Didactic fiction; England -- Fiction; Jewish fiction; Jews -- England -- Fiction; Zionists -- Fiction
“An uncommonly fine girl, a perfect Diana,” said Sir Hugo, turning to
Grandcourt again. “Really worth a little straining to look at her. I
saw her winning, and she took it as coolly as if she had known it all
beforehand. The same day Deronda happened to see her losing like
wildfire, and she bore it with immense pluck. I suppose she was cleaned
out, or was wise enough to stop in time. How do you know she’s gone?”
“Oh, by the Visitor-list, ...” said Deronda, with a scarcely perceptible
shrug. “Vandernoodt told me her name was Harleth, and she was with the
Baron and Baroness von Langen. I saw by the list that Miss Harleth was
no longer there.”
This held no further information for Lush than that Gwendolen had been
gambling. He had already looked at the list, and ascertained that
Gwendolen had gone, but he had no intention of thrusting this knowledge
on Grandcourt before he asked for it; and he had not asked, finding it
enough to believe that the object of search would turn up somewhere or
other.
But now Grandcourt had heard what was rather piquant, and not a word
about Miss Harleth had been missed by him. After a moment’s pause he
said to Deronda,
“Do you know those people—the Langens?”
“I have talked with them a little since Miss Harleth went away. I knew
nothing of them before.”
“Where is she gone—do you know?”
“She is gone home,” said Deronda, coldly, as if he wished to say no
more. But then, from a fresh impulse, he turned to look markedly at
Grandcourt, and added, “But it is possible you know her. Her home is
not far from Diplow: Offendene, near Winchester.”
Deronda, turning to look straight at Grandcourt, who was on his left
hand, might have been a subject for those old painters who liked
contrasts of temperament. There was a calm intensity of life and
richness of tint in his face that on a sudden gaze from him was rather
startling, and often made him seem to have spoken, so that servants and
officials asked him automatically, “What did you say, sir?” when he had
been quite silent. Grandcourt himself felt an irritation, which he did
not show except by a slight movement of the eyelids, at Deronda’s
turning round on him when he was not asked to do more than speak. But
he answered, with his usual drawl, “Yes, I know her,” and paused with
his shoulder toward Deronda, to look at the gambling.
“What of her, eh?” asked Sir Hugo of Lush, as the three moved on a
little way. “She must be a new-comer at Offendene. Old Blenny lived
there after the dowager died.”
“A little too much of her,” said Lush, in a low, significant tone; not
sorry to let Sir Hugo know the state of affairs.
“Why? how?” said the baronet. They all moved out of the _salon_ into an
airy promenade.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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