daughter, knew that they were to
see »young Grandcourt,« Sir Hugo's nephew, the presumptive heir and future
baronet, now visiting the Abbey with his bride after an absence of many years;
any coolness between uncle and nephew having, it was understood, given way to a
friendly warmth. The bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the
cynosure of all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could
have shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself moving
in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she held in her hands a
life full of favourable chances which her cleverness and spirit would enable her
to make the best of. And now she was wondering that she could get so little joy
out of the exaltation to which she had been suddenly lifted, away from the
distasteful petty empire of her girlhood with its irksome lack of distinction
and superfluity of sisters. She would have been glad to be even unreasonably
elated, and to forget everything but the flattery of the moment; but she was
like one courting sleep, in whom thoughts insist like wilful tormentors.
    Wondering in this way at her own dulness, and all the while longing for an
excitement that would deaden importunate aches, she was passing through files of
admiring beholders in the country-dance with which it was traditional to open
the ball, and was being generally regarded by her own sex as an enviable woman.
It was remarked that she carried herself with a wonderful air, considering that
she had been nobody in particular, and without a farthing to her fortune. If she
had been a duke's daughter, or one of the royal princesses, she could not have
taken the honours of the evening more as a matter of course. Poor Gwendolen! It
would by-and-by become a sort of skill in which she was automatically practised,
to bear this last great gambling loss with an air of perfect self-possession.
    The next couple that passed were also worth looking at. Lady Pentreath had
said, »I shall stand up for one dance, but I shall choose my partner. Mr.
Deronda, you are the youngest man; I mean to dance with you. Nobody is old
enough to make a good pair with me. I must have a contrast.« And the contrast
certainly set off the old lady to the utmost. She was one of those women who are
never handsome till they are old, and she had had the wisdom to embrace the
beauty of age as early as possible. What might have seemed harshness in her
features