of knock at the door. A servant in Chasseurs
livery entered and delivered in French the verbal message that, the
Princess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during
the day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would dine early, so as to be
at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him.

CHAPTER LI.

She held the spindle as she sat,
Errina with the thick-coiled mat
Of raven hair and deepest agate eyes,
Gazing with a sad surprise
At surging visions of her destiny--
To spin the byssus drearily
In insect-labor, while the throng
Of gods and men wrought deeds that poets wrought in song.

When Deronda presented himself at the door of his mother's apartment in
the _Italia_ he felt some revival of his boyhood with its premature
agitations. The two servants in the antechamber looked at him markedly,
a little surprised that the doctor their lady had come to consult was
this striking young gentleman whose appearance gave even the severe
lines of an evening dress the credit of adornment. But Deronda could
notice nothing until, the second door being opened, he found himself in
the presence of a figure which at the other end of the large room stood
awaiting his approach.

She was covered, except as to her face and part of her arms, with black
lace hanging loosely from the summit of her whitening hair to the long
train stretching from her tall figure. Her arms, naked to the elbow,
except for some rich bracelets, were folded before her, and the fine
poise of her head made it look handsomer than it really was. But
Deronda felt no interval of observation before he was close in front of
her, holding the hand she had put out and then raising it to his lips.
She still kept her hand in his and looked at him examiningly; while his
chief consciousness was that her eyes were piercing and her face so
mobile that the next moment she might look like a different person. For
even while she was examining him there was a play of the brow and
nostril which made a tacit language. Deronda dared no movement, not
able to conceive what sort of manifestation her feeling demanded; but
he felt himself changing color like a girl, and yet wondering at his
own lack of emotion; he had lived through so many ideal meetings with
his mother, and they had seemed more real than this! He could not even
conjecture in what language she would speak to him. He imagined it
would not be English. Suddenly