were not in
his nature to give up anything readily, though it were only a whim--or
rather, especially if it were a whim, and he presently went on,
painting the while--

"But even supposing I had a public rushing after my pictures as if they
were a railway series including nurses, babies and bonnet-boxes, I
can't see any justice in your objection. Every painter worth
remembering has painted the face he admired most, as often as he could.
It is a part of his soul that goes out into his pictures. He diffuses
its influence in that way. He puts what he hates into a caricature. He
puts what he adores into some sacred, heroic form. If a man could paint
the woman he loves a thousand times as the Stella Marts to put courage
into the sailors on board a thousand ships, so much the more honor to
her. Isn't that better than painting a piece of staring immodesty and
calling it by a worshipful name?"

"Every objection can be answered if you take broad ground enough, Hans:
no special question of conduct can be properly settled in that way,"
said Deronda, with a touch of peremptoriness. "I might admit all your
generalities, and yet be right in saying you ought not to publish
Mirah's face as a model for Berenice. But I give up the question of
publicity. I was unreasonable there." Deronda hesitated a moment.
"Still, even as a private affair, there might be good reasons for your
not indulging yourself too much in painting her from the point of view
you mention. You must feel that her situation at present is a very
delicate one; and until she is in more independence, she should be kept
as carefully as a bit of Venetian glass, for fear of shaking her out of
the safe place she is lodged in. Are you quite sure of your own
discretion? Excuse me, Hans. My having found her binds me to watch over
her. Do you understand me?"

"Perfectly," said Hans, turning his face into a good-humored smile.
"You have the very justifiable opinion of me that I am likely to
shatter all the glass in my way, and break my own skull into the
bargain. Quite fair. Since I got into the scrape of being born,
everything I have liked best has been a scrape either for myself or
somebody else. Everything I have taken to heartily has somehow turned
into a scrape. My painting is the last scrape; and I shall be all my
life getting out of it. You think now I shall get into a scrape at
home. No; I am regenerate. You think I must be over head and ears in
love with Mirah. Quite ri