CHAPTER XXXIII.

"No man," says a Rabbi, by way of indisputable instance, "may turn the
bones of his father and mother into spoons"--sure that his hearers
felt the checks against that form of economy. The market for spoons
has never expanded enough for any one to say, "Why not?" and to argue
that human progress lies in such an application of material. The only
check to be alleged is a sentiment, which will coerce none who do not
hold that sentiments are the better part of the world's wealth.


Deronda meanwhile took to a less fashionable form of exercise than riding
in Rotton Row. He went often rambling in those parts of London which are
most inhabited by common Jews. He walked to the synagogues at times of
service, he looked into shops, he observed faces:--a process not very
promising of particular discovery. Why did he not address himself to an
influential Rabbi or other member of a Jewish community, to consult on the
chances of finding a mother named Cohen, with a son named Ezra, and a lost
daughter named Mirah? He thought of doing so--after Christmas. The fact
was, notwithstanding all his sense of poetry in common things, Deronda,
where a keen personal interest was aroused, could not, more than the rest
of us, continuously escape suffering from the pressure of that hard
unaccommodating Actual, which has never consulted our taste and is
entirely unselect. Enthusiasm, we know, dwells at ease among ideas,
tolerates garlic breathed in the middle ages, and sees no shabbiness in
the official trappings of classic processions: it gets squeamish when
ideals press upon it as something warmly incarnate, and can hardly face
them without fainting. Lying dreamily in a boat, imagining one's self in
quest of a beautiful maiden's relatives in Cordova elbowed by Jews in the
time of Ibn-Gebirol, all the physical incidents can be borne without
shock. Or if the scenery of St. Mary Axe and Whitechapel were
imaginatively transported to the borders of the Rhine at the end of the
eleventh century, when in the ears listening for the signals of the
Messiah, the Hep! Hep! Hep! of the Crusaders came like the bay of blood-
hounds; and in the presence of those devilish missionaries with sword and
firebrand the crouching figure of the reviled Jew turned round erect,
heroic, flashing with sublime constancy in the face of torture and death--
what would the dingy shops and unbeautiful faces signify to the thrill of
contemplative emotion? But the fervor of sympathy with which we
contemplate a grandiose martyrdom is feeble compared with the enthusiasm
that keeps unslacked where there is no danger, no challenge--nothing but
impartial midday falling on commonplace, perhaps half-repulsive, objects
which are really the beloved ideas made flesh. Here undoubtedly lies the
chief poetic energy:--in the force of imagination that pierces or exalts
the solid fact, instead of floating among cloud-pictures. To glory in a
prophetic vision of knowledge covering the earth, is an easier exercise of
believing imagination than to see its beginning in newspaper placards,
staring at you from the bridge beyond the corn-fields; and it might well
happen to most of us dainty people that we were in the thick of the battle
of Armageddon without being aware of anything more than the annoyance of a
little explosive smoke and struggling on the ground immediately about us.

It lay in Deronda's nature usually to contemn the feeble, fastidious
sympathy which shrinks from the broad life of mankind; but now, with Mirah
before him as a living reality, whose experience he had to care for, he
saw every common Jew and Jewess in the light of a comparison with her, and
had a presentiment of the collision between her idea of the unknown mother
and brother and the discovered fact--a presentiment all the keener in him
because of a suppressed consciousness that a not unlike possibility of
collision might lie hidden in his own lot. Not that he would have looked
with more complacency of expectation at wealthy Jews, outdoing the lords
of the Philistines in their sports; but since there was no likelihood of
Mirah's friends being found among that class, their habits did not
immediately affect him. In this mood he rambled, without expectation of a
more pregnant result than a little preparation of his own mind, perhaps
for future theorizing as well as practice--very much as if, Mirah being
related to Welsh miners, he had gone to look more closely at the ways of
those people, not without wishing at the same time to get a little light
of detail on the history of Strikes.

