ndyke duchess of a
beauty." Pray excuse Deronda that in this moment he felt a transient
renewal of his first repulsion from Gwendolen, as if she and her beauty
and her failings were to blame for the undervaluing of Mirah as a
woman--a feeling something like class animosity, which affection for
what is not fully recognized by others, whether in persons or in
poetry, rarely allows us to escape. To Hans admiring Gwendolen with his
habitual hyperbole, he answered, with a sarcasm that was not quite
good-natured--

"I thought you could admire no style of woman but your Berenice."

"That is the style I worship--not admire," said Hans. "Other styles of
women I might make myself wicked for, but for Berenice I could make
myself--well, pretty good, which is something much more difficult."

"Hush," said Deronda, under the pretext that the singing was going to
begin. He was not so delighted with the answer as might have been
expected, and was relieved by Hans's movement to a more advanced spot.

Deronda had never before heard Mirah sing "_O patria mia_." He knew
well Leopardi's fine Ode to Italy (when Italy sat like a disconsolate
mother in chains, hiding her face on her knees and weeping), and the
few selected words were filled for him with the grandeur of the whole,
which seemed to breath an inspiration through the music. Mirah singing
this, made Mordecai more than ever one presence with her. Certain words
not included in the song nevertheless rang within Deronda as harmonies
from the invisible--

"Non ti difende
Nessun de tuoi! L'armi, qua l'armi: io solo
Combattero, procombero sol io"--
[Footnote: Do none of thy children defend thee? Arms! bring me arms!
alone I will fight, alone I will fall.]

they seemed the very voice of that heroic passion which is falsely said
to devote itself in vain when it achieves the god-like end of
manifesting unselfish love. And that passion was present to Deronda now
as the vivid image of a man dying helplessly away from the possibility
of battle.

Mirah was equal to his wishes. While the general applause was sounding,
Klesmer gave a more valued testimony, audible to her only--"Good,
good--the crescendo better than before." But her chief anxiety was to
know that she had satisfied Mr. Deronda: any failure on her part this
evening would have pained her as an especial injury to him. Of course
all her prospects were due to what he had done for her; still, this
occasion of singing i