, while the door
opened, and Mirah presented herself with perfect quietude and a sweet
smile of recognition. There was relief in the sight of her face, and
Gwendolen was able to smile in return, while she put out her hand in
silence; and as she seated herself, all the while hearing the voice, she
felt some reflux of energy in the confused sense that the truth could not
be anything that she dreaded. Mirah drew her chair very near, as if she
felt that the sound of the conversation should be subdued, and looked at
her visitor with placid expectation, while Gwendolen began in a low tone,
with something that seemed like bashfulness--

"Perhaps you wonder to see me--perhaps I ought to have written--but I
wished to make a particular request."

"I am glad to see you instead of having a letter," said Mirah, wondering
at the changed expression and manner of the "Vandyke duchess," as Hans had
taught her to call Gwendolen. The rich color and the calmness of her own
face were in strong contrast with the pale agitated beauty under the
plumed hat.

"I thought," Gwendolen went on--"at least I hoped, you would not object to
sing at our house on the 4th--in the evening--at a party like Lady
Brackenshaw's. I should be so much obliged."

"I shall be very happy to sing for you. At ten?" said Mirah, while
Gwendolen seemed to get more instead of less embarrassed.

"At ten, please," she answered; then paused, and felt that she had nothing
more to say. She could not go. It was impossible to rise and say good-bye.
Deronda's voice was in her ears. She must say it--she could contrive no
other sentence--

"Mr. Deronda is in the next room."

"Yes," said Mirah, in her former tone. "He is reading Hebrew with my
brother."

"You have a brother?" said Gwendolen, who had heard this from Lady
Mallinger, but had not minded it then.

"Yes, a dear brother who is ill-consumptive, and Mr. Deronda is the best
of friends to him, as he has been to me," said Mirah, with the impulse
that will not let us pass the mention of a precious person indifferently.

"Tell me," said Gwendolen, putting her hand on Mirah's, and speaking
hardly above a whisper--"tell me--tell me the truth. You are sure he is
quite good. You know no evil of him. Any evil that people say of him is
false."

Could the proud-spirited woman have behaved more like a child? But the
strange words penetrated Mirah with nothing but a sense of solemnity and
indignation. With a sudden light in her eyes and a tremor in her voice,
she said--

"Who are the people that say evil of him? I would not believe any evil of
him, if an angel came to tell it me. He found me when I was so miserable--
I was going to drown myself; I looked so poor and forsaken; you would have
thought I was a beggar by the wayside. And he treated me as if I had been
a king's daughter. He took me to the best of women. He found my brother
for me. And he honors my brother--though he too was poor--oh, almost as
poor as he could be. And my brother honors him. That is no light thing to
say"--here Mirah's tone changed to one of profound emphasis, and she shook
her head backward: "for my brother is very learned and great-minded. And
Mr. Deronda says there are few men equal to him." Some Jewish defiance had
flamed into her indignant gratitude and her anger could not help including
Gwendolen since she seemed to have doubted Deronda's goodness.

But Gwendolen was like one parched with thirst, drinking the fresh water
that spreads through the frame as a sufficient bliss. She did not notice
that Mirah was angry with her; she was not distinctly conscious of
anything but of the penetrating sense that Deronda and his life were no
more like her husband's conception than the morning in the horizon was
like the morning mixed with street gas. Even Mirah's words sank into the
indefiniteness of her relief. She could hardly have repeated them, or said
how her whole state of feeling was changed. She pressed Mirah's hand, and
said, "Thank you, thank you," in a hurried whisper, then rose, and added,
with only a hazy consciousness, "I must go, I shall see you--on the
fourth--I am so much obliged"--bowing herself out automatically, while
Mirah, opening the door for her, wondered at what seemed a sudden retreat
into chill loftiness.

Gwendolen, indeed, had no feeling to spare in any effusiveness toward the
creature who had brought her relief. The passionate need of contradiction
to Grandcourt's estimate of Deronda, a need which had blunted her
sensibility to everything else, was no sooner satisfied than she wanted to
be gone. She began to be aware that she was out of place, and to dread
Deronda's seeing her. And once in the carriage again, she had the vision
of what awaited her at home. When she drew up before the door in Grosvenor
Square, her husband was arriving with a cigar between his fingers. He
threw it away and handed her out, accompanying her up-stairs. She turned
into the drawing-room, lest he should follow her farther and give her no
place to retreat to; then she sat down with a weary air, taking off her
gloves, rubbing her hand over her forehead, and making his presence as
much of a cipher as possible. But he sat, too, and not far from her--just
in front, where to avoid looking at him must have the emphasis of effort.

"May I ask where you have been at this extraordinary hour?" said
Grandcourt.

"Oh, yes; I have been to Miss Lapidoth's, to ask her to come and sing for
us," said Gwendolen, laying her gloves on the little table beside her, and
looking down at them.

