“The Arrowpoints have condoned the marriage, and he is spending the Christmas with his bride at Quetcham.”
“I suppose he will be glad of it for the sake of his wife, else I dare say he would not have minded keeping at a distance,” said Deronda.
“It’s a sort of troubadour story,” said Lady Pentreath, an easy, deep-voiced old lady; “I’m glad to find a little romance left among us. I think our young people now are getting too worldly wise.”
“It shows the Arrowpoints’ good sense, however, to have adopted the affair, after the fuss in the paper,” said Sir Hugo. “And disowning your own child because of a mésalliance is something like disowning your one eye: everybody knows it’s yours, and you have no other to make an appearance with.”
“As to mésalliance, there’s no blood on any side,” said Lady Pentreath. “Old Admiral Arrowpoint was one of Nelson’s men, you know—a doctor’s son. And we all know how the mother’s money came.”
“If they were any mésalliance in the case, I should say it was on Klesmer’s side,” said Deronda.
“Ah, you think it is a case of the immortal marrying the mortal. What is your opinion?” said Sir Hugo, looking at Gwendolen.
“I have no doubt that Herr Klesmer thinks himself immortal. But I dare say his wife will burn as much incense before him as he requires,” said Gwendolen. She had recovered any composure that she might have lost.
“Don’t you approve of a wife burning incense before her husband?” said Sir Hugo, with an air of jocoseness.
“Oh, yes,” said Gwendolen, “if it were only to make others believe in him.” She paused a moment and then said with more gayety, “When Herr Klesmer admires his own genius, it will take off some of the absurdity if his wife says Amen.”