w your thoughts. But
where can we meet?"

"I have thought of that," said Mordecai. "It is not hard for you to
come into this neighborhood later in the evening? You did so once."

"I can manage it very well occasionally," said Deronda. "You live under
the same roof with the Cohens, I think?"

Before Mordecai could answer, Mr. Ram re-entered to take his place
behind the counter. He was an elderly son of Abraham, whose childhood
had fallen on the evil times at the beginning of this century, and who
remained amid this smart and instructed generation as a preserved
specimen, soaked through and through with the effect of the poverty and
contempt which were the common heritage of most English Jews seventy
years ago. He had none of the oily cheerfulness observable in Mr.
Cohen's aspect: his very features--broad and chubby--showed that
tendency to look mongrel without due cause, which, in a miscellaneous
London neighborhood, may perhaps be compared with the marvels of
imitation in insects, and may have been nature's imperfect effort on
behalf of the pure Caucasian to shield him from the shame and spitting
to which purer features would have been exposed in the times of zeal.
Mr. Ram dealt ably in books, in the same way that he would have dealt
in tins of meat and other commodities--without knowledge or
responsibility as to the proportion of rottenness or nourishment they
might contain. But he believed in Mordecai's learning as something
marvellous, and was not sorry that his conversation should be sought by
a bookish gentleman, whose visits had twice ended in a purchase. He
greeted Deronda with a crabbed good-will, and, putting on large silver
spectacles, appeared at once to abstract himself in the daily accounts.

But Deronda and Mordecai were soon in the street together, and without
any explicit agreement as to their direction, were walking toward Ezra
Cohen's.

"We can't meet there: my room is too narrow," said Mordecai, taking up
the thread of talk where they had dropped it. "But there is a tavern
not far from here where I sometimes go to a club. It is the _Hand and
Banner_, in the street at the next turning, five doors down. We can
have the parlor there any evening."

"We can try that for once," said Deronda. "But you will perhaps let me
provide you with some lodging, which would give you more freedom and
comfort than where you are."

"No; I need nothing. My outer life is as nought. I will take nothing
less precious