's daughter, knew
that they were to see "young Grandcourt," Sir Hugo's nephew, the
presumptive heir and future baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his
bride after an absence of many years; any coolness between uncle and
nephew having, it is understood, given way to a friendly warmth. The
bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of
all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have
shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself
moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she
held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness
and spirit would enable her to make the best of. And now she was
wondering that she could get so little joy out of the exultation to
which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the distasteful petty
empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction and
superfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even
unreasonably elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the
moment; but she was like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist
like willful tormentors.

Wondering in this way at her own dullness, and all the while longing
for an excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing
through files of admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it
was traditional to open the ball, and was being generally regarded by
her own sex as an enviable woman. It was remarked that she carried
herself with a wonderful air, considering that she had been nobody in
particular, and without a farthing to her fortune. If she had been a
duke's daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have
taken the honors of the evening more as a matter of course. Poor
Gwendolen! It would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was
automatically practiced to hear this last great gambling loss with an
air of perfect self-possession.

The next couple that passed were also worth looking at. Lady Pentreath
had said, "I shall stand up for one dance, but I shall choose my
partner. Mr. Deronda, you are the youngest man, I mean to dance with
you. Nobody is old enough to make a good pair with me. I must have a
contrast." And the contrast certainly set off the old lady to the
utmost. She was one of those women who are never handsome till they are
old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the beauty of age as early
as possible. What might have seemed harshness in her feat