"And to ask her about her relations with Deronda?" said Grandcourt, with
the coldest possible sneer in his low voice which in poor Gwendolen's ear
was diabolical.

For the first time since their marriage she flashed out upon him without
inward check. Turning her eyes full on his she said, in a biting tone--

"Yes; and what you said is false--a low, wicked falsehood."

"She told you so--did she?" returned Grandcourt, with a more thoroughly
distilled sneer.

Gwendolen was mute. The daring anger within her was turned into the rage
of dumbness. What reasons for her belief could she give? All the reasons
that seemed so strong and living within her--she saw them suffocated and
shrivelled up under her husband's breath. There was no proof to give, but
her own impression, which would seem to him her own folly. She turned her
head quickly away from him and looked angrily toward the end of the room:
she would have risen, but he was in her way.

Grandcourt saw his advantage. "It's of no consequence so far as her
singing goes," he said, in his superficial drawl. "You can have her to
sing, if you like." Then, after a pause, he added in his lowest imperious
tone, "But you will please to observe that you are not to go near that
house again. As my wife, you must take my word about what is proper for
you. When you undertook to be Mrs. Grandcourt, you undertook not to make a
fool of yourself. You have been making a fool of yourself this morning;
and if you were to go on as you have begun, you might soon get yourself
talked of at the clubs in a way you would not like. What do _you_ know
about the world? You have married _me_, and must be guided by my opinion."

Every slow sentence of that speech had a terrific mastery in it for
Gwendolen's nature. If the low tones had come from a physician telling her
that her symptoms were those of a fatal disease, and prognosticating its
course, she could not have been more helpless against the argument that
lay in it. But she was permitted to move now, and her husband never again
made any reference to what had occurred this morning. He knew the force of
his own words. If this white-handed man with the perpendicular profile had
been sent to govern a difficult colony, he might have won reputation among
his contemporaries. He had certainly ability, would have understood that
it was safer to exterminate than to cajole superseded proprietors, and
would not have flinched from making things safe in that way.

Gwendolen did not, for all this, part with her recovered faith;--rather,
she kept it with a more anxious tenacity, as a Protestant of old kept his
bible hidden or a Catholic his crucifix, according to the side favored by
the civil arm; and it was characteristic of her that apart from the
impression gained concerning Deronda in that visit, her imagination was
little occupied with Mirah or the eulogised brother. The one result
established for her was, that Deronda had acted simply as a generous
benefactor, and the phrase "reading Hebrew" had fleeted unimpressively
across her sense of hearing, as a stray stork might have made its peculiar
flight across her landscape without rousing any surprised reflection on
its natural history.

But the issue of that visit, as it regarded her husband, took a strongly
active part in the process which made an habitual conflict within her, and
was the cause of some external change perhaps not observed by any one
except Deronda. As the weeks went on bringing occasional transient
interviews with her, he thought that he perceived in her an intensifying
of her superficial hardness and resolute display, which made her abrupt
betrayals of agitation the more marked and disturbing to him.

In fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory which,
as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with a terrible
strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. Grandcourt
had an active divination rather than discernment of refractoriness in her,
and what had happened about Mirah quickened his suspicion that there was
an increase of it dependent on the occasions when she happened to see
Deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them: he did not
imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches
was rather restricted; but it was nonsense that evidently kept up a kind
of simmering in her mind--an inward action which might become disagreeable
outward. Husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a
threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first
indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a
nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in
Gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required
him peremptorily to check. Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and
was less ably calculated than the speeches we have just heard.

He determined that she should know the main purport of the will he was
making, but he could not communicate this himself, because it involved the
fact of his relation to Mrs. Glasher and her children; and that there
should be any overt recognition of this between Gwendolen and himself was
supremely repugnant to him. Like all proud, closely-wrapped natures, he
shrank from explicitness and detail, even on trivialities, if they were
personal: a valet must maintain a strict reserve with him on the subject
of shoes and stockings. And clashing was intolerable to him; his habitual
want was to put collision out of the question by the quiet massive
pressure of his rule. But he wished Gwendolen to know that before he made
her an offer it was no secret to him that she was aware of his relations
with Lydia, her previous knowledge being the apology for bringing the
subject before her now. Some men in his place might have thought of
writing what he wanted her to know, in the form of a letter. But
Grandcourt hated writing: even writing a note was a bore to him, and he
had long been accustomed to have all his writing done by Lush. We know
that there are persons who will forego their own obvious interest rather
than do anything so disagreeable as to write letters; and it is not
probable that these imperfect utilitarians would rush into manuscript and
syntax on a difficult subject in order to save another's feelings. To
Grandcourt it did not even occur that he should, would, or could write to
Gwendolen the information in question; and the only medium of
communication he could use was Lush, who, to his mind, was as much of an
implement as pen and paper. But here too Grandcourt had his reserves, and
would not have uttered a word likely to encourage Lush in an impudent
sympathy with any supposed grievance in a marriage which had been
discommended by him. Who that has a confidant escapes believing too little
in his penetration, and too much in his discretion? Grandcourt had always
allowed Lush to know his external affairs indiscriminately--
irregularities, debts, want of ready money; he had only used
discrimination about what he would allow his confidant to say to him; and
he had been so accustomed to this human tool, that the having him at call
in London was a recovery of lost ease. It followed that Lush knew all the
provisions of the will more exactly than they were known to the testator
himself.

