t remorse; but suppose one
does feel remorse? I believe you could never lead an injurious
life--all reckless lives are injurious, pestilential--without feeling
remorse." Deronda's unconscious fervor had gathered as he went on: he
was uttering thoughts which he had used for himself in moments of
painful meditation.

"Then tell me what better I can do," said Gwendolen, insistently.

"Many things. Look on other lives besides your own. See what their
troubles are, and how they are borne. Try to care about something in
this vast world besides the gratification of small selfish desires. Try
to care for what is best in thought and action--something that is good
apart from the accidents of your own lot."

For an instant or two Gwendolen was mute. Then, again moving her brow
from the glass, she said--

"You mean that I am selfish and ignorant."

He met her fixed look in silence before he answered firmly--"You will
not go on being selfish and ignorant!"

She did not turn away her glance or let her eyelids fall, but a change
came over her face--that subtle change in nerve and muscle which will
sometimes give a childlike expression even to the elderly: it is the
subsidence of self-assertion.

"Shall I lead you back?" said Deronda, gently, turning and offering her
his arm again. She took it silently, and in that way they came in sight
of Grandcourt, who was walking slowly near their former place.
Gwendolen went up to him and said, "I am ready to go now. Mr. Deronda
will excuse us to Lady Mallinger."

"Certainly," said Deronda. "Lord and Lady Pentreath disappeared some
time ago."

Grandcourt gave his arm in silent compliance, nodding over his shoulder
to Deronda, and Gwendolen too only half turned to bow and say,
"Thanks." The husband and wife left the gallery and paced the corridors
in silence. When the door had closed on them in the boudoir, Grandcourt
threw himself into a chair and said, with undertoned peremptoriness,
"Sit down." She, already in the expectation of something unpleasant,
had thrown off her burnous with nervous unconsciousness, and
immediately obeyed. Turning his eyes toward her, he began--

"Oblige me in future by not showing whims like a mad woman in a play."

"What do you mean?" said Gwendolen.

"I suppose there is some understanding between you and Deronda about
that thing you have on your wrist. If you have anything to say to him,
say it. But don't carry on a telegraphing which other people are