. Deronda's feeling and judgment were
strongly against the action of Sir Hugo in making himself the agent of a falsity
- yes, a falsity: he could give no milder name to the concealment under which he
had been reared. But the baronet had probably had no clear knowledge concerning
the mother's breach of trust, and with his light, easy way of taking life, had
held it a reasonable preference in her that her son should be made an English
gentleman, seeing that she had the eccentricity of not caring to part from her
child, and be to him as if she were not. Daniel's affectionate gratitude towards
Sir Hugo made him wish to find grounds of excuse rather than blame; for it is as
possible to be rigid in principle and tender in blame, as it is to suffer from
the sight of things hung awry, and yet to be patient with the hanger who sees
amiss. If Sir Hugo in his bachelorhood had been beguiled into regarding children
chiefly as a product intended to make life more agreeable to the full-grown,
whose convenience alone was to be consulted in the disposal of them - why, he
had shared an assumption which, if not formally avowed, was massively acted on
at that date of the world's history; and Deronda, with all his keen memory of
the painful inward struggle he had gone through in his boyhood, was able also to
remember the many signs that his experience had been entirely shut out from Sir
Hugo's conception. Ignorant kindness may have the effect of cruelty; but to be
angry with it as if it were direct cruelty would be an ignorant unkindness, the
most remote from Deronda's large imaginative lenience towards others. And
perhaps now, after the searching scenes of the last ten days, in which the
curtain had been lifted for him from the secrets of lives unlike his own, he was
more than ever disposed to check that rashness of indignation or resentment
which has an unpleasant likeness to the love of punishing. When he saw Sir
Hugo's familiar figure descending from the railway carriage, the life-long
affection, which had been well accustomed to make excuses, flowed in and
submerged all newer knowledge that might have seemed fresh ground for blame.
    »Well, Dan,« said Sir Hugo, with a serious fervour, grasping Deronda's hand.
He uttered no other words of greeting; there was too strong a rush of mutual
consciousness. The next thing was to give orders to the courier, and then to
propose walking slowly in the mild evening, there being no hurry to get
