by
Grandcourt's languid seriousness, "in imitation of the old one about
the towns and the rivers, you know."

"Ah, perhaps," said Grandcourt, without change of expression. Lady
Mallinger thought this worth telling to Sir Hugo, who said, "Oh, my
dear, he is not a fool. You must not suppose that he can't see a joke.
He can play his cards as well as most of us."

"He has never seemed to me a very sensible man," said Lady Mallinger,
in excuse of herself. She had a secret objection to meeting Grandcourt,
who was little else to her than a large living sign of what she felt to
be her failure as a wife--the not having presented Sir Hugo with a son.
Her constant reflection was that her husband might fairly regret his
choice, and if he had not been very good might have treated her with
some roughness in consequence, gentlemen naturally disliking to be
disappointed.

Deronda, too, had a recognition from Grandcourt, for which he was not
grateful, though he took care to return it with perfect civility. No
reasoning as to the foundations of custom could do away with the
early-rooted feeling that his birth had been attended with injury for
which his father was to blame; and seeing that but for this injury
Grandcourt's prospects might have been his, he was proudly resolute not
to behave in any way that might be interpreted into irritation on that
score. He saw a very easy descent into mean unreasoning rancor and
triumph in others' frustration; and being determined not to go down
that ugly pit, he turned his back on it, clinging to the kindlier
affections within him as a possession. Pride certainly helped him
well--the pride of not recognizing a disadvantage for one's self which
vulgar minds are disposed to exaggerate, such as the shabby equipage of
poverty: he would not have a man like Grandcourt suppose himself envied
by him. But there is no guarding against interpretation. Grandcourt did
believe that Deronda, poor devil, who he had no doubt was his cousin by
the father's side, inwardly winced under their mutual position;
wherefore the presence of that less lucky person was more agreeable to
him than it would otherwise have been. An imaginary envy, the idea that
others feel their comparative deficiency, is the ordinary _cortege_ of
egoism; and his pet dogs were not the only beings that Grandcourt liked
to feel his power over in making them jealous. Hence he was civil
enough to exchange several words with Deronda on the terrace abo