to him: he meant that I should obey
his will. And he was resolved that I should marry my cousin Ephraim,
the only one left of my father's family that he knew. I wanted not to
marry. I thought of all plans to resist it, but at last I found that I
could rule my cousin, and I consented. My father died three weeks after
we were married, and then I had my way!" She uttered these words almost
exultantly; but after a little pause her face changed, and she said in
a biting tone, "It has not lasted, though. My father is getting his way
now."

She began to look more contemplatively again at her son, and presently
said--

"You are like him--but milder--there is something of your own father in
you; and he made it the labor of his life to devote himself to me:
wound up his money-changing and banking, and lived to wait upon me--he
went against his conscience for me. As I loved the life of my art, so
he loved me. Let me look at your hand again: the hand with the ring on.
It was your father's ring."

He drew his chair nearer to her and gave her his hand. We know what
kind of a hand it was: her own, very much smaller, was of the same
type. As he felt the smaller hand holding his, as he saw nearer to him
the face that held the likeness of his own, aged not by time but by
intensity, the strong bent of his nature toward a reverential
tenderness asserted itself above every other impression and in his most
fervent tone he said--

"Mother! take us all into your heart--the living and the dead. Forgive
every thing that hurts you in the past. Take my affection."

She looked at him admiringly rather than lovingly, then kissed him on
the brow, and saying sadly, "I reject nothing, but I have nothing to
give," she released his hand and sank back on her cushions. Deronda
turned pale with what seems always more of a sensation than an
emotion--the pain of repulsed tenderness. She noticed the expression of
pain, and said, still with melodious melancholy in her tones--

"It is better so. We must part again soon and you owe me no duties. I
did not wish you to be born. I parted with you willingly. When your
father died I resolved that I would have no more ties, but such as I
could free myself from. I was the Alcharisi you have heard of: the name
had magic wherever it was carried. Men courted me. Sir Hugo Mallinger
was one who wished to marry me. He was madly in love with me. One day I
asked him, 'Is there a man capable of doing something for love o