He really did not long to find anybody in particular; and when, as his
habit was, he looked at the name over a shop door, he was well content
that it was not Ezra Cohen. I confess, he particularly desired that Ezra
Cohen should not keep a shop. Wishes are held to be ominous; according to
which belief the order of the world is so arranged that if you have an
impious objection to a squint, your offspring is the more likely to be
born with one; also, that if you happened to desire a squint you would not
get it. This desponding view of probability the hopeful entirely reject,
taking their wishes as good and sufficient security for all kinds of
fulfilment. Who is absolutely neutral? Deronda happening one morning to
turn into a little side street out of the noise and obstructions of
Holborn, felt the scale dip on the desponding side.

He was rather tired of the streets and had paused to hail a hansom cab
which he saw coming, when his attention was caught by some fine old clasps
in chased silver displayed in the window at his right hand. His first
thought was that Lady Mallinger, who had a strictly Protestant taste for
such Catholic spoils, might like to have these missal-clasps turned into a
bracelet: then his eyes traveled over the other contents of the window,
and he saw that the shop was that kind of pawnbroker's where the lead is
given to jewelry, lace and all equivocal objects introduced as _bric-a-
brac_. A placard in one corner announced--_Watches and Jewlery exchanged
and repaired_. But his survey had been noticed from within, and a figure
appeared at the door, looking round at him and saying in a tone of cordial
encouragement, "Good day, sir." The instant was enough for Deronda to see
the face, unmistakably Jewish, belonged to a young man about thirty, and
wincing from the shopkeeper's persuasiveness that would probably follow,
he had no sooner returned the "good day," than he passed to the other side
of the street and beckoned to the cabman to draw up there. From that
station he saw the name over the shop window--Ezra Cohen.

There might be a hundred Ezra Cohens lettered above shop windows, but
Deronda had not seen them. Probably the young man interested in a possible
customer was Ezra himself; and he was about the age to be expected in
Mirah's brother, who was grown up while she was still a little child. But
Deronda's first endeavor as he drove homeward was to convince himself that
there was not the slightest warrantable presumption of this Ezra being
Mirah's brother; and next, that even if, in spite of good reasoning, he
turned out to be that brother, while on inquiry the mother was found to be
dead, it was not his--Deronda's--duty to make known the discovery to
Mirah. In inconvenient disturbance of this conclusion there came his
lately-acquired knowledge that Mirah would have a religious desire to know
of her mother's death, and also to learn whether her brother were living.
How far was he justified in determining another life by his own notions?
Was it not his secret complaint against the way in which others had
ordered his own life, that he had not open daylight on all its relations,
so that he had not, like other men, the full guidance of primary duties?

The immediate relief from this inward debate was the reflection that he
had not yet made any real discovery, and that by looking into the facts
more closely he should be certified that there was no demand on him for
any decision whatever. He intended to return to that shop as soon as he
could conveniently, and buy the clasps for Lady Mallinger. But he was
hindered for several days by Sir Hugo, who, about to make an after-dinner
speech on a burning topic, wanted Deronda to forage for him on the legal
part of the question, besides wasting time every day on argument which
always ended in a drawn battle. As on many other questions, they held
different sides, but Sir Hugo did not mind this, and when Deronda put his
point well, said, with a mixture of satisfaction and regret--

"Confound it, Dan! why don't you make an opportunity of saying these
things in public? You're wrong, you know. You won't succeed. You've got
the massive sentiment--the heavy artillery of the country against you. But
it's all the better ground for a young man to display himself on. When I
was your age, I should have taken it. And it would be quite as well for
you to be in opposition to me here and there. It would throw you more into
relief. If you would seize an occasion of this sort to make an impression,
you might be in Parliament in no time. And you know that would gratify
me."

"I am sorry not to do what would gratify you, sir," said Deronda. "But I
cannot persuade myself to look at politics as a profession."