Grandcourt did not doubt that Gwendolen, since she was a woman who could
put two and two together, knew or suspected Lush to be the contriver of
her interview with Lydia, and that this was the reason why her first
request was for his banishment. But the bent of a woman's inferences on
mixed subjects which excites mixed passions is not determined by her
capacity for simple addition; and here Grandcourt lacked the only organ of
thinking that could have saved him from mistake--namely, some experience
of the mixed passions concerned. He had correctly divined one-half of
Gwendolen's dread--all that related to her personal pride, and her
perception that his will must conquer hers; but the remorseful half, even
if he had known of her broken promise, was as much out of his imagination
as the other side of the moon. What he believed her to feel about Lydia
was solely a tongue-tied jealousy, and what he believed Lydia to have
written with the jewels was the fact that she had once been used to
wearing them, with other amenities such as he imputed to the intercourse
with jealous women. He had the triumphant certainty that he could
aggravate the jealousy and yet smite it with a more absolute dumbness. His
object was to engage all his wife's egoism on the same side as his own,
and in his employment of Lush he did not intend an insult to her: she
ought to understand that he was the only possible envoy. Grandcourt's view
of things was considerably fenced in by his general sense, that what
suited him others must put up with. There is no escaping the fact that
want of sympathy condemns us to corresponding stupidity. Mephistopheles
thrown upon real life, and obliged to manage his own plots, would
inevitably make blunders.

One morning he went to Gwendolen in the boudoir beyond the back drawing-
room, hat and gloves in hand, and said with his best-tempered, most
persuasive drawl, standing before her and looking down on her as she sat
with a book on her lap--

"A--Gwendolen, there's some business about property to be explained. I
have told Lush to come and explain it to you. He knows all about these
things. I am going out. He can come up now. He's the only person who can
explain. I suppose you'll not mind."

"You know that I do mind," said Gwendolen, angrily, starting up. "I shall
not see him." She showed the intention to dart away to the door.
Grandcourt was before her, with his back toward it. He was prepared for
her anger, and showed none in return, saying, with the same sort of
remonstrant tone that he might have used about an objection to dining
out--

"It's no use making a fuss. There are plenty of brutes in the world that
one has to talk to. People with any _savoir vivre_ don't make a fuss about
such things. Some business must be done. You can't expect agreeable people
to do it. If I employ Lush, the proper thing for you is to take it as a
matter of course. Not to make a fuss about it. Not to toss your head and
bite your lips about people of that sort."

The drawling and the pauses with which this speech was uttered gave time
for crowding reflections in Gwendolen, quelling her resistance. What was
there to be told her about property? This word had certain dominant
associations for her, first with her mother, then with Mrs. Glasher and
her children. What would be the use if she refused to see Lush? Could she
ask Grandcourt to tell her himself? That might be intolerable, even if he
consented, which it was certain he would not, if he had made up his mind
to the contrary. The humiliation of standing an obvious prisoner, with her
husband barring the door, was not to be borne any longer, and she turned
away to lean against a cabinet, while Grandcourt again moved toward her.

"I have arranged for Lush to come up now, while I am out," he said, after
a long organ stop, during which Gwendolen made no sign. "Shall I tell him
he may come?"

Yet another pause before she could say "Yes"--her face turned obliquely
and her eyes cast down.

"I shall come back in time to ride, if you like to get ready," said
Grandcourt. No answer. "She is in a desperate rage," thought he. But the
rage was silent, and therefore not disagreeable to him. It followed that
he turned her chin and kissed her, while she still kept her eyelids down,
and she did not move them until he was on the other side of the door.

What was she to do? Search where she would in her consciousness, she found
no plea to justify a plaint. Any romantic allusions she had had in
marrying this man had turned on her power of using him as she liked. He
was using her as he liked.

She sat awaiting the announcement of Lush as a sort of searing operation
that she had to go through. The facts that galled her gathered a burning
power when she thought of their lying in his mind. It was all a part of
that new gambling, in which the losing was not simply a _minus_, but a
terrible _plus_ that had never entered into her reckoning.

Lush was neither quite pleased nor quite displeased with his task.
Grandcourt had said to him by way of conclusion, "Don't make yourself more
disagreeable than nature obliges you."

