ment, and then forcing
herself to speak with an air of playfulness again, said--

"But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?"

"Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are."

"But suppose _we_ need that men should be better than we are," said
Gwendolen with a little air of "check!"

"That is rather a difficulty," said Deronda, smiling. "I suppose I
should have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other
to be good."

"You see, I needed you to be better than I was--and you thought so,"
said Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward
and joined Grandcourt, who made no observation.

"Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?" said
Gwendolen, whose own pride required her to account for her conduct.

"A--no," said Grandcourt, coldly.

"Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken--that you don't
wish to hear what I had to say," said Gwendolen, playing at a pout.

"I wish to hear what you say to me--not to other men," said Grandcourt.

"Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he
objected to my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon."

"Yes--but excuse me the sermon." If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt
cared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that
she was mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw
he was piqued, but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of
speaking again to Deronda before he raised his hat and turned with the
rest toward Diplow, while her lover attended her to Offendene, where he
was to bid farewell before a whole day's absence on the unspecified
journey. Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling the journey a bore: he
was going by train to Gadsmere.

CHAPTER XXX.

No penitence and no confessional,
No priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit
Amid deep ashes of their vanished years.

Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of gray stone,
and red-tiled, a round tower jutting at one of the corners, the mellow
darkness of its conical roof surmounted by a weather-cock making an
agreeable object either amidst the gleams and greenth of summer or the
low-hanging clouds and snowy branches of winter: the ground shady with
spreading trees: a great tree flourishing on one side, backward some
Scotch firs on a broken bank where the roots hung naked, and beyond, a
rookery: on the other side a pool overhung with b