Page:Eliot - Daniel Deronda, vol. IV, 1876.djvu/103

 Whether it may come or not, one should try and prepare one's self to do without it."

"Do you feel in that way?" said his mother, laying her hands on his shoulders, and perusing his face, while she spoke in a low meditative tone, pausing between her sentences. "Poor boy!… I wonder how it would have been if I had kept you with me… whether you would have turned your heart to the old things… against mine… and we should have quarrelled… your grandfather would have been in you… and you would have hampered my life with your young growth from the old root."

"I think my affection might have lasted through all our quarrelling," said Deronda, saddened more and more, "and that would not have hampered—surely it would have enriched your life."

"Not then, not then… I did not want it then… I might have been glad of it now," said the mother, with a bitter melancholy, "if I could have been glad of anything."

"But you love your other children, and they love you?" said Deronda, anxiously.

"Oh yes," she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, while she folded her arms again. "But,"… she added in a deeper tone,… "I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It