ake me like to come away again--I want a variety of
_ennui_. What would be the most convenient time, when you are busy with
your lawyers and people, for me to have lessons from that little
Jewess, whose singing is getting all the rage."

"Whenever you like," said Grandcourt, pushing away his plate, and
leaning back in his chair while he looked at her with his most
lizard-like expression and, played with the ears of the tiny spaniel on
his lap (Gwendolen had taken a dislike to the dogs because they fawned
on him).

Then he said, languidly, "I don't see why a lady should sing. Amateurs
make fools of themselves. A lady can't risk herself in that way in
company. And one doesn't want to hear squalling in private."

"I like frankness: that seems to me a husband's great charm," said
Gwendolen, with her little upward movement of her chin, as she turned
her eyes away from his, and lifting a prawn before her, looked at the
boiled ingenuousness of its eyes as preferable to the lizard's. "But;"
she added, having devoured her mortification, "I suppose you don't
object to Miss Lapidoth's singing at our party on the fourth? I thought
of engaging her. Lady Brackenshaw had her, you know: and the Raymonds,
who are very particular about their music. And Mr. Deronda, who is a
musician himself and a first-rate judge, says there is no singing in
such good taste as hers for a drawing-room. I think his opinion is an
authority."

She meant to sling a small stone at her husband in that way.

"It's very indecent of Deronda to go about praising that girl," said
Grandcourt in a tone of indifference.

"Indecent!" exclaimed Gwendolen, reddening and looking at him again,
overcome by startled wonder, and unable to reflect on the probable
falsity of the phrase--"to go about praising."

"Yes; and especially when she is patronized by Lady Mallinger. He ought
to hold his tongue about her. Men can see what is his relation to her."

"Men who judge of others by themselves," said Gwendolen, turning white
after her redness, and immediately smitten with a dread of her own
words.

"Of course. And a woman should take their judgment--else she is likely
to run her head into the wrong place," said Grandcourt, conscious of
using pinchers on that white creature. "I suppose you take Deronda for
a saint."

"Oh dear no?" said Gwendolen, summoning desperately her almost
miraculous power of self-control, and speaking in a high hard tone.
"Only a little less of