decide that he would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra,
who was certainly not a leader among his people--a hesitation which
proved how, in a man much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may
weigh more than the best-clad likelihood; for Deronda's reasoning had
decided that all likelihood was against this man's being Mirah's
brother.

One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand
book-shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages
was represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer
to the mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was
judicious was apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he
wanted--namely, that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the
Polish Jew, Salomon Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his
pocket, he took from its place, and entered the shop to pay for,
expecting to see behind the counter a grimy personage showing that
_nonchalance_ about sales which seems to belong universally to the
second-hand book-business. In most other trades you find generous men
who are anxious to sell you their wares for your own welfare; but even
a Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you with an affectionate
assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it, and that he wishes
he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in request. One is led
to fear that a secondhand bookseller may belong to that unhappy class
of men who have no belief in the good of what they get their living by,
yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than unctuous in their
vocation.

But instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background
of books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling
in its unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was
difficult to guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh,
something like an old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some
bookshelves that projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more
remarkable than reading yesterday's _Times_; but when he let the paper
rest on his lap and looked at the incoming customer, the thought
glanced through Deronda that precisely such a physiognomy as that might
possibly have been seen in a prophet of the Exile, or in some New
Hebrew poet of the mediaeval time. It was a fine typical Jewish face,
wrought into intensity of expression apparently by a strenuous eager
experience in which al