ve-making, which introduced
marriage by the finest contrast.

"Not one?" said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly.

He lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it
respectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not
disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it
was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this
one. His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness.

"Apropos," she said, taking up her work again, "is there any one
besides Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?--or do you leave them
_tete-a-tete_? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with
her chignon."

"She has a sister with her," said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a
smile, "and there are two men besides--one of them you know, I believe."

"Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him," said Gwendolen, shaking her
head.

"You saw him at Leubronn--young Deronda--a young fellow with the
Mallingers."

Gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her
fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work, got cold.

"I never spoke to him," she said, dreading any discernible change in
herself. "Is he not disagreeable?"

"No, not particularly," said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. "He
thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced
to you."

"No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away. That was
all. What is he?"

"A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger's. Nothing of any consequence."

"Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!" said Gwendolen,
speaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. "I wonder if it has
left off raining!" she added, rising and going to look out of the
window.

Happily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on
Criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her
mother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in
her riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked
as well as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting
which seems formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a
superstitious dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised
over her thought--lest the first interference of his in her life might
foreshadow some future influence. It is of such stuff that
superstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourse