u can't tell that in a picture."

"It will make them feel their ignorance then--an excellent aesthetic
effect. The fourth is, Titus sending Berenice away from Rome after she
has shared his palace for ten years--both reluctant, both sad--_invitus
invitam_, as Suetonius hath it. I've found a model for the Roman brute."

"Shall you make Berenice look fifty? She must have been that."

"No, no; a few mature touches to show the lapse of time. Dark-eyed
beauty wears well, hers particularly. But now, here is the fifth:
Berenice seated lonely on the ruins of Jerusalem. That is pure
imagination. That is what ought to have been--perhaps was. Now, see how
I tell a pathetic negative. Nobody knows what became of her--that is
finely indicated by the series coming to a close. There is no sixth
picture." Here Hans pretended to speak with a gasping sense of
sublimity, and drew back his head with a frown, as if looking for a
like impression on Deronda. "I break off in the Homeric style. The
story is chipped off, so to speak, and passes with a ragged edge into
nothing--_le neant_; can anything be more sublime, especially in
French? The vulgar would desire to see her corpse and burial--perhaps
her will read and her linen distributed. But now come and look at this
on the easel. I have made some way there."

"That beseeching attitude is really good," said Deronda, after a
moment's contemplation. "You have been very industrious in the
Christmas holidays; for I suppose you have taken up the subject since
you came to London." Neither of them had yet mentioned Mirah.

"No," said Hans, putting touches to his picture, "I made up my mind to
the subject before. I take that lucky chance for an augury that I am
going to burst on the world as a great painter. I saw a splendid woman
in the Trastevere--the grandest women there are half Jewesses--and she
set me hunting for a fine situation of a Jewess at Rome. Like other men
of vast learning, I ended by taking what lay on the surface. I'll show
you a sketch of the Trasteverina's head when I can lay my hands on it."

"I should think she would be a more suitable model for Berenice," said
Deronda, not knowing exactly how to express his discontent.

"Not a bit of it. The model ought to be the most beautiful Jewess in
the world, and I have found her."

"Have you made yourself sure that she would like to figure in that
character? I should think no woman would be more abhorrent to her. Does
she quite know