"Wait till you see Mr. Deronda," said Mab, nodding significantly. "Nobody's brother will do after him."
"Our brothers must do for people's husbands," said Kate, curtly, "because they will not get Mr. Deronda. No woman will do for him to marry."
"No woman ought to want him to marry him," said Mab, with indignation. "I never should. Fancy finding out that he had a tailor's bill, and used boot-hooks, like Hans. Who ever thought of his marrying?"
"I have," said Kate. "When I drew a wedding for a frontispiece to 'Hearts and Diamonds,' I made a sort of likeness to him for the bridegroom, and I went about looking for a grand woman who would do for his countess, but I saw none that would not be poor creatures by the side of him."
"You should have seen this Mrs. Grandcourt then," said Mrs. Meyrick. "Hans says that she and Mr. Deronda set each other off when they are side by side. She is tall and fair. But you know her, Mirah--you can always say something descriptive. What do you think of Mrs. Grandcourt?"
"I think she is the Princess of Eboli in Don Carlos," said Mirah, with a quick intensity. She was pursuing an association in her own mind not intelligible to her hearers--an association with a certain actress as well as the part she represented.
"Your comparison is a riddle for me, my dear," said Mrs. Meyrick, smiling.
"You said that Mrs. Grandcourt was tall and fair," continued Mirah, slightly paler. "That is quite true."
Mrs. Meyrick's quick eye and ear detected something unusual, but immediately explained it to herself. Fine ladies had often wounded Mirah by caprices of manner and intention.
"Mrs. Grandcourt had thought of having lessons of Mirah," she said turning to Anna. "But many have talked of having lessons, and then have found no time. Fashionable ladies have too much work to do."
And the chat went on without further insistance on the Princess of Eboli. That comparison escaped Mirah's lips under the urgency of a pang unlike anything she had felt before. The conversation from the beginning had revived unpleasant impressions, and Mrs. Meyrick's suggestion of Gwendolen's figure by the side of Deronda's had the stinging effect of a voice outside her, confirming her secret conviction that this tall and fair woman had some hold on his lot. For a long while afterward she felt as if she had had a jarring shock through her frame.