Mirah said nothing, and when he had opened the outer door for her and
closed it behind him, he walked by her side unforbidden. She had not
the courage to begin speaking to him again--conscious that she had
perhaps been unbecomingly severe in her words to him, yet finding only
severer words behind them in her heart. Besides, she was pressed upon
by a crowd of thoughts thrusting themselves forward as interpreters of
that consciousness which still remained unaltered to herself.

Hans, on his side, had a mind equally busy. Mirah's anger had waked in
him a new perception, and with it the unpleasant sense that he was a
dolt not to have had it before. Suppose Mirah's heart were entirely
preoccupied with Deronda in another character than that of her own and
her brother's benefactor; the supposition was attended in Hans's mind
with anxieties which, to do him justice, were not altogether selfish.
He had a strong persuasion, which only direct evidence to the contrary
could have dissipated, and that was that there was a serious attachment
between Deronda and Mrs. Grandcourt; he had pieced together many
fragments of observation, and gradually gathered knowledge, completed
by what his sisters had heard from Anna Gascoigne, which convinced him
not only that Mrs. Grandcourt had a passion for Deronda, but also,
notwithstanding his friend's austere self-repression, that Deronda's
susceptibility about her was the sign of concealed love. Some men,
having such a conviction, would have avoided allusions that could have
roused that susceptibility; but Hans's talk naturally fluttered toward
mischief, and he was given to a form of experiment on live animals
which consisted in irritating his friends playfully. His experiments
had ended in satisfying him that what he thought likely was true.

On the other hand, any susceptibility Deronda had manifested about a
lover's attentions being shown to Mirah, Hans took to be sufficiently
accounted for by the alleged reason, namely, her dependent position;
for he credited his friend with all possible unselfish anxiety for
those whom he could rescue and protect. And Deronda's insistence that
Mirah would never marry one who was not a Jew necessarily seemed to
exclude himself, since Hans shared the ordinary opinion, which he knew
nothing to disturb, that Deronda was the son of Sir Hugo Mallinger.

Thus he felt himself in clearness about the state of Deronda's
affections; but now, the events which really str