 a
laudable zeal was labouring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys
where law is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt,
condescending a little to a fashionable Rector and conscious of a feminine
advantage over a learned Dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious
fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse.
    Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive
rebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number of
persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unwearied
statement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, on
inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. Poor
Gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to make
herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now marked some hardening in a look
and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of feeling.
    For example. One morning, riding in Rotten Row with Grandcourt by her side,
she saw standing against the railing at the turn, just facing them, a dark-eyed
lady with a little girl and a blond boy, whom she at once recognised as the
beings in all the world the most painful for her to behold. She and Grandcourt
had just slackened their pace to a walk; he being on the outer side was the
nearer to the unwelcome vision, and Gwendolen had not presence of mind to do
anything but glance away from the dark eyes that met hers piercingly towards
Grandcourt, who wheeled past the group with an unmoved face, giving no sign of
recognition.
    Immediately she felt a rising rage against him mingling with her shame for
herself, and the words, »You might at least have raised your hat to her,« flew
impetuously to her lips - but did not pass them. If as her husband, in her
company, he chose to ignore these creatures whom she herself had excluded from
the place she was filling, how could she be the person to reproach him? She was
dumb.
    It was not chance, but her own design, that had brought Mrs. Glasher there
with her boy. She had come to town under the pretext of making purchases -
really wanting educational apparatus for the children, and had had interviews
with Lush in which he had not refused to soothe her uneasy mind by representing
the probabilities as all on the side of her ultimate triumph. Let her keep
quiet, and she might live to see the marriage dissolve itself in one way or
other - Lush hinted at several ways - leaving the succession assured to
