love has been held in suspense for lack of indispensable
details; but fewer perhaps may follow him in his contentment that his wife
should be in a temper which would dispose her to fly out if she dared, and that
she should have been urged into marrying him by other feelings than passionate
attachment. Still, for those who prefer command to love, one does not see why
the habit of mind should change precisely at the point of matrimony.
    Grandcourt did not feel that he had chosen the wrong wife; and having taken
on himself the part of husband, he was not going in any way to be fooled, or
allow himself to be seen in a light that could be regarded as pitiable. This was
his state of mind - not jealousy; still, his behaviour in some respects was as
like jealousy as yellow is to yellow, which colour we know may be the effect of
very different causes.
    He had come up to town earlier than usual because he wished to be on the
spot for legal consultation as to the arrangements of his will, the transference
of mortgages, and that transaction with his uncle about the succession to
Diplow, which the bait of ready money, adroitly dangled without importunity, had
finally won him to agree upon. But another acceptable accompaniment of his being
in town was the presentation of himself with the beautiful bride whom he had
chosen to marry in spite of what other people might have expected of him. It is
true that Grandcourt went about with the sense that he did not care a languid
curse for any one's admiration; but this state of not-caring, just as much as
desire, required its related object - namely, a world of admiring or envying
spectators: for if you are fond of looking stonily at smiling persons, the
persons must be there and they must smile - a rudimentary truth which is surely
forgotten by those who complain of mankind as generally contemptible, since any
other aspect of the race must disappoint the voracity of their contempt.
Grandcourt, in town for the first time with his wife, had his non-caring
abstinence from curses enlarged and diversified by splendid receptions, by
conspicuous rides and drives, by presentations of himself with her on all
distinguished occasions. He wished her to be sought after; he liked that
»fellows« should be eager to talk with her and escort her within his
observation; there was even a kind of lofty coquetry on her part that he would
not have objected to. But what he did not like were her ways in relation to
Deronda.
    After the musical party at Lady Mallinger's, when Grandcourt