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