Part 96 (1/2)
”That you had no wish to hold the position of a lover toward another woman, who is neither wife nor widow.”
”I can't pretend not to understand you, Meyrick. It is painful that our wishes should clash. I hope you will tell me if you have any ground for supposing that you would succeed.”
”That seems rather a superfluous inquiry on your part, Deronda,” said Hans, with some irritation.
”Why superfluous?”
”Because you are perfectly convinced on the subject--and probably have had the very best evidence to convince you.”
”I will be more frank with you than you are with me,” said Deronda, still heated by Hans' show of temper, and yet sorry for him. ”I have never had the slightest evidence that I should succeed myself. In fact, I have very little hope.”
Hans looked round hastily at his friend, but immediately turned to his picture again.
”And in our present situation,” said Deronda, hurt by the idea that Hans suspected him of insincerity, and giving an offended emphasis to his words, ”I don't see how I can deliberately make known my feeling to her. If she could not return it, I should have embittered her best comfort; for neither she nor I can be parted from her brother, and we should have to meet continually. If I were to cause her that sort of pain by an unwilling betrayal of my feeling, I should be no better than a mischievous animal.”
”I don't know that I have ever betrayed _my_ feeling to her,” said Hans, as if he were vindicating himself.
”You mean that we are on a level, then; you have no reason to envy me.”
”Oh, not the slightest,” said Hans, with bitter irony. ”You have measured my conceit and know that it out-tops all your advantages.”
”I am a nuisance to you, Meyrick. I am sorry, but I can't help it,”
said Deronda, rising. ”After what pa.s.sed between us before, I wished to have this explanation; and I don't see that any pretensions of mine have made a real difference to you. They are not likely to make any pleasant difference to myself under present circ.u.mstances. Now the father is there--did you know that the father is there?”
”Yes. If he were not a Jew I would permit myself to d.a.m.n him--with faint praise, I mean,” said Hans, but with no smile.
”She and I meet under greater constraint than ever. Things might go on in this way for two years without my getting any insight into her feeling toward me. That is the whole state of affairs, Hans. Neither you nor I have injured the other, that I can see. We must put up with this sort of rivalry in a hope that is likely enough to come to nothing. Our friends.h.i.+p can bear that strain, surely.”
”No, it can't,” said Hans, impetuously, throwing down his tools, thrusting his hands into his coat-pockets, and turning round to face Deronda, who drew back a little and looked at him with amazement. Hans went on in the same tone--
”Our friends.h.i.+p--my friends.h.i.+p--can't bear the strain of behaving to you like an ungrateful dastard and grudging you your happiness. For you _are_ the happiest dog in the world. If Mirah loves anybody better than her brother, _you are the man_.”
Hans turned on his heel and threw himself into his chair, looking up at Deronda with an expression the reverse of tender. Something like a shock pa.s.sed through Deronda, and, after an instant, he said--
”It is a good-natured fiction of yours, Hans.”
”I am not in a good-natured mood. I a.s.sure you I found the fact disagreeable when it was thrust on me--all the more, or perhaps all the less, because I believed then that your heart was pledged to the d.u.c.h.ess. But now, confound you! you turn out to be in love in the right place--a Jew--and everything eligible.”
”Tell me what convinced you--there's a good fellow,” said Deronda, distrusting a delight that he was unused to.
”Don't ask. Little mother was witness. The upshot is, that Mirah is jealous of the d.u.c.h.ess, and the sooner you relieve your mind the better. There! I've cleared off a score or two, and may be allowed to swear at you for getting what you deserve--which is just the very best luck I know of.”
”G.o.d bless you, Hans!” said Deronda, putting out his hand, which the other took and wrung in silence.
CHAPTER LXVIII.
”All thoughts, all pa.s.sions, all delights, Whatever stirs this mortal frame, All are but ministers of Love, And feed his sacred flame.”
--COLERIDGE.
Deronda's eagerness to confess his love could hardly have had a stronger stimulus than Hans had given it in his a.s.surance that Mirah needed relief from jealousy. He went on his next visit to Ezra with the determination to be resolute in using--nay, in requesting--an opportunity of private conversation with her. If she accepted his love, he felt courageous about all other consequences, and as her betrothed husband he would gain a protective authority which might be a desirable defense for her in future difficulties with her father. Deronda had not observed any signs of growing restlessness in Lapidoth, or of diminished desire to recommend himself; but he had forebodings of some future struggle, some mortification, or some intolerable increase of domestic disquietude in which he might save Ezra and Mirah from being helpless victims.