ak, or be
silent. And even when she had entered on her dismal task of
self-constraint in the society of three girls whom she was bound
incessantly to edify, the same process of inspection was to go on:
there was always to be Mrs. Mompert's supervision; always something or
other would be expected of her to which she had not the slightest
inclination; and perhaps the bishop would examine her on serious
topics. Gwendolen, lately used to the social successes of a handsome
girl, whose lively venturesomeness of talk has the effect of wit, and
who six weeks before would have pitied the dullness of the bishop
rather than have been embarrassed by him, saw the life before her as an
entrance into a penitentiary. Wild thoughts of running away to be an
actress, in spite of Klesmer, came to her with the lure of freedom; but
his words still hung heavily on her soul; they had alarmed her pride
and even her maidenly dignity: dimly she conceived herself getting
amongst vulgar people who would treat her with rude familiarity--odious
men, whose grins and smirks would not be seen through the strong
grating of polite society. Gwendolen's daring was not in the least that
of the adventuress; the demand to be held a lady was in her very
marrow; and when she had dreamed that she might be the heroine of the
gaming-table, it was with the understanding that no one should treat
her with the less consideration, or presume to look at her with irony
as Deronda had done. To be protected and petted, and to have her
susceptibilities consulted in every detail, had gone along with her
food and clothing as matters of course in her life: even without any
such warning as Klesmer's she could not have thought it an attractive
freedom to be thrown in solitary dependence on the doubtful civility of
strangers. The endurance of the episcopal penitentiary was less
repulsive than that; though here too she would certainly never be
petted or have her susceptibilities consulted. Her rebellion against
this hard necessity which had come just to her of all people in the
world--to her whom all circumstances had concurred in preparing for
something quite different--was exaggerated instead of diminished as one
hour followed another, with the imagination of what she might have
expected in her lot and what it was actually to be. The family
troubles, she thought, were easier for every one than for her--even for
poor dear mamma, because she had always used herself to not enjoying.