"That depends," thought Lush. But he said, "I will write a brief abstract
for Mrs. Grandcourt to read." He did not suggest that he should make the
whole communication in writing, which was a proof that the interview did
not wholly displease him.

Some provision was being made for himself in the will, and he had no
reason to be in a bad humor, even if a bad humor had been common with him.
He was perfectly convinced that he had penetrated all the secrets of the
situation; but he had no diabolical delight in it. He had only the small
movements of gratified self-loving resentment in discerning that this
marriage had fulfilled his own foresight in not being as satisfactory as
the supercilious young lady had expected it to be, and as Grandcourt
wished to feign that it was. He had no persistent spite much stronger than
what gives the seasoning of ordinary scandal to those who repeat it and
exaggerate it by their conjectures. With no active compassion or good-
will, he had just as little active malevolence, being chiefly occupied in
liking his particular pleasures, and not disliking anything but what
hindered those pleasures--everything else ranking with the last murder and
the last _opera bouffe_, under the head of things to talk about.
Nevertheless, he was not indifferent to the prospect of being treated
uncivilly by a beautiful woman, or to the counter-balancing fact that his
present commission put into his hands an official power of humiliating
her. He did not mean to use it needlessly; but there are some persons so
gifted in relation to us that their "How do you do?" seems charged with
offense.

By the time that Mr. Lush was announced, Gwendolen had braced herself to a
bitter resolve that he should not witness the slightest betrayal of her
feeling, whatever he might have to tell. She invited him to sit down with
stately quietude. After all, what was this man to her? He was not in the
least like her husband. Her power of hating a coarse, familiar-mannered
man, with clumsy hands, was now relaxed by the intensity with which she
hated his contrast.

He held a small paper folded in his hand while he spoke.

"I need hardly say that I should not have presented myself if Mr.
Grandcourt had not expressed a strong wish to that effect--as no doubt he
has mentioned to you."

From some voices that speech might have sounded entirely reverential, and
even timidly apologetic. Lush had no intention to the contrary, but to
Gwendolen's ear his words had as much insolence in them as his prominent
eyes, and the pronoun "you" was too familiar. He ought to have addressed
the folding-screen, and spoke of her as Mrs. Grandcourt. She gave the
smallest sign of a bow, and Lush went on, with a little awkwardness,
getting entangled in what is elegantly called tautology.

"My having been in Mr. Grandcourt's confidence for fifteen years or more--
since he was a youth, in fact--of course gives me a peculiar position. He
can speak to me of affairs that he could not mention to any one else; and,
in fact, he could not have employed any one else in this affair. I have
accepted the task out of friendship for him. Which is my apology for
accepting the task--if you would have preferred some one else."

He paused, but she made no sign, and Lush, to give himself a countenance
in an apology which met no acceptance, opened the folded paper, and looked
at it vaguely before he began to speak again.

"This paper contains some information about Mr. Grandcourt's will, an
abstract of a part he wished you to know--if you'll be good enough to cast
your eyes over it. But there is something I had to say by way of
introduction--which I hope you'll pardon me for, if it's not quite
agreeable." Lush found that he was behaving better than he had expected,
and had no idea how insulting he made himself with his "not quite
agreeable."

"Say what you have to say without apologizing, please," said Gwendolen,
with the air she might have bestowed on a dog-stealer come to claim a
reward for finding the dog he had stolen.

"I have only to remind you of something that occurred before your
engagement to Mr. Grandcourt," said Lush, not without the rise of some
willing insolence in exchange for her scorn. "You met a lady in Cardell
Chase, if you remember, who spoke to you of her position with regard to
Mr. Grandcourt. She had children with her--one a very fine boy."

Gwendolen's lips were almost as pale as her cheeks; her passion had no
weapons--words were no better than chips. This man's speech was like a
sharp knife-edge drawn across her skin: but even her indignation at the
employment of Lush was getting merged in a crowd of other feelings, dim
and alarming as a crowd of ghosts.

"Mr. Grandcourt was aware that you were acquainted with this unfortunate
affair beforehand, and he thinks it only right that his position and
intentions should be made quite clear to you. It is an affair of property
and prospects; and if there were any objection you had to make, if you
would mention it to me--it is a subject which of course he would rather
not speak about himself--if you will be good enough just to read this."
With the last words Lush rose and presented the paper to her.

When Gwendolen resolved that she would betray no feeling in the presence
of this man, she had not prepared herself to hear that her husband knew
the silent consciousness, the silently accepted terms on which she had
married him. She dared not raise her hand to take the paper, least it
should visibly tremble. For a moment Lush stood holding it toward her, and
she felt his gaze on her as ignominy, before she could say even with low-
toned haughtiness--

"Lay it on the table. And go into the next room, please."

