"Then I am not to ask for one kiss," said Grandcourt, contented to pay a large price for this new kind of love-making, which introduced marriage by the finest contrast.
"Not one?" said Gwendolen, getting saucy, and nodding at him defiantly.
He lifted her little left hand to his lips, and then released it respectfully. Clearly it was faint praise to say of him that he was not disgusting: he was almost charming; and she felt at this moment that it was not likely she could ever have loved another man better than this one. His reticence gave her some inexplicable, delightful consciousness.
"Apropos," she said, taking up her work again, "is there any one besides Captain and Mrs. Torrington at Diplow?--or do you leave them tete-à- tete? I suppose he converses in cigars, and she answers with her chignon."
"She has a sister with her," said Grandcourt, with his shadow of a smile, "and there are two men besides--one of them you know, I believe."
"Ah, then, I have a poor opinion of him," said Gwendolen, shaking her head.
"You saw him at Leubronn--young Deronda--a young fellow with the Mallingers."
Gwendolen felt as if her heart were making a sudden gambol, and her fingers, which tried to keep a firm hold on her work got cold.
"I never spoke to him," she said, dreading any discernible change in herself. "Is he not disagreeable?"
"No, not particularly," said Grandcourt, in his most languid way. "He thinks a little too much of himself. I thought he had been introduced to you."
"No. Some one told me his name the evening before I came away? that was all. What is he?"
"A sort of ward of Sir Hugo Mallinger's. Nothing of any consequence."
"Oh, poor creature! How very unpleasant for him!" said Gwendolen, speaking from the lip, and not meaning any sarcasm. "I wonder if it has left off raining!" she added, rising and going to look out of the window.
Happily it did not rain the next day, and Gwendolen rode to Diplow on Criterion as she had done on that former day when she returned with her mother in the carriage. She always felt the more daring for being in her riding-dress; besides having the agreeable belief that she looked as well as possible in it--a sustaining consciousness in any meeting which seems formidable. Her anger toward Deronda had changed into a superstitious dread--due, perhaps, to the coercion he had exercised over her thought-- lest the first interference of his in her life might foreshadow some future influence. It is of such stuff that superstitions are commonly made: an intense feeling about ourselves which makes the evening star shine at us with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar encourage us. And superstitions carry consequences which often verify their hope or their foreboding.