Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. III, 1876.djvu/49

 "Why do you call him a fat? Do you object to him so much?"

"Object? no. What do I care about his being a fat? It's of no consequence to me. I'll invite him to Diplow again if you like."

"I don't think he would come. He is too clever and learned to care about us," said Gwendolen, thinking it useful for her husband to be told (privately) that it was possible for him to be looked down upon.

"I never saw that make much difference in a man. Either he is a gentleman, or he is not," said Grandcourt.

That a new husband and wife should snatch a moment's tête-à-tête was what could be understood and indulged; and the rest of the party left them in the rear till, re-entering the garden, they all paused in that cloistered court where, among the falling rose-petals thirteen years before, we saw a boy becoming acquainted with his first sorrow. This cloister was built of harder stone than the church, and had been in greater safety from the wearing weather. It was a rare example of a northern cloister with arched and pillared openings not intended for glazing, and the delicately–wrought foliage of the capitals seemed still to carry the very touches of the