had been Gwendolen's habit to think of the
persons around her as stale books, too familiar to be interesting. Deronda had
lit up her attention with a sense of novelty: not by words only, but by imagined
facts, his influence had entered into the current of that self-suspicion and
self-blame which awakens a new consciousness.
    »I wish he could know everything about me without my telling him,« was one
of her thoughts, as she sat leaning over the end of a couch, supporting her head
with her hand, and looking at herself in a mirror - not in admiration, but in a
sad kind of companionship. »I wish he knew that I am not so contemptible as he
thinks me - that I am in deep trouble, and want to be something better if I
could.« Without the aid of sacred ceremony or costume, her feelings had turned
this man, only a few years older than herself, into a priest; a sort of trust
less rare than the fidelity that guards it. Young reverence for one who is also
young is the most coercive of all: there is the same level of temptation, and
the higher motive is believed in as a fuller force - not suspected to be a mere
residue from weary experience.
    But the coercion is often stronger on the one who takes the reverence. Those
who trust us educate us. And perhaps in that ideal consecration of Gwendolen's,
some education was being prepared for Deronda.
 

                                 Chapter XXXVI

 »Rien ne pèse tant qu'un secret,
 Le porter loin est difficile aux dames:
 Et je sçais mesme sur ce fait
 Bon nombre d'hommes qui sont femmes.«
                                                                    La Fontaine.
 
Meanwhile Deronda had been fastened and led off by Mr. Vandernoodt, who wished
for a brisker walk, a cigar, and a little gossip. Since we cannot tell a man his
own secrets, the restraint of being in his company often breeds a desire to pair
off in conversation with some more ignorant person, and Mr. Vandernoodt
presently said -
    »What a washed-out piece of cambric Grandcourt is! But if he is a favourite
of yours, I withdraw the remark.«
    »Not the least in the world,« said Deronda.
    »I thought not. One wonders how he came to have a great passion again; and
he must have had - to marry in this way. Though Lush, his old chum, hints that
he married this girl out of obstinacy. By George! it was a very accountable
obstinacy. A man might make up his mind to marry her without