Daniel Deronda, George Eliot [portable ebook reader .TXT] 📗

uneasily dubious about his opinion of her, she felt a peculiar anxiety today, lest he might think of her with contempt, as one triumphantly conscious of being Grandcourt’s wife, the future lady of this domain. It was her habitual effort now to magnify the satisfactions of her pride, on which she nourished her strength; but somehow Deronda’s being there disturbed them all. There was not the faintest touch of coquetry in the attitude of her mind toward him: he was unique to her among men, because he had impressed her as being not her admirer but her superior: in some mysterious way he was becoming a part of her conscience, as one woman whose nature is an object of reverential belief may become a new conscience to a man.

And now he would not look round and find out that she was there! The paper crackled in his hand, his head rose and sank, exploring those stupid columns, and he was evidently stroking his beard; as if this world were a very easy affair to her. Of course all the rest of the company would soon be down, and the opportunity of her saying something to efface her flippancy of the evening before, would be quite gone. She felt sick with irritation⁠—so fast do young creatures like her absorb misery through invisible suckers of their own fancies⁠—and her face had gathered that peculiar expression which comes with a mortification to which tears are forbidden.

At last he threw down the paper and turned round.

“Oh, you are there already,” he said, coming forward a step or two: “I must go and put on my coat.”

He turned aside and walked out of the room. This was behaving quite badly. Mere politeness would have made him stay to exchange some words before leaving her alone. It was true that Grandcourt came in with Sir Hugo immediately after, so that the words must have been too few to be worth anything. As it was, they saw him walking from the library door.

“A⁠—you look rather ill,” said Grandcourt, going straight up to her, standing in front of her, and looking into her eyes. “Do you feel equal to the walk?”

“Yes, I shall like it,” said Gwendolen, without the slightest movement except this of the lips.

“We could put off going over the house, you know, and only go out of doors,” said Sir Hugo, kindly, while Grandcourt turned aside.

“Oh, dear no!” said Gwendolen, speaking with determination; “let us put off nothing. I want a long walk.”

The rest of the walking party⁠—two ladies and two gentlemen besides Deronda⁠—had now assembled; and Gwendolen rallying, went with due cheerfulness by the side of Sir Hugo, paying apparently an equal attention to the commentaries Deronda was called upon to give on the various architectural fragments, to Sir Hugo’s reasons for not attempting to remedy the mixture of the undisguised modern with the antique⁠—which in his opinion only made the place the more truly historical. On their way to the buttery and kitchen they took the outside of the house and paused before a beautiful pointed doorway, which was the only old remnant in the east front.

“Well, now, to my mind,” said Sir Hugo, “that is more interesting standing as it is in the middle of what is frankly four centuries later, than if the whole front had been dressed up in a pretense of the thirteenth century. Additions ought to smack of the time when they are made and carry the stamp of their period. I wouldn’t destroy any old bits, but that notion of reproducing the old is a mistake, I think. At least, if a man likes to do it he must pay for his whistle. Besides, where are you to stop along that road⁠—making loopholes where you don’t want to peep, and so on? You may as well ask me to wear out the stones with kneeling; eh, Grandcourt?”

“A confounded nuisance,” drawled Grandcourt. “I hate fellows wanting to howl litanies⁠—acting the greatest bores that have ever existed.”

“Well, yes, that’s what their romanticism must come to,” said Sir Hugo, in a tone of confidential assent⁠—“that is if they carry it out logically.”

“I think that way of arguing against a course because it may be ridden down to an absurdity would soon bring life to a standstill,” said Deronda. “It is not the logic of human action, but of a roasting-jack, that must go on to the last turn when it has been once wound up. We can do nothing safely without some judgment as to where we are to stop.”

“I find the rule of the pocket the best guide,” said Sir Hugo, laughingly. “And as for most of your new-old building, you had need to hire men to scratch and chip it all over artistically to give it an elderly-looking surface; which at the present rate of labor would not answer.”

“Do you want to keep up the old fashions, then, Mr. Deronda?” said Gwendolen, taking advantage of the freedom of grouping to fall back a little, while Sir Hugo and Grandcourt went on.

“Some of them. I don’t see why we should not use our choice there as we do elsewhere⁠—or why either age or novelty by itself is an argument for or against. To delight in doing things because our fathers did them is good if it shuts out nothing better; it enlarges the range of affection⁠—and affection is the broadest basis of good in life.”

“Do you think so?” said Gwendolen with a little surprise. “I should have thought you cared most about ideas, knowledge, wisdom, and all that.”

“But to care about them is a sort of affection,” said Deronda, smiling at her sudden naivete. “Call it attachment; interest, willing to bear a great deal for the sake of being with them and saving them from injury. Of course, it makes a difference if the objects of interest are human beings; but generally in all deep affections the objects are a mixture⁠—half persons and half ideas⁠—sentiments and affections flow in together.”

“I