 his question.
    »I fancy that is the right quarter for learning,« said he, carrying on the
subject that he might have an excuse for addressing Mordecai, to whom he turned
and said, »You have been a great student, I imagine.«
    »I have studied,« was the quiet answer. »And you? - You know German, by the
book you were buying.«
    »Yes, I have studied in Germany. Are you generally engaged in bookselling?«
said Deronda.
    »No; I only go to Mr. Ram's shop every day to keep it while he goes to
meals,« said Mordecai, who was now looking at Deronda with what seemed a revival
of his original interest: it seemed as if the face had some attractive
indication for him which now neutralised the former disappointment. After a
slight pause, he said, »Perhaps you know Hebrew?«
    »I am sorry to say, not at all.«
    Mordecai's countenance fell: he cast down his eyelids, looking at his hands,
which lay crossed before him, and said no more. Deronda had now noticed more
decisively than in their former interview a difficulty of breathing, which he
thought must be a sign of consumption.
    »I've had something else to do than to get book-learning,« said Mr. Cohen, -
»I've had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know stones well,« -
here he pointed to Deronda's ring. »I'm not afraid of taking that ring of yours
at my own valuation. But now,« he added, with a certain drop in his voice to a
lower, more familiar nasal, »what do you want for it?«
    »Fifty or sixty pounds,« Deronda answered, rather too carelessly.
    Cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on Deronda a
pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous guinea-pig, and said,
»Couldn't do you that. Happy to oblige, but couldn't go that lengths. Forty
pound - say forty - I'll let you have forty on it.«
    Deronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words implying a
monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he said, »Very well; I
shall redeem it in a month or so.«
    »Good. I'll make you out the ticket by-and-by,« said Cohen, indifferently.
Then he held up his finger as a sign
