id Gwendolen, composedly, pointing to the turquoises, while
she still held the glass; "it is an old necklace I like to wear. I lost
it once, and someone found it for me."

With that she gave the glass again to Deronda, who immediately carried
it away, and on returning said, in order to banish any consciousness
about the necklace--

"It is worth while for you to go and look out at one of the windows on
that side. You can see the finest possible moonlight on the stone
pillars and carving, and shadows waving across it in the wind."

"I should like to see it. Will you go?" said Gwendolen, looking up at
her husband.

He cast his eyes down at her, and saying, "No, Deronda will take you,"
slowly moved from his leaning attitude, and walked away.

Gwendolen's face for a moment showed a fleeting vexation: she resented
this show of indifference toward her. Deronda felt annoyed, chiefly for
her sake; and with a quick sense, that it would relieve her most to
behave as if nothing peculiar had occurred, he said, "Will you take my
arm and go, while only servants are there?" He thought that he
understood well her action in drawing his attention to the necklace:
she wished him to infer that she had submitted her mind to rebuke--her
speech and manner had from the first fluctuated toward that
submission--and that she felt no lingering resentment. Her evident
confidence in his interpretation of her appealed to him as a peculiar
claim.

When they were walking together, Gwendolen felt as if the annoyance
which had just happened had removed another film of reserve from
between them, and she had more right than before to be as open as she
wished. She did not speak, being filled with the sense of silent
confidence, until they were in front of the window looking out on the
moonlit court. A sort of bower had been made round the window, turning
it into a recess. Quitting his arm, she folded her hands in her
burnous, and pressed her brow against the glass. He moved slightly
away, and held the lapels of his coat with his thumbs under the collar
as his manner was: he had a wonderful power of standing perfectly
still, and in that position reminded one sometimes of Dante's _spiriti
magni con occhi tardi e gravi_. (Doubtless some of these danced in
their youth, doubted of their own vocation, and found their own times
too modern.) He abstained from remarking on the scene before them,
fearing that any indifferent words might jar on her: already the