f me,
and expecting nothing in return?' He said: 'What is it you want done?'
I said, 'Take my boy and bring him up as an Englishman, and never let
him know anything about his parents.' You were little more than two
years old, and were sitting on his foot. He declared that he would pay
money to have such a boy. I had not meditated much on the plan
beforehand, but as soon as I had spoken about it, it took possession of
me as something I could not rest without doing. At first he thought I
was not serious, but I convinced him, and he was never surprised at
anything. He agreed that it would be for your good, and the finest
thing for you. A great singer and actress is a queen, but she gives no
royalty to her son. All that happened at Naples. And afterward I made
Sir Hugo the trustee of your fortune. That is what I did; and I had a
joy in doing it. My father had tyrannized over me--he cared more about
a grandson to come than he did about me: I counted as nothing. You were
to be such a Jew as he; you were to be what he wanted. But you were my
son, and it was my turn to say what you should be. I said you should
not know you were a Jew."

"And for months events have been preparing me to be glad that I am a
Jew," said Deronda, his opposition roused again. The point touched the
quick of his experience. "It would always have been better that I
should have known the truth. I have always been rebelling against the
secrecy that looked like shame. It is no shame to have Jewish
parents--the shame is to disown it."

"You say it was a shame to me, then, that I used that secrecy," said
his mother, with a flash of new anger. "There is no shame attaching to
me. I have no reason to be ashamed. I rid myself of the Jewish tatters
and gibberish that make people nudge each other at sight of us, as if
we were tattooed under our clothes, though our faces are as whole as
theirs. I delivered you from the pelting contempt that pursues Jewish
separateness. I am not ashamed that I did it. It was the better for
you."

"Then why have you now undone the secrecy?--no, not undone it--the
effects will never be undone. But why have you now sent for me to tell
me that I am a Jew?" said Deronda, with an intensity of opposition in
feeling that was almost bitter. It seemed as if her words had called
out a latent obstinacy of race in him.

"Why?--ah, why?" said the Princess, rising quickly and walking to the
other side of the room, where she turned round and sl