thout feeling it possible to fall in love
with her; but all the fervor of his nature was engaged on the side of
precaution. There are personages who feel themselves tragic because
they march into a palpable morass, dragging another with them, and then
cry out against all the gods. Deronda's mind was strongly set against
imitating them.

"I have my hands on the reins now," he thought, "and I will not drop
them. I shall go there as little as possible."

He saw the reasons acting themselves out before him. How could he be
Mirah's guardian and claim to unite with Mrs. Meyrick, to whose charge
he had committed her, if he showed himself as a lover--whom she did not
love--whom she would not marry? And if he encouraged any germ of
lover's feeling in himself it would lead up to that issue. Mirah's was
not a nature that would bear dividing against itself; and even if love
won her consent to marry a man who was not of her race and religion,
she would never be happy in acting against that strong native bias
which would still reign in her conscience as remorse.

Deronda saw these consequences as we see any danger of marring our own
work well begun. It was a delight to have rescued this child acquainted
with sorrow, and to think of having placed her little feet in protected
paths. The creature we help to save, though only a half-reared linnet,
bruised and lost by the wayside--how we watch and fence it, and dote on
its signs of recovery! Our pride becomes loving, our self is a not-self
for whose sake we become virtuous, when we set to some hidden work of
reclaiming a life from misery and look for our triumph in the secret
joy--"This one is the better for me."

"I would as soon hold out my finger to be bitten off as set about
spoiling her peace," said Deronda. "It was one of the rarest bits of
fortune that I should have had friends like the Meyricks to place her
with--generous, delicate friends without any loftiness in their ways,
so that her dependence on them is not only safety but happiness. There
could be no refuge to replace that, if it were broken up. But what is
the use of my taking the vows and settling everything as it should be,
if that marplot Hans comes and upsets it all?"

Few things were more likely. Hans was made for mishaps: his very limbs
seemed more breakable than other people's--his eyes more of a resort
for uninvited flies and other irritating guests. But it was impossible
to forbid Hans's coming to London. He