“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.