"Why not? if a man is not born into public life by his position in the
country, there's no way for him but to embrace it by his own efforts. The
business of the country must be done--her Majesty's Government carried on,
as the old Duke said. And it never could be, my boy, if everybody looked
at politics as if they were prophecy, and demanded an inspired vocation.
If you are to get into Parliament, it won't do to sit still and wait for a
call either from heaven or constituents."

"I don't want to make a living out of opinions," said Deronda; "especially
out of borrowed opinions. Not that I mean to blame other men. I dare say
many better fellows than I don't mind getting on to a platform to praise
themselves, and giving their word of honor for a party."

"I'll tell you what, Dan," said Sir Hugo, "a man who sets his face against
every sort of humbug is simply a three-cornered, impracticable fellow.
There's a bad style of humbug, but there is also a good style--one that
oils the wheels and makes progress possible. If you are to rule men, you
must rule them through their own ideas; and I agree with the Archbishop at
Naples who had a St. Januarius procession against the plague. It's no use
having an Order in Council against popular shallowness. There is no action
possible without a little acting."

"One may be obliged to give way to an occasional necessity," said Deronda.
"But it is one thing to say, 'In this particular case I am forced to put
on this foolscap and grin,' and another to buy a pocket foolscap and
practice myself in grinning. I can't see any real public expediency that
does not keep an ideal before it which makes a limit of deviation from the
direct path. But if I were to set up for a public man I might mistake my
success for public expediency."

It was after this dialogue, which was rather jarring to him, that Deronda
set out on his meditated second visit to Ezra Cohen's. He entered the
street at the end opposite to the Holborn entrance, and an inward
reluctance slackened his pace while his thoughts were transferring what he
had just been saying about public expediency to the entirely private
difficulty which brought him back again into this unattractive
thoroughfare. It might soon become an immediate practical question with
him how far he could call it a wise expediency to conceal the fact of
close kindred. Such questions turning up constantly in life are often
decided in a rough-and-ready way; and to many it will appear an over-
refinement in Deronda that he should make any great point of a matter
confined to his own knowledge. But we have seen the reasons why he had
come to regard concealment as a bane of life, and the necessity of
concealment as a mark by which lines of action were to be avoided. The
prospect of being urged against the confirmed habit of his mind was
naturally grating. He even paused here and there before the most plausible
shop-windows for a gentleman to look into, half inclined to decide that he
would not increase his knowledge about that modern Ezra, who was certainly
not a leader among his people--a hesitation which proved how, in a man
much given to reasoning, a bare possibility may weigh more than the best-
clad likelihood; for Deronda's reasoning had decided that all likelihood
was against this man's being Mirah's brother.

One of the shop-windows he paused before was that of a second-hand book-
shop, where, on a narrow table outside, the literature of the ages was
represented in judicious mixture, from the immortal verse of Homer to the
mortal prose of the railway novel. That the mixture was judicious was
apparent from Deronda's finding in it something that he wanted--namely,
that wonderful bit of autobiography, the life of the Polish Jew, Salomon
Maimon; which, as he could easily slip it into his pocket, he took from
its place, and entered the shop to pay for, expecting to see behind the
counter a grimy personage showing that _nonchalance_ about sales which
seems to belong universally to the second-hand book-business. In most
other trades you find generous men who are anxious to sell you their wares
for your own welfare; but even a Jew will not urge Simson's Euclid on you
with an affectionate assurance that you will have pleasure in reading it,
and that he wishes he had twenty more of the article, so much is it in
request. One is led to fear that a secondhand bookseller may belong to
that unhappy class of men who have no belief in the good of what they get
their living by, yet keep conscience enough to be morose rather than
unctuous in their vocation.

