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

other: she was leaning backward in her chair, and he against the wall; and Deronda, happening to observe this, went up to ask her if she had resolved not to dance any more. Having himself been doing hard duty in this way among the guests, he thought he had earned the right to sink for a little while into the background, and he had spoken little to Gwendolen since their conversation at the piano the day before. Grandcourt’s presence would only make it the easier to show that pleasure in talking to her even about trivialities which would be a sign of friendliness; and he fancied that her face looked blank. A smile beamed over it as she saw him coming, and she raised herself from her leaning posture. Grandcourt had been grumbling at the ennui of staying so long in this stupid dance, and proposing that they should vanish: she had resisted on the ground of politeness⁠—not without being a little frightened at the probability that he was silently angry with her. She had her reason for staying, though she had begun to despair of the opportunity for the sake of which she had put the old necklace on her wrist. But now at last Deronda had come.

“Yes; I shall not dance any more. Are you not glad?” she said, with some gayety, “you might have felt obliged humbly to offer yourself as a partner, and I feel sure you have danced more than you like already.”

“I will not deny that,” said Deronda, “since you have danced as much as you like.”

“But will you take trouble for me in another way, and fetch me a glass of that fresh water?”

It was but a few steps that Deronda had to go for the water. Gwendolen was wrapped in the lightest, softest of white woolen burnouses, under which her hands were hidden. While he was gone she had drawn off her glove, which was finished with a lace ruffle, and when she put up her hand to take the glass and lifted it to her mouth, the necklace-bracelet, which in its triple winding adapted itself clumsily to her wrist, was necessarily conspicuous. Grandcourt saw it, and saw that it was attracting Deronda’s notice.

“What is that hideous thing you have got on your wrist?” said the husband.

“That?” said 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 calm light and shadow, the ancient steadfast forms, and aloofness enough from those inward troubles which he felt sure were agitating her. And he judged aright: she would have been impatient of polite conversation. The incidents of the last minute or two had receded behind former thoughts which she had imagined herself uttering to Deronda, which now urged themselves to her lips. In a subdued voice, she said,

“Suppose I had gambled again, and lost the necklace again, what should you have thought of me?”

“Worse than I do now.”

“Then you are mistaken about me. You wanted me not to do that⁠—not to make my gain out of another’s loss in that way⁠—and I have done a great deal worse.”

“I can’t imagine temptations,” said Deronda. “Perhaps I am able to understand what you mean. At least I understand self-reproach.” In spite of preparation he was almost alarmed at Gwendolen’s precipitancy of confidence toward him, in contrast with her habitual resolute concealment.

“What should you do if you were like me⁠—feeling that you were wrong and miserable, and dreading everything to come?” It seemed that she