that her husband's
eyes might have been on her, extracting something to reprove--some
offence against her dignity as his wife; her consciousness telling her
that she had not kept up the perfect air of equability in public which
was her own ideal. But Grandcourt made no observation on her behavior.
All he said as they were driving home was--

"Lush will dine with us among the other people to-morrow. You will
treat him civilly."

Gwendolen's heart began to beat violently. The words that she wanted to
utter, as one wants to return a blow, were. "You are breaking your
promise to me--the first promise you made me." But she dared not utter
them. She was as frightened at a quarrel as if she had foreseen that it
would end with throttling fingers on her neck. After a pause, she said
in the tone rather of defeat than resentment--

"I thought you did not intend him to frequent the house again."

"I want him just now. He is useful to me; and he must be treated
civilly."

Silence. There may come a moment when even an excellent husband who has
dropped smoking under more or less of a pledge during courtship, for
the first time will introduce his cigar-smoke between himself and his
wife, with the tacit understanding that she will have to put up with
it. Mr. Lush was, so to speak, a very large cigar.

If these are the sort of lovers' vows at which Jove laughs, he must
have a merry time of it.

CHAPTER XLVI.

"If any one should importune me to give a reason why I loved him, I
feel it could no otherwise be expressed than by making answer,
'Because it was he, because it was I.' There is, beyond what I am able
to say, I know not what inexplicable power that brought on this
union."--MONTAIGNE: _On Friendship_.

The time had come to prepare Mordecai for the revelation of the
restored sister and for the change of abode which was desirable before
Mirah's meeting with her brother. Mrs. Meyrick, to whom Deronda had
confided everything except Mordecai's peculiar relation to himself, had
been active in helping him to find a suitable lodging in Brompton, not
many minutes' walk from her own house, so that the brother and sister
would be within reach of her motherly care. Her happy mixture of
Scottish fervor and Gallic liveliness had enabled her to keep the
secret close from the girls as well as from Hans, any betrayal to them
being likely to reach Mirah in some way that would raise an agitating
suspicion, and