Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. II, 1876.djvu/369

 before him, and said no more. Deronda had now noticed more decisively than in their former interview a difficulty of breathing, which he thought must be a sign of consumption.

"I've had something else to do than to get book-learning," said Mr Cohen,—"I've had to make myself knowing about useful things. I know stones well,"—here he pointed to Deronda's ring. "I'm not afraid of taking that ring of yours at my own valuation. But now," he added, with a certain drop in his voice to a lower, more familiar nasal, "what do you want for it?"

"Fifty or sixty pounds," Deronda answered, rather too carelessly.

Cohen paused a little, thrust his hands into his pockets, fixed on Deronda a pair of glistening eyes that suggested a miraculous guinea-pig, and said, "Couldn't do you that. Happy to oblige, but couldn't go that lengths. Forty pound—say forty—I'll let you have forty on it."

Deronda was aware that Mordecai had looked up again at the words implying a monetary affair, and was now examining him again, while he said, "Very well; I shall redeem it in a month or so."

"Good. I'll make you out the ticket by-and- by," said Cohen, indifferently. Then he held up