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

heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment unrelieved by a cigar. “It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been called out for less.”

“You have taken a base advantage of our confidence,” burst in Mrs. Arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of speech to her husband.

Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony.

“The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the house at once,” continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without mentioning the money.

“I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter’s wish,” said Klesmer. “My engagement is to her.”

“It is useless to discuss the question,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint. “We shall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should know that.”

“Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than I am worthy of.”

“It is no sacrifice to me,” said Catherine, “except that I am sorry to hurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a wretched fatality of my life.”

“You mean to defy us, then?” said Mrs. Arrowpoint.

“I mean to marry Herr Klesmer,” said Catherine, firmly.

“He had better not count on our relenting,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned among the privileges of women.

“Madam,” said Klesmer, “certain reasons forbid me to retort. But understand that I consider it out of the power of either of you, or of your fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life but her companionship.”

“You will leave the house, however,” said Mrs. Arrowpoint.

“I go at once,” said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room.

“Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma,” said Catherine; “I consider myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him.”

The mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal.

“It’s all very fine,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone; “but what the deuce are we to do with the property?”

“There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name.”

“Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time,” said Mr. Arrowpoint, relighting his cigar.

And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, Klesmer had left Quetcham.

XXIII

Among the heirs of Art, as is the division of the promised land, each has to win his portion by hard fighting: the bestowal is after the manner of prophecy, and is a title without possession. To carry the map of an ungotten estate in your pocket is a poor sort of copyhold. And in fancy to cast his shoe over Eden is little warrant that a man shall ever set the sole of his foot on an acre of his own there.

The most obstinate beliefs that mortals entertain about themselves are such as they have no evidence for beyond a constant, spontaneous pulsing of their self-satisfaction⁠—as it were a hidden seed of madness, a confidence that they can move the world without precise notion of standing-place or lever.

“Pray go to church, mamma,” said Gwendolen the next morning. “I prefer seeing Herr Klesmer alone.” (He had written in reply to her note that he would be with her at eleven.)

“That is hardly correct, I think,” said Mrs. Davilow, anxiously.

“Our affairs are too serious for us to think of such nonsensical rules,” said Gwendolen, contemptuously. “They are insulting as well as ridiculous.”

“You would not mind Isabel sitting with you? She would be reading in a corner.”

“No; she could not: she would bite her nails and stare. It would be too irritating. Trust my judgment, mamma, I must be alone. Take them all to church.”

Gwendolen had her way, of course; only that Miss Merry and two of the girls stayed at home, to give the house a look of habitation by sitting at the dining-room windows.

It was a delicious Sunday morning. The melancholy waning sunshine of autumn rested on the half-strown grass and came mildly through the windows in slanting bands of brightness over the old furniture, and the glass panel that reflected the furniture; over the tapestried chairs with their faded flower-wreaths, the dark enigmatic pictures, the superannuated organ at which Gwendolen had pleased herself with acting Saint Cecelia on her first joyous arrival, the crowd of pallid, dusty knickknacks seen through the open doors of the antechamber where she had achieved the wearing of her Greek dress as Hermione. This last memory was just now very busy in her; for had not Klesmer then been struck with admiration of her pose and expression? Whatever he had said, whatever she imagined him to have thought, was at this moment pointed with keenest interest for her: perhaps she had never before in her life felt so inwardly dependent, so consciously in need of another person’s opinion. There was a new fluttering of spirit within her, a new element of deliberation in her self-estimate which had hitherto been a blissful gift of intuition. Still it was the recurrent burden of her inward soliloquy that Klesmer had seen but little of her, and any unfavorable conclusion of his must have too narrow a foundation. She really felt clever enough for anything.

To fill up the time she collected her volumes and pieces of music, and laying them on the top of the piano, set herself to classify them. Then catching the reflection of her movements in the glass panel, she was diverted to the contemplation of the image there and walked toward it. Dressed in black, without a single ornament, and with the warm whiteness of her skin set off between her light-brown coronet of hair and her square-cut bodice, she might have tempted an artist to try again