But instead of the ordinary tradesman, he saw, on the dark background of
books in the long narrow shop, a figure that was somewhat startling in its
unusualness. A man in threadbare clothing, whose age was difficult to
guess--from the dead yellowish flatness of the flesh, something like an
old ivory carving--was seated on a stool against some bookshelves that
projected beyond the short counter, doing nothing more remarkable than
reading yesterday's _Times_; but when he let the paper rest on his lap and
looked at the incoming customer, the thought glanced through Deronda that
precisely such a physiognomy as that might possibly have been seen in a
prophet of the Exile, or in some New Hebrew poet of the mediaval time. It
was a fine typical Jewish face, wrought into intensity of expression
apparently by a strenuous eager experience in which all the satisfaction
had been indirect and far off, and perhaps by some bodily suffering also,
which involved that absence of ease in the present. The features were
clear-cut, not large; the brow not high but broad, and fully defined by
the crisp black hair. It might never have been a particularly handsome
face, but it must always have been forcible; and now with its dark, far-
off gaze, and yellow pallor in relief on the gloom of the backward shop,
one might have imagined one's self coming upon it in some past prison of
the Inquisition, which a mob had suddenly burst upon; while the look fixed
on an incidental customer seemed eager and questioning enough to have been
turned on one who might have been a messenger either of delivery or of
death. The figure was probably familiar and unexciting enough to the
inhabitants of this street; but to Deronda's mind it brought so strange a
blending of the unwonted with the common, that there was a perceptible
interval of mutual observation before he asked his question; "What is the
price of this book?"

After taking the book and examining the fly-leaves without rising, the
supposed bookseller said, "There is no mark, and Mr. Ram is not in now. I
am keeping the shop while he is gone to dinner. What are you disposed to
give for it?" He held the book close on his lap with his hand on it and
looked examiningly at Deronda, over whom there came the disagreeable idea,
that possibly this striking personage wanted to see how much could be got
out of a customer's ignorance of prices. But without further reflection he
said, "Don't you know how much it is worth?"

"Not its market-price. May I ask have you read it?"

"No. I have read an account of it, which makes me want to buy it."

"You are a man of learning--you are interested in Jewish history?" This
was said in a deepened tone of eager inquiry.

"I am certainly interested in Jewish history," said Deronda, quietly,
curiosity overcoming his dislike to the sort of inspection as well as
questioning he was under.

But immediately the strange Jew rose from his sitting posture, and Deronda
felt a thin hand pressing his arm tightly, while a hoarse, excited voice,
not much above a loud whisper, said--

"You are perhaps of our race?"

Deronda colored deeply, not liking the grasp, and then answered with a
slight shake of the head, "No." The grasp was relaxed, the hand withdrawn,
the eagerness of the face collapsed into uninterested melancholy, as if
some possessing spirit which had leaped into the eye sand gestures had
sunk back again to the inmost recesses of the frame; and moving further
off as he held out the little book, the stranger said in a tone of distant
civility, "I believe Mr. Ram will be satisfied with half-a-crown, sir."

The effect of this change on Deronda--he afterward smiled when he recalled
it--was oddly embarrassing and humiliating, as if some high dignitary had
found him deficient and given him his _conge_. There was nothing further
to be said, however: he paid his half-crown and carried off his _Salomon
Maimon's Lebensgeschichte_ with a mere "good-morning."

He felt some vexation at the sudden arrest of the interview, and the
apparent prohibition that he should know more of this man, who was
certainly something out of the common way--as different probably as a Jew
could well be from Ezra Cohen, through whose door Deronda was presently
entering, and whose flourishing face glistening on the way to fatness was
hanging over the counter in negotiation with some one on the other side of
the partition, concerning two plated stoppers and three teaspoons, which
lay spread before him. Seeing Deronda enter, he called out "Mother!
Mother!" and then with a familiar nod and smile, said, "Coming, sir--
coming directly."

