Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/195

 was looking at her. She thought his manners as a lover more agreeable than any she had seen described. She had no alarm lest he meant to kiss her, and was so much at her ease, that she suddenly paused in the middle of the room and said, half-archly, half-earnestly—

"Oh, while I think of it—there is something I dislike that you can save me from. I do not like Mr Lush's company."

"You shall not have it. Ill get rid of him."

"You are not fond of him yourself?"

"Not in the least. I let him hang on me because he has always been a poor devil," said Grandcourt, in an adagio of utter indifference. "They got him to travel with me when I was a lad. He was always that coarse-haired kind of brute—a sort of cross between a hog and a dilettante."

Gwendolen laughed. All that seemed kind and natural enough: Grandcourt's fastidiousness enhanced the kindness. And when they reached the door, his way of opening it for her was the perfection of easy homage. Really, she thought, he was likely to be the least disagreeable of husbands.

Mrs Davilow was waiting anxiously in her bedroom when Gwendolen entered, stepped towards