Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. I, 1876.djvu/252

 "Oh yes, I think so. Mamma likes to be near her sister"

Silence for a short space.

"It is not to be supposed that you will always live there, though Mrs Davilow may."

"I don't know. We women can't go in search of adventures—to find out the North-West Passage or the source of the Nile, or to hunt tigers in the East. We must stay where we grow, or where the gardeners like to transplant us. We are brought up like the flowers, to look as pretty as we can, and be dull without complaining. That is my notion about the plants: they are often bored, and that is the reason why some of them have got poisonous. What do you think?" Gwendolen had run on rather nervously, lightly whipping the rhododendron bush in front of her.

"I quite agree. Most things are bores," said Grandcourt, his mind having been pushed into an easy current, away from its intended track. But after a moment's pause he continued in his broken, refined drawl—

"But a woman can be married."

"Some women can."

"You certainly, unless you are obstinately cruel."

"I am not sure that I am not both cruel and