I am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as
soon as you came. My mother says you are Mirah's guardian, and she
thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah
in her house. Well, I love her--I worship her--I won't despair--I mean
to deserve her."

"My dear fellow, you can't do it," said Deronda, quickly.

"I should have said, I mean to try."

"You can't keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would
do for your mother and sisters."

"You have a right to reproach me, old fellow," said Hans, gently.

"Perhaps I am ungenerous," said Deronda, not apologetically, however.
"Yet it can't be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad,
Quixotic expectations."

"Who will be hurt but myself, then?" said Hans, putting out his lip. "I
am not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I
dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir
Thomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose,
than be sure of winning anywhere else. And I don't mean to swallow the
poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am
giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity."

"With all my heart, if it will do you any good," said Deronda, loosing
Hans's shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his
words were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced.

He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes
befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor--the
irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the
same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our
guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the
best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes.
Throughout their friendship Deronda had been used to Hans's egotism,
but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually
pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any
detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, and soon forgotten
it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent--nay,
satisfied. But now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger
because it must not be betrayed, Hans's evident assumption that for any
danger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to Mirah, Deronda was not as
much out of the question as the angel Gabriel. It is one thing to be
resolute in placing