Lush obeyed, thinking as he took an easy-chair in the back drawing-room,
"My lady winces considerably. She didn't know what would be the charge for
that superfine article, Henleigh Grandcourt." But it seemed to him that a
penniless girl had done better than she had any right to expect, and that
she had been uncommonly knowing for her years and opportunities: her words
to Lydia meant nothing, and her running away had probably been part of her
adroitness. It had turned out a master-stroke.

Meanwhile Gwendolen was rallying her nerves to the reading of the paper.
She must read it. Her whole being--pride, longing for rebellion, dreams of
freedom, remorseful conscience, dread of fresh visitation--all made one
need to know what the paper contained. But at first it was not easy to
take in the meaning of the words. When she had succeeded, she found that
in the case of there being no son as issue of her marriage, Grandcourt had
made the small Henleigh his heir; that was all she cared to extract from
the paper with any distinctness. The other statement as to what provision
would be made for her in the same case, she hurried over, getting only a
confused perception of thousands and Gadsmere. It was enough. She could
dismiss the man in the next room with the defiant energy which had revived
in her at the idea that this question of property and inheritance was
meant as a finish to her humiliations and her thraldom.

She thrust the paper between the leaves of her book, which she took in her
hand, and walked with her stateliest air into the next room, where Lush
immediately arose, awaiting her approach. When she was four yards from
him, it was hardly an instant that she paused to say in a high tone, while
she swept him with her eyelashes--

"Tell Mr. Grandcourt that his arrangements are just what I desired"--
passing on without haste, and leaving Lush time to mingle some admiration
of her graceful back with that half-amused sense of her spirit and
impertinence, which he expressed by raising his eyebrows and just
thrusting his tongue between his teeth. He really did not want her to be
worse punished, and he was glad to think that it was time to go and lunch
at the club, where he meant to have a lobster salad.

What did Gwendolen look forward to? When her husband returned he found her
equipped in her riding-dress, ready to ride out with him. She was not
again going to be hysterical, or take to her bed and say she was ill. That
was the implicit resolve adjusting her muscles before she could have
framed it in words, as she walked out of the room, leaving Lush behind
her. She was going to act in the spirit of her message, and not to give
herself time to reflect. She rang the bell for her maid, and went with the
usual care through her change of toilet. Doubtless her husband had meant
to produce a great effect on her: by-and-by perhaps she would let him see
an effect the very opposite of what he intended; but at present all that
she could show was a defiant satisfaction in what had been presumed to be
disagreeable. It came as an instinct rather than a thought, that to show
any sign which could be interpreted as jealousy, when she had just been
insultingly reminded that the conditions were what she had accepted with
her eyes open, would be the worst self-humiliation. She said to herself
that she had not time to-day to be clear about her future actions; all she
could be clear about was that she would match her husband in ignoring any
ground for excitement. She not only rode, but went out with him to dine,
contributing nothing to alter their mutual manner, which was never that of
rapid interchange in discourse; and curiously enough she rejected a
handkerchief on which her maid had by mistake put the wrong scent--a scent
that Grandcourt had once objected to. Gwendolen would not have liked to be
an object of disgust to this husband whom she hated: she liked all disgust
to be on her side.

But to defer thought in this way was something like trying to talk without
singing in her own ears. The thought that is bound up with our passion is
as penetrative as air--everything is porous to it; bows, smiles,
conversation, repartee, are mere honeycombs where such thoughts rushes
freely, not always with a taste of honey. And without shutting herself up
in any solitude, Gwendolen seemed at the end of nine or ten hours to have
gone through a labyrinth of reflection, in which already the same
succession of prospects had been repeated, the same fallacious outlets
rejected, the same shrinking from the necessities of every course. Already
she was undergoing some hardening effect from feeling that she was under
eyes which saw her past actions solely in the light of her lowest motives.
She lived back in the scenes of her courtship, with the new bitter
consciousness of what had been in Grandcourt's mind--certain now, with her
present experience of him, that he had a peculiar triumph in conquering
her dumb repugnance, and that ever since their marriage he had had a cold
exultation in knowing her fancied secret. Her imagination exaggerated
every tyrannical impulse he was capable of. "I will insist on being
separated from him"--was her first darting determination; then, "I will
leave him whether he consents or not. If this boy becomes his heir, I have
made an atonement." But neither in darkness nor in daylight could she
imagine the scenes which must carry out those determinations with the
courage to feel them endurable. How could she run away to her own family--
carry distress among them, and render herself an object of scandal in the
society she had left behind her? What future lay before her as Mrs.
Grandcourt gone back to her mother, who would be made destitute again by
the rupture of the marriage for which one chief excuse had been that it
had brought that mother a maintenance? She had lately been seeing her
uncle and Anna in London, and though she had been saved from any
difficulty about inviting them to stay in Grosvenor Square by their wish
to be with Rex, who would not risk a meeting with her, the transient visit
she had had from them helped now in giving stronger color to the picture
of what it would be for her to take refuge in her own family. What could
she say to justify her flight? Her uncle would tell her to go back. Her
mother would cry. Her aunt and Anna would look at her with wondering
alarm. Her husband would have power to compel her. She had absolutely
nothing that she could allege against him in judicious or judicial ears.
And to "insist on separation!" That was an easy combination of words; but
considered as an action to be executed against Grandcourt, it would be
about as practicable as to give him a pliant disposition and a dread of
other people's unwillingness. How was she to begin? What was she to say
that would not be a condemnation of herself? "If I am to have misery
anyhow," was the bitter refrain of her rebellious dreams, "I had better
have the misery that I can keep to myself." Moreover, her capability of
rectitude told her again and again that she had no right to complain of
her contract, or to withdraw from it.

