"I do acknowledge that," said Deronda, looking from the miniature to her face, which even in its worn pallor had an expression of living force beyond anything that the pencil could show.
"Will you take the portrait?" said the Princess, more gently. "If she is a kind woman, teach her to think of me kindly."
"I shall be grateful for the portrait," said Deronda, "but--I ought to say, I have no assurance that she whom I love will have any love for me. I have kept silence."
"Who and what is she?" said the mother. The question seemed a command.
"She was brought up as a singer for the stage," said Deronda, with inward reluctance. "Her father took her away early from her mother, and her life has been unhappy. She is very young--only twenty. Her father wished to bring her up in disregard--even in dislike of her Jewish origin, but she has clung with all her affection to the memory of her mother and the fellowship of her people."
"Ah, like you. She is attached to the Judaism she knows nothing of," said the Princess, peremptorily. "That is poetry--fit to last through an opera night. Is she fond of her artist's life--is her singing worth anything?"
"Her singing is exquisite. But her voice is not suited to the stage. I think that the artist's life has been made repugnant to her."
"Why, she is made for you then. Sir Hugo said you were bitterly against being a singer, and I can see that you would never have let yourself be merged in a wife, as your father was."
"I repeat," said Deronda, emphatically--"I repeat that I have no assurance of her love for me, of the possibility that we can ever be united. Other things--painful issues may lie before me. I have always felt that I should prepare myself to renounce, not cherish that prospect. But I suppose I might feel so of happiness in general. Whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it."
"Do you feel in that way?" said his mother, laying her hands on his shoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative tone, pausing between her sentences. "Poor boy!----I wonder how it would have been if I had kept you with me----whether you would have turned your heart to the old things against mine----and we should have quarreled---- your grandfather would have been in you----and you would have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root."