DANIEL DERONDA (Completed)

Chapter 29

"Surely whoever speaks to me in the right voice,

him or her I shall follow.

As the water follows the moon, silently,

with fluid steps anywhere around the globe."

--WALT WHITMAN.

"Now my cousins are at Diplow," said Grandcourt, "will you go there?--to-

morrow? The carriage shall come for Mrs. Davilow. You can tell me what you

would like done in the rooms. Things must be put in decent order while we

are away at Ryelands. And to-morrow is the only day."

He was sitting sideways on a sofa in the drawing-room at Offendene, one

hand and elbow resting on the back, and the other hand thrust between his

crossed knees--in the attitude of a man who is much interested in watching

the person next to him. Gwendolen, who had always disliked needlework, had

taken to it with apparent zeal since her engagement, and now held a piece

of white embroidery which, on examination, would have shown many false

stitches. During the last eight or nine days their hours had been chiefly

spent on horseback, but some margin had always been left for this more

difficult sort of companionship, which, however, Gwendolen had not found

disagreeable. She was very well satisfied with Grandcourt. His answers to

her lively questions about what he had seen and done in his life, bore

drawling very well. From the first she had noticed that he knew what to

say; and she was constantly feeling not only that he had nothing of the

fool in his composition, but that by some subtle means he communicated to

her the impression that all the folly lay with other people, who did what

he did not care to do. A man who seems to have been able to command the

best, has a sovereign power of depreciation. Then Grandcourt's behavior as

a lover had hardly at all passed the limit of an amorous homage which was

inobtrusive as a wafted odor of roses, and spent all its effects in a

gratified vanity. One day, indeed, he had kissed not her cheek but her

neck a little below her ear; and Gwendolen, taken by surprise, had started

up with a marked agitation which made him rise too and say, "I beg your

pardon--did I annoy you?" "Oh, it was nothing," said Gwendolen, rather

afraid of herself, "only I cannot bear--to be kissed under my ear." She

sat down again with a little playful laugh, but all the while she felt her

heart beating with a vague fear: she was no longer at liberty to flout him

as she had flouted poor Rex. Her agitation seemed not uncomplimentary, and

he had been contented not to transgress again.