And always among the images that drove her back to submission was Deronda.
The idea of herself separated from her husband, gave Deronda a changed,
perturbing, painful place in her consciousness: instinctively she felt
that the separation would be from him too, and in the prospective vision
of herself as a solitary, dubiously-regarded woman, she felt some tingling
bashfulness at the remembrance of her behavior towards him. The
association of Deronda with a dubious position for herself was
intolerable. And what would he say if he knew everything? Probably that
she ought to bear what she had brought on herself, unless she were sure
that she could make herself a better woman by taking any other course. And
what sort of woman was she to be--solitary, sickened of life, looked at
with a suspicious kind of pity?--even if she could dream of success in
getting that dreary freedom. Mrs. Grandcourt "run away" would be a more
pitiable creature than Gwendolen Harleth condemned to teach the bishop's
daughters, and to be inspected by Mrs. Mompert.

One characteristic trait in her conduct is worth mentioning. She would not
look a second time at the paper Lush had given her; and before ringing for
her maid she locked it up in a traveling-desk which was at hand, proudly
resolved against curiosity about what was allotted to herself in
connection with Gadsmere--feeling herself branded in the minds of her
husband and his confidant with the meanness that would accept marriage and
wealth on any conditions, however dishonorable and humiliating.

Day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There came
nothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only a
recurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and still
Mrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting herself as she
was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the accustomed grace,
beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the week, through all the
scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the other. Church was not
markedly distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-
presentation, for marriage had included no instruction that enabled her to
connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of the world than that of
unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social fashions. While a laudable
zeal was laboring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys where
law is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt,
condescending a little to a fashionable rector and conscious of a feminine
advantage over a learned dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious
fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a
lighthouse.

Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive
rebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number of
persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unwearied
statement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, on
inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. Poor
Gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to
make herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now marked some hardening
in a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of
feeling.

For example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by her
side, she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing them,
a dark-eyed lady with a little girl and a blonde boy, whom she at once
recognized as the beings in all the world the most painful for her to
behold. She and Grandcourt had just slackened their pace to a walk; he
being on the outer side was the nearer to the unwelcome vision, and
Gwendolen had not presence of mind to do anything but glance away from the
dark eyes that met hers piercingly toward Grandcourt, who wheeled past the
group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of recognition.

Immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame for
herself, and the words, "You might at least have raised your hat to her,"
flew impetuously to her lips--but did not pass them. If as her husband, in
her company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she herself had
excluded from the place she was filling, how could she be the person to
reproach him? She was dumb.

It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher there
with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making purchases--
really wanting educational apparatus for her children, and had had
interviews with Lush in which she had not refused to soothe her uneasy
mind by representing the probabilities as all on the side of her ultimate
triumph. Let her keep quiet, and she might live to see the marriage
dissolve itself in one way or other--Lush hinted at several ways--leaving
the succession assured to her boy. She had had an interview with
Grandcourt, too, who had as usual told her to behave like a reasonable
woman, and threatened punishment if she were troublesome; but had, also as
usual, vindicated himself from any wish to be stingy, the money he was
receiving from Sir Hugo on account of Diplow encouraging him to be lavish.
Lydia, feeding on the probabilities in her favor, devoured her helpless
wrath along with that pleasanter nourishment; but she could not let her
discretion go entirely without the reward of making a Medusa-apparition
before Gwendolen, vindictiveness and jealousy finding relief in an outlet
of venom, though it were as futile as that of a viper already flung on the
other side of the hedge. Hence, each day, after finding out from Lush the
likely time for Gwendolen to be riding, she had watched at that post,
daring Grandcourt so far. Why should she not take little Henleigh into the
Park?