Deronda could not help looking toward the door from the back with some
anxiety, which was not soothed when he saw a vigorous woman beyond fifty
enter and approach to serve him. Not that there was anything very
repulsive about her: the worst that could be said was that she had that
look of having made her toilet with little water, and by twilight, which
is common to unyouthful people of her class, and of having presumably
slept in her large earrings, if not in her rings and necklace. In fact,
what caused a sinking of heart in Deronda was, her not being so coarse and
ugly as to exclude the idea of her being Mirah's mother. Any one who has
looked at a face to try and discern signs of known kinship in it will
understand his process of conjecture--how he tried to think away the fat
which had gradually disguised the outlines of youth, and to discern what
one may call the elementary expressions of the face. He was sorry to see
no absolute negative to his fears. Just as it was conceivable that this
Ezra, brought up to trade, might resemble the scapegrace father in
everything but his knowledge and talent, so it was not impossible that
this mother might have had a lovely refined daughter whose type of feature
and expression was like Mirah's. The eyebrows had a vexatious similarity
of line; and who shall decide how far a face may be masked when the
uncherishing years have thrust it far onward in the ever-new procession of
youth and age? The good-humor of the glance remained and shone out in a
motherly way at Deronda, as she said, in a mild guttural tone--

"How can I serve you, sir?"

"I should like to look at the silver clasps in the window," said Deronda;
"the larger ones, please, in the corner there."

They were not quite easy to get at from the mother's station, and the son
seeing this called out, "I'll reach 'em, mother; I'll reach 'em," running
forward with alacrity, and then handing the clasps to Deronda with the
smiling remark--

"Mother's too proud: she wants to do everything herself. That's why I
called her to wait on you, sir. When there's a particular gentleman
customer, sir, I daren't do any other than call her. But I can't let her
do herself mischief with stretching."

Here Mr. Cohen made way again for his parent, who gave a little guttural,
amiable laugh while she looked at Deronda, as much as to say, "This boy
will be at his jokes, but you see he's the best son in the world," and
evidently the son enjoyed pleasing her, though he also wished to convey an
apology to his distinguished customer for not giving him the advantage of
his own exclusive attention.

Deronda began to examine the clasps as if he had many points to observe
before he could come to a decision.

"They are only three guineas, sir," said the mother, encouragingly.

"First-rate workmanship, sir--worth twice the money; only I get 'em a
bargain from Cologne," said the son, parenthetically, from a distance.

Meanwhile two new customers entered, and the repeated call, "Addy!"
brought from the back of the shop a group that Deronda turned frankly to
stare at, feeling sure that the stare would be held complimentary. The
group consisted of a black-eyed young woman who carried a black-eyed
little one, its head already covered with black curls, and deposited it on
the counter, from which station it looked round with even more than the
usual intelligence of babies: also a robust boy of six and a younger girl,
both with black eyes and black-ringed hair--looking more Semitic than
their parents, as the puppy lions show the spots of far-off progenitors.
The young woman answering to "Addy"--a sort of paroquet in a bright blue
dress, with coral necklace and earrings, her hair set up in a huge bush--
looked as complacently lively and unrefined as her husband; and by a
certain difference from the mother deepened in Deronda the unwelcome
impression that the latter was not so utterly common a Jewess as to
exclude her being the mother of Mirah. While that thought was glancing
through his mind, the boy had run forward into the shop with an energetic
stamp, and setting himself about four feet from Deronda, with his hands in
the pockets of his miniature knickerbockers, looked at him with a
precocious air of survey. Perhaps it was chiefly with a diplomatic design
to linger and ingratiate himself that Deronda patted the boy's head,
saying--

"What is your name, sirrah?"

"Jacob Alexander Cohen," said the small man, with much ease and
distinctness.

"You are not named after your father, then?"

"No, after my grandfather; he sells knives and razors and scissors--my
grandfather does," said Jacob, wishing to impress the stranger with that
high connection. "He gave me this knife." Here a pocket-knife was drawn
forth, and the small fingers, both naturally and artificially dark, opened
two blades and a cork-screw with much quickness.

"Is not that a dangerous plaything?" said Deronda, turning to the
grandmother.

"_He_'ll never hurt himself, bless you!" said she, contemplating her
grandson with placid rapture.

