Part 59 (2/2)

”I don't mean to call mine hopeless,” said Hans, with provoking coolness, laying down his tools, thrusting his thumbs into his belt, and moving away a little, as if to contemplate his picture more deliberately.

”My dear fellow, you are only preparing misery for yourself,” said Deronda, decisively. ”She would not marry a Christian, even if she loved him. Have you heard her--of course you have--heard her speak of her people and her religion?”

”That can't last,” said Hans. ”She will see no Jew who is tolerable.

Every male of that race is insupportable,--'insupportably advancing'--his nose.”

”She may rejoin her family. That is what she longs for. Her mother and brother are probably strict Jews.”

”I'll turn proselyte, if she wishes it,” said Hans, with a shrug and a laugh.

”Don't talk nonsense, Hans. I thought you professed a serious love for her,” said Deronda, getting heated.

”So I do. You think it desperate, but I don't.”

”I know nothing; I can't tell what has happened. We must be prepared for surprises. But I can hardly imagine a greater surprise to me than that there should have seemed to be anything in Mirah's sentiments for you to found a romantic hope on.” Deronda felt that he was too contemptuous.

”I don't found my romantic hopes on a woman's sentiments,” said Hans, perversely inclined to be the merrier when he was addressed with gravity. ”I go to science and philosophy for my romance. Nature designed Mirah to fall in love with me. The amalgamation of races demands it--the mitigation of human ugliness demands it--the affinity of contrasts a.s.sures it. I am the utmost contrast to Mirah--a bleached Christian, who can't sing two notes in tune. Who has a chance against me?”

”I see now; it was all _persiflage_. You don't mean a word you say, Meyrick,” said Deronda, laying his hand on Meyrick's shoulder, and speaking in a tone of cordial relief. ”I was a wiseacre to answer you seriously.”

”Upon my honor I do mean it, though,” said Hans, facing round and laying his left hand on Deronda's shoulder, so that their eyes fronted each other closely. ”I am at the confessional. I meant to tell you as soon as you came. My mother says you are Mirah's guardian, and she thinks herself responsible to you for every breath that falls on Mirah in her house. Well, I love her--I wors.h.i.+p her--I won't despair--I mean to deserve her.”

”My dear fellow, you can't do it,” said Deronda, quickly.

”I should have said, I mean to try.”

”You can't keep your resolve, Hans. You used to resolve what you would do for your mother and sisters.”

”You have a right to reproach me, old fellow,” said Hans, gently.

”Perhaps I am ungenerous,” said Deronda, not apologetically, however.

”Yet it can't be ungenerous to warn you that you are indulging mad, Quixotic expectations.”

”Who will be hurt but myself, then?” said Hans, putting out his lip. ”I am not going to say anything to her unless I felt sure of the answer. I dare not ask the oracles: I prefer a cheerful caliginosity, as Sir Thomas Browne might say. I would rather run my chance there and lose, than be sure of winning anywhere else. And I don't mean to swallow the poison of despair, though you are disposed to thrust it on me. I am giving up wine, so let me get a little drunk on hope and vanity.”

”With all my heart, if it will do you any good,” said Deronda, loosing Hans's shoulder, with a little push. He made his tone kindly, but his words were from the lip only. As to his real feeling he was silenced.

He was conscious of that peculiar irritation which will sometimes befall the man whom others are inclined to trust as a mentor--the irritation of perceiving that he is supposed to be entirely off the same plane of desire and temptation as those who confess to him. Our guides, we pretend, must be sinless: as if those were not often the best teachers who only yesterday got corrected for their mistakes.

Throughout their friends.h.i.+p Deronda had been used to Hans's egotism, but he had never before felt intolerant of it: when Hans, habitually pouring out his own feelings and affairs, had never cared for any detail in return, and, if he chanced to know any, and soon forgotten it. Deronda had been inwardly as well as outwardly indulgent--nay, satisfied. But now he had noted with some indignation, all the stronger because it must not be betrayed, Hans's evident a.s.sumption that for any danger of rivalry or jealousy in relation to Mirah, Deronda was not as much out of the question as the angel Gabriel. It is one thing to be resolute in placing one's self out of the question, and another to endure that others should perform that exclusion for us. He had expected that Hans would give him trouble: what he had not expected was that the trouble would have a strong element of personal feeling. And he was rather ashamed that Hans's hopes caused him uneasiness in spite of his well-warranted conviction that they would never be fulfilled.

They had raised an image of Mirah changing; and however he might protest that the change would not happen, the protest kept up the unpleasant image. Altogether poor Hans seemed to be entering into Deronda's experience in a disproportionate manner--going beyond his part of rescued prodigal, and rousing a feeling quite distinct from compa.s.sionate affection.

When Deronda went to Chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought to have been by Mrs. Meyrick's evident release from anxiety about the beloved but incalculable son. Mirah seemed livelier than before, and for the first time he saw her laugh. It was when they were talking of Hans, he being naturally the mother's first topic. Mirah wished to know if Deronda had seen Mr. Hans going through a sort of character piece without changing his dress.

”He pa.s.ses from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame where you fancied the figures without seeing them,” said Mirah, full of her subject; ”he is so wonderfully quick. I used never to like comic things on the stage--they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute Mr. Hans makes himself a blind bard, and then Rienzi addressing the Romans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young gentleman--I am sorry for them all, and yet I laugh, all in one”--here Mirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song.

”We hardly thought that Mirah could laugh till Hans came,” said Mrs.

Meyrick, seeing that Deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty picture.

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