Mr. Vandernoodt, adjusting the end of his cigar, shrugged his shoulders and put out his lips.
"She can know nothing of it," said Deronda, emphatically. But that positive statement was immediately followed by an inward query--"Could she have known anything of it?"
"It's rather a piquant picture," said Mr. Vandernoodt--"Grandcourt between two fiery women. For depend upon it this light-haired one has plenty of devil in her. I formed that opinion of her at Leubronn. It's a sort of Medea and Creüsa business. Fancy the two meeting! Grandcourt is a new kind of Jason: I wonder what sort of a part he'll make of it. It's a dog's part at best. I think I hear Ristori now, saying, 'Jasone! Jasone!' These fine women generally get hold of a stick."
"Grandcourt can bite, I fancy," said Deronda. "He is no stick."
"No, no; I meant Jason. I can't quite make out Grandcourt. But he's a keen fellow enough--uncommonly well built too. And if he comes into all this property, the estates will bear dividing. This girl, whose friends had come to beggary, I understand, may think herself lucky to get him. I don't want to be hard on a man because he gets involved in an affair of that sort. But he might make himself more agreeable. I was telling him a capital story last night, and he got up and walked away in the middle. I felt inclined to kick him. Do you suppose that is inattention or insolence, now?"
"Oh, a mixture. He generally observes the forms: but he doesn't listen much," said Deronda. Then, after a moment's pause, he went on, "I should think there must be some exaggeration or inaccuracy in what you have heard about this lady at Gadsmere."
"Not a bit, depend upon it; it has all lain snug of late years. People have forgotten all about it. But there the nest is, and the birds are in it. And I know Grandcourt goes there. I have good evidence that he goes there. However, that's nobody's business but his own. The affair has sunk below the surface."
"I wonder you could have learned so much about it," said Deronda, rather drily.
"Oh, there are plenty of people who knew all about it; but such stories get packed away like old letters. They interest me. I like to know the manners of my time--contemporary gossip, not antediluvian. These Dryasdust fellows get a reputation by raking up some small scandal about Semiramis or Nitocris, and then we have a thousand and one poems written upon it by all the warblers big and little. But I don't care a straw about the faux pas of the mummies. You do, though. You are one of the historical men-- more interested in a lady when she's got a rag face and skeleton toes peeping out. Does that flatter your imagination?"