"Have _you_ got a knife?" says Jacob, coming closer. His small voice was
hoarse in its glibness, as if it belonged to an aged commercial soul,
fatigued with bargaining through many generations.

"Yes. Do you want to see it?" said Deronda, taking a small penknife from
his waistcoat-pocket.

Jacob seized it immediately and retreated a little, holding the two knives
in his palms and bending over them in meditative comparison. By this time
the other clients were gone, and the whole family had gathered to the
spot, centering their attention on the marvelous Jacob: the father,
mother, and grandmother behind the counter, with baby held staggering
thereon, and the little girl in front leaning at her brother's elbow to
assist him in looking at the knives.

"Mine's the best," said Jacob, at last, returning Deronda's knife as if he
had been entertaining the idea of exchange and had rejected it.

Father and mother laughed aloud with delight. "You won't find Jacob
choosing the worst," said Mr. Cohen, winking, with much confidence in the
customer's admiration. Deronda, looking at the grandmother, who had only
an inward silent laugh, said--

"Are these the only grandchildren you have?"

"All. This is my only son," she answered in a communicative tone,
Deronda's glance and manner as usual conveying the impression of
sympathetic interest--which on this occasion answered his purpose well.
It seemed to come naturally enough that he should say--

"And you have no daughter?"

There was an instantaneous change in the mother's face. Her lips closed
more firmly, she looked down, swept her hands outward on the counter, and
finally turned her back on Deronda to examine some Indian handkerchiefs
that hung in pawn behind her. Her son gave a significant glance, set up
his shoulders an instant and just put his fingers to his lips,--then said
quickly, "I think you're a first-rate gentleman in the city, sir, if I may
be allowed to guess."

"No," said Deronda, with a preoccupied air, "I have nothing to do with the
city."

"That's a bad job. I thought you might be the young principal of a first-
rate firm," said Mr. Cohen, wishing to make amends for the check on his
customer's natural desire to know more of him and his. "But you understand
silver-work, I see."

"A little," said Deronda, taking up the clasps a moment and laying them
down again. That unwelcome bit of circumstantial evidence had made his
mind busy with a plan which was certainly more like acting than anything
he had been aware of in his own conduct before. But the bare possibility
that more knowledge might nullify the evidence now overpowered the
inclination to rest in uncertainty.

"To tell you the truth," he went on, "my errand is not so much to buy as
to borrow. I dare say you go into rather heavy transactions occasionally."

"Well, sir, I've accommodated gentlemen of distinction--I'm proud to say
it. I wouldn't exchange my business with any in the world. There's none
more honorable, nor more charitable, nor more necessary for all classes,
from the good lady who wants a little of the ready for the baker, to a
gentleman like yourself, sir, who may want it for amusement. I like my
business, I like my street, and I like my shop. I wouldn't have it a door
further down. And I wouldn't be without a pawn-shop, sir, to be the Lord
Mayor. It puts you in connection with the world at large. I say it's like
the government revenue--it embraces the brass as well as the gold of the
country. And a man who doesn't get money, sir, can't accommodate. Now,
what can I do for _you_, sir?"

If an amiable self-satisfaction is the mark of earthly bliss, Solomon in
all his glory was a pitiable mortal compared with Mr. Cohen--clearly one
of those persons, who, being in excellent spirits about themselves, are
willing to cheer strangers by letting them know it. While he was
delivering himself with lively rapidity, he took the baby from his wife
and holding it on his arm presented his features to be explored by its
small fists. Deronda, not in a cheerful mood, was rashly pronouncing this
Ezra Cohen to be the most unpoetic Jew he had ever met with in books or
life: his phraseology was as little as possible like that of the Old
Testament: and no shadow of a suffering race distinguished his vulgarity
of soul from that of a prosperous, pink-and-white huckster of the purest
English lineage. It is naturally a Christian feeling that a Jew ought not
to be conceited. However, this was no reason for not persevering in his
project, and he answered at once in adventurous ignorance of
technicalities--

"I have a fine diamond ring to offer as security--not with me at this
moment, unfortunately, for I am not in the habit of wearing it. But I will
come again this evening and bring it with me. Fifty pounds at once would
be a convenience to me."

