Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/326

 to be too much indulged in this inconvenient susceptibility to innocent remarks.

Deronda smiled at the irregular, blond face, brought into strange contrast by the side of Mirah's—smiled, Mab thought, rather sarcastically as he said, "That prospect of everything coming to an end will not guide us far in practice. Mirah's feelings, she tells us, are concerned with what is"

Mab was confused and wished she had not spoken, since Mr Deronda seemed to think that she had found fault with Mirah; but to have spoken once is a tyrannous reason for speaking again, and she said—

"I only meant that we must have courage to hear things, else there is hardly anything we can talk about." Mab felt herself unanswerable here, inclining to the opinion of Socrates: "What motive has a man to live, if not for the pleasures of discourse?"

Deronda took his leave soon after, and when Mrs Meyrick went outside with him to exchange a few words about Mirah, he said, "Hans is to share my chambers when he comes at Christmas."

"You have written to Rome about that?" said Mrs Meyrick, her face lighting up. "How very