The Medusa-apparition was made effective beyond Lydia's conception by the
shock it gave Gwendolen actually to see Grandcourt ignoring this woman who
had once been the nearest in the world to him, along with the children she
had borne him. And all the while the dark shadow thus cast on the lot of a
woman destitute of acknowledged social dignity, spread itself over her
visions of a future that might be her own, and made part of her dread on
her own behalf. She shrank all the more from any lonely action. What
possible release could there be for her from this hated vantage ground,
which yet she dared not quit, any more than if fire had been raining
outside it? What release, but death? Not her own death. Gwendolen was not
a woman who could easily think of her own death as a near reality, or
front for herself the dark entrance on the untried and invisible. It
seemed more possible that Grandcourt should die:--and yet not likely. The
power of tyranny in him seemed a power of living in the presence of any
wish that he should die. The thought that his death was the only possible
deliverance for her was one with the thought that deliverance would never
come--the double deliverance from the injury with which other beings might
reproach her and from the yoke she had brought on her own neck. No! she
foresaw him always living, and her own life dominated by him; the "always"
of her young experience not stretching beyond the few immediate years that
seemed immeasurably long with her passionate weariness. The thought of his
dying would not subsist: it turned as with a dream-change into the terror
that she should die with his throttling fingers on her neck avenging that
thought. Fantasies moved within her like ghosts, making no break in her
more acknowledged consciousness and finding no obstruction in it: dark
rays doing their work invisibly in the broad light.

Only an evening or two after that encounter in the Park, there was a grand
concert at Klesmer's, who was living rather magnificently now in one of
the large houses in Grosvenor Place, a patron and prince among musical
professors. Gwendolen had looked forward to this occasion as one on which
she was sure to meet Deronda, and she had been meditating how to put a
question to him which, without containing a word that she would feel a
dislike to utter, would yet be explicit enough for him to understand it.
The struggle of opposite feelings would not let her abide by her instinct
that the very idea of Deronda's relation to her was a discouragement to
any desperate step towards freedom. The next wave of emotion was a longing
for some word of his to enforce a resolve. The fact that her opportunities
of conversation with him had always to be snatched in the doubtful privacy
of large parties, caused her to live through them many times beforehand,
imagining how they would take place and what she would say. The irritation
was proportionate when no opportunity came; and this evening at Klesmer's
she included Deronda in her anger, because he looked as calm as possible
at a distance from her, while she was in danger of betraying her
impatience to every one who spoke to her. She found her only safety in a
chill haughtiness which made Mr. Vandernoodt remark that Mrs. Grandcourt
was becoming a perfect match for her husband. When at last the chances of
the evening brought Deronda near her, Sir Hugo and Mrs. Raymond were close
by and could hear every word she said. No matter: her husband was not
near, and her irritation passed without check into a fit of daring which
restored the security of her self-possession. Deronda was there at last,
and she would compel him to do what she pleased. Already and without
effort rather queenly in her air as she stood in her white lace and green
leaves she threw a royal permissiveness into her way of saying, "I wish
you would come and see me to-morrow between five and six, Mr. Deronda."

There could be but one answer at that moment: "Certainly," with a tone of
obedience.

Afterward it occurred to Deronda that he would write a note to excuse
himself. He had always avoided making a call at Grandcourt's. He could not
persuade himself to any step that might hurt her, and whether his excuse
were taken for indifference or for the affectation of indifference it
would be equally wounding. He kept his promise. Gwendolen had declined to
ride out on the plea of not feeling well enough having left her refusal to
the last moment when the horses were soon to be at the door--not without
alarm lest her husband should say that he too would stay at home. Become
almost superstitious about his power of suspicious divination, she had a
glancing forethought of what she would do in that case--namely, have
herself denied as not well. But Grandcourt accepted her excuse without
remark, and rode off.

Nevertheless when Gwendolen found herself alone, and had sent down the
order that only Mr. Deronda was to be admitted, she began to be alarmed at
what she had done, and to feel a growing agitation in the thought that he
would soon appear, and she should soon be obliged to speak: not of
trivialities, as if she had no serious motive in asking him to come: and
yet what she had been for hours determining to say began to seem
impossible. For the first time the impulse of appeal to him was being
checked by timidity, and now that it was too late she was shaken by the
possibility that he might think her invitation unbecoming. If so, she
would have sunk in his esteem. But immediately she resist ed this
intolerable fear as an infection from her husband's way of thinking. That
_he_ would say she was making a fool of herself was rather a reason why
such a judgment would be remote from Deronda's mind. But that she could
not rid herself from this sudden invasion of womanly reticence was
manifest in a kind of action which had never occurred to her before. In
her struggle between agitation and the effort to suppress it, she was
walking up and down the length of the two drawing-rooms, where at one end
a long mirror reflected her in her black dress, chosen in the early
morning with a half-admitted reference to this hour. But above this black
dress her head on its white pillar of a neck showed to advantage. Some
consciousness of this made her turn hastily and hurry to the boudoir,
where again there was a glass, but also, tossed over a chair, a large
piece of black lace which she snatched and tied over her crown of hair so
as completely to conceal her neck, and leave only her face looking out
from the black frame. In this manifest contempt of appearance, she thought
it possible to be freer from nervousness, but the black lace did not take
away the uneasiness from her eyes and lips.