"Well, you know, this evening is the Sabbath, young gentleman," said
Cohen, "and I go to the _Shool_. The shop will be closed. But
accommodation is a work of charity; if you can't get here before, and are
any ways pressed--why, I'll look at your diamond. You're perhaps from the
West End--a longish drive?"

"Yes; and your Sabbath begins early at this season. I could be here by
five--will that do?" Deronda had not been without hope that by asking to
come on a Friday evening he might get a better opportunity of observing
points in the family character, and might even be able to put some
decisive question.

Cohen assented; but here the marvelous Jacob, whose _physique_ supported a
precocity that would have shattered a Gentile of his years, showed that he
had been listening with much comprehension by saying, "You are coming
again. Have you got any more knives at home?"

"I think I have one," said Deronda, smiling down at him.

"Has it two blades and a hook--and a white handle like that?" said Jacob,
pointing to the waistcoat-pocket.

"I dare say it has?"

"Do you like a cork-screw?" said Jacob, exhibiting that article in his own
knife again, and looking up with serious inquiry.

"Yes," said Deronda, experimentally.

"Bring your knife, then, and we'll shwop," said Jacob, returning the knife
to his pocket, and stamping about with the sense that he had concluded a
good transaction.

The grandmother had now recovered her usual manners, and the whole family
watched Deronda radiantly when he caressingly lifted the little girl, to
whom he had not hitherto given attention, and seating her on the counter,
asked for her name also. She looked at him in silence, and put her fingers
to her gold earrings, which he did not seem to have noticed.

"Adelaide Rebekah is her name," said her mother, proudly. "Speak to the
gentleman, lovey."

"Shlav'm Shabbes fyock on," said Adelaide Rebekah.

"Her Sabbath frock, she means," said the father, in explanation. "She'll
have her Sabbath frock on this evening."

"And will you let me see you in it, Adelaide?" said Deronda, with that
gentle intonation which came very easily to him.

"Say yes, lovey--yes, if you please, sir," said her mother, enchanted with
this handsome young gentleman, who appreciated remarkable children.

"And will you give me a kiss this evening?" said Deronda with a hand on
each of her little brown shoulders.

Adelaide Rebekah (her miniature crinoline and monumental features
corresponded with the combination of her names) immediately put up her
lips to pay the kiss in advance; whereupon her father rising in still more
glowing satisfaction with the general meritoriousness of his
circumstances, and with the stranger who was an admiring witness, said
cordially--

"You see there's somebody will be disappointed if you don't come this
evening, sir. You won't mind sitting down in our family place and waiting
a bit for me, if I'm not in when you come, sir? I'll stretch a point to
accommodate a gent of your sort. Bring the diamond, and I'll see what I
can do for you."

Deronda thus left the most favorable impression behind him, as a
preparation for more easy intercourse. But for his own part those
amenities had been carried on under the heaviest spirits. If these were
really Mirah's relatives, he could not imagine that even her fervid filial
piety could give the reunion with them any sweetness beyond such as could
be found in the strict fulfillment of a painful duty. What did this
vaunting brother need? And with the most favorable supposition about the
hypothetic mother, Deronda shrank from the image of a first meeting
between her and Mirah, and still more from the idea of Mirah's
domestication with this family. He took refuge in disbelief. To find an
Ezra Cohen when the name was running in your head was no more
extraordinary than to find a Josiah Smith under like circumstances; and as
to the coincidence about the daughter, it would probably turn out to be a
difference. If, however, further knowledge confirmed the more undesirable
conclusion, what would be wise expediency?--to try and determine the best
consequences by concealment, or to brave other consequences for the sake
of that openness which is the sweet fresh air of our moral life.