 we can't always help it that our gain is
another's loss.«
    »Clearly. Because of that, we should help it where we can.«
    Gwendolen, biting her lip inside, paused a moment, and then forcing herself
to speak with an air of playfulness again, said -
    »But why should you regret it more because I am a woman?«
    »Perhaps because we need that you should be better than we are.«
    »But suppose we need that men should be better than we are,« said Gwendolen,
with a little air of »check!«
    »That is rather a difficulty,« said Deronda, smiling. »I suppose I should
have said, we each of us think it would be better for the other to be good.«
    »You see, I needed you to be better than I was - and you thought so,« said
Gwendolen, nodding and laughing, while she put her horse forward and joined
Grandcourt, who made no observation.
    »Don't you want to know what I had to say to Mr. Deronda?« said Gwendolen,
whose own pride required her to account for her conduct.
    »A - no,« said Grandcourt, coldly.
    »Now that is the first impolite word you have spoken - that you don't wish
to hear what I had to say,« said Gwendolen, playing at a pout.
    »I wish to hear what you say to me - not to other men,« said Grandcourt.
    »Then you wish to hear this. I wanted to make him tell me why he objected to
my gambling, and he gave me a little sermon.«
    »Yes - but excuse me the sermon.« If Gwendolen imagined that Grandcourt
cared about her speaking to Deronda, he wished her to understand that she was
mistaken. But he was not fond of being told to ride on. She saw he was piqued,
but did not mind. She had accomplished her object of speaking again to Deronda
before he raised his hat and turned with the rest towards Diplow, while her
lover attended her to Offendene, where he was to bid farewell before a whole
day's absence on the unspecified journey. Grandcourt had spoken truth in calling
the journey a bore: he was going by train to Gadsmere.
 

                                  Chapter XXX

 No penitence and no confessional:
 No priest ordains it, yet they're forced to sit
 Amid deep ashes of their vanished years.
 
Imagine a rambling, patchy house, the best part built of grey stone, and
red-tiled, a round tower