She was standing in the middle of the room when Deronda was announced, and
as he approached her she perceived that he too for some reason was not his
usual self. She could not have defined the change except by saying that he
looked less happy than usual, and appeared to be under some effort in
speaking to her. And yet the speaking was the slightest possible. They
both said, "How do you do?" quite curtly; and Gwendolen, instead of
sitting down, moved to a little distance, resting her arms slightly on the
tall back of a chair, while Deronda stood where he was,--both feeling it
difficult to say any more, though the preoccupation in his mind could
hardly have been more remote than it was from Gwendolen's conception. She
naturally saw in his embarrassment some reflection of her own. Forced to
speak, she found all her training in concealment and self-command of no
use to her and began with timid awkwardness--

"You will wonder why. I begged you to come. I wanted to ask you something.
You said I was ignorant. That is true. And what can I do but ask you?"

And at this moment she was feeling it utterly impossible to put the
questions she had intended. Something hew in her nervous manner roused
Deronda's anxiety lest there might be a new crisis. He said with the
sadness of affection in his voice--

"My only regret is, that I can be of so little use to you." The words and
the tone touched a new spring in her, and she went on with more sense of
freedom, yet still not saying anything she had designed to say, and
beginning to hurry, that she might somehow arrive at the right words.

"I wanted to tell you that I have always been thinking of your advice, but
is it any use?--I can't make myself different, because things about me
raise bad feelings--and I must go on--I can alter nothing--it is no use."

She paused an instant, with the consciousness that she was not finding the
right words, but began again hurriedly, "But if I go on I shall get worse.
I want not to get worse. I should like to be what you wish. There are
people who are good and enjoy great things--I know there are. I am a
contemptible creature. I feel as if I should get wicked with hating
people. I have tried to think that I would go away from everybody. But I
can't. There are so many things to hinder me. You think, perhaps, that I
don't mind. But I do mind. I am afraid of everything. I am afraid of
getting wicked. Tell me what I can do."

She had forgotten everything but that image of her helpless misery which
she was trying to make present to Deronda in broken allusive speech--
wishing to convey but not express all her need. Her eyes were tearless,
and had a look of smarting in their dilated brilliancy; there was a
subdued sob in her voice which was more and more veiled, till it was
hardly above a whisper. She was hurting herself with the jewels that
glittered on her tightly-clasped fingers pressed against her heart.

The feeling Deronda endured in these moments he afterward called horrible.
Words seemed to have no more rescue in them than if he had been beholding
a vessel in peril of wreck--the poor ship with its many-lived anguish
beaten by the inescapable storm. How could he grasp the long-growing
process of this young creature's wretchedness?--how arrest and change it
with a sentence? He was afraid of his own voice. The words that rushed
into his mind seemed in their feebleness nothing better than despair made
audible, or than that insensibility to another's hardship which applies
precept to soothe pain. He felt himself holding a crowd of words
imprisoned within his lips, as if the letting them escape would be a
violation of awe before the mysteries of our human lot. The thought that
urged itself foremost was--"Confess everything to your husband; have
nothing concealed:"--the words carried in his mind a vision of reasons
which would have needed much fuller expressions for Gwendolen to apprehend
them, but before he had begun those brief sentences, the door opened and
the husband entered.

Grandcourt had deliberately gone out and turned back to satisfy a
suspicion. What he saw was Gwendolen's face of anguish framed black like a
nun's, and Deronda standing three yards from her with a look of sorrow
such as he might have bent on the last struggle of life in a beloved
object. Without any show of surprise Grandcourt nodded to Deronda, gave a
second look at Gwendolen, passed on, and seated himself easily at a little
distance crossing his legs, taking out his handkerchief and trifling with
it elegantly.

Gwendolen had shrunk and changed her attitude on seeing him, but she did
not turn or move from her place. It was not a moment in which she could
feign anything, or manifest any strong revulsion of feeling: the
passionate movement of her last speech was still too strong within her.
What she felt beside was a dull despairing sense that her interview with
Deronda was at an end: a curtain had fallen. But he, naturally, was urged
into self-possession and effort by susceptibility to what might follow for
her from being seen by her husband in this betrayal of agitation; and
feeling that any pretence of ease in prolonging his visit would only
exaggerate Grandcourt's possible conjectures of duplicity, he merely
said--

"I will not stay longer now. Good bye."

He put out his hand, and she let him press her poor little chill fingers;
but she said no good-bye.

When he had left the room, Gwendolen threw herself into a seat, with an
expectation as dull as her despair--the expectation that she was going to
be punished. But Grandcourt took no notice: he was satisfied to have let
her