was intending to get a studio
there and make it his chief home; and to propose that he should defer
coming on some ostensible ground, concealing the real motive of winning
time for Mirah's position to become more confirmed and independent, was
impracticable. Having no other resource Deronda tried to believe that
both he and Mrs. Meyrick were foolishly troubling themselves about one
of those endless things called probabilities, which never occur; but he
did not quite succeed in his trying; on the contrary, he found himself
going inwardly through a scene where on the first discovery of Han's
inclination he gave him a very energetic warning--suddenly checked,
however, by the suspicion of personal feeling that his warmth might be
creating in Hans. He could come to no result, but that the position was
peculiar, and that he could make no further provision against dangers
until they came nearer. To save an unhappy Jewess from drowning
herself, would not have seemed a startling variation among police
reports; but to discover in her so rare a creature as Mirah, was an
exceptional event which might well bring exceptional consequences.
Deronda would not let himself for a moment dwell on any supposition
that the consequences might enter deeply into his own life. The image
of Mirah had never yet had that penetrating radiation which would have
been given to it by the idea of her loving him. When this sort of
effluence is absent from the fancy (whether from the fact or not) a man
may go far in devotedness without perturbation.

As to the search for Mirah's mother and brother, Deronda took what she
had said to-day as a warrant for deferring any immediate measures. His
conscience was not quite easy in this desire for delay, any more than
it was quite easy in his not attempting to learn the truth about his
own mother: in both cases he felt that there might be an unfulfilled
duty to a parent, but in both cases there was an overpowering
repugnance to the possible truth, which threw a turning weight into the
scale of argument.

"At least, I will look about," was his final determination. "I may find
some special Jewish machinery. I will wait till after Christmas."

What should we all do without the calendar, when we want to put off a
disagreeable duty? The admirable arrangements of the solar system, by
which our time is measured, always supply us with a term before which
it is hardly worth while to set about anything we are disinclined to.