rits enough when you
wrote to me."

"Oh, nothing in particular. The world began to look seedy--a sort of
cabbage-garden with all the cabbages cut. A malady of genius, you may
be sure," said Hans, creasing his face into a smile; "and, in fact, I
was tired of being virtuous without reward, especially in this hot
London weather."

"Nothing else? No real vexation?" said Deronda.

Hans shook his head.

"I came to tell you of my own affairs, but I can't do it with a good
grace if you are to hide yours."

"Haven't an affair in the world," said Hans, in a flighty way, "except
a quarrel with a bric-a-brac man. Besides, as it is the first time in
our lives that you ever spoke to me about your own affairs, you are
only beginning to pay a pretty long debt."

Deronda felt convinced that Hans was behaving artificially, but he
trusted to a return of the old frankness by-and-by if he gave his own
confidence.

"You laughed at the mystery of my journey to Italy, Hans," he began.
"It was for an object that touched my happiness at the very roots. I
had never known anything about my parents, and I really went to Genoa
to meet my mother. My father has been long dead--died when I was an
infant. My mother was the daughter of an eminent Jew; my father was her
cousin. Many things had caused me to think of this origin as almost a
probability before I set out. I was so far prepared for the result that
I was glad of it--glad to find myself a Jew."

"You must not expect me to look surprised, Deronda," said Hans, who had
changed his attitude, laying one leg across the other and examining the
heel of his slipper.

"You knew it?"

"My mother told me. She went to the house the morning after you had
been there--brother and sister both told her. You may imagine we can't
rejoice as they do. But whatever you are glad of, I shall come to be
glad of in the end--_when_ exactly the end may be I can't predict,"
said Hans, speaking in a low tone, which was as usual with him as it
was to be out of humor with his lot, and yet bent on making no fuss
about it.

"I quite understand that you can't share my feeling," said Deronda;
"but I could not let silence lie between us on what casts quite a new
light over my future. I have taken up some of Mordecai's ideas, and I
mean to try and carry them out, so far as one man's efforts can go. I
dare say I shall by and by travel to the East and be away for some
years."

Hans said nothing, but rose, seized his p