Later, in the drawing-room, Deronda, at somebody’s request, sat down to the piano and sang. Afterward, Mrs. Raymond took his place; and on rising he observed that Gwendolen had left her seat, and had come to this end of the room, as if to listen more fully, but was now standing with her back to every one, apparently contemplating a fine cowled head carved in ivory which hung over a small table. He longed to go to her and speak. Why should he not obey such an impulse, as he would have done toward any other lady in the room? Yet he hesitated some moments, observing the graceful lines of her back, but not moving.
If you have any reason for not indulging a wish to speak to a fair woman, it is a bad plan to look long at her back: the wish to see what it screens becomes the stronger. There may be a very sweet smile on the other side. Deronda ended by going to the end of the small table, at right angles to Gwendolen’s position, but before he could speak she had turned on him no smile, but such an appealing look of sadness, so utterly different from the chill effort of her recognition at table, that his speech was checked. For what was an appreciative space of time to both, though the observation of others could not have measured it, they looked at each other—she seeming to take the deep rest of confession, he with an answering depth of sympathy that neutralized all other feelings.
“Will you not join in the music?” he said, by way of meeting the necessity for speech.
That her look of confession had been involuntary was shown by that just perceptible shake and change of countenance with which she roused herself to reply calmly, “I join in it by listening. I am fond of music.”
“Are you not a musician?”
“I have given a great deal of time to music. But I have not talent enough to make it worth while. I shall never sing again.”
“But if you are fond of music, it will always be worth while in private, for your own delight. I make it a virtue to be content with my middlingness,” said Deronda, smiling; “it is always pardonable, so that one does not ask others to take it for superiority.”
“I cannot imitate you,” said Gwendolen, recovering her tone of artificial vivacity. “To be middling with me is another phrase for being dull. And the worst fault I have to find with the world is that it is dull. Do you know, I am going to justify gambling in spite of you. It is a refuge from dullness.”
“I don’t admit the justification,” said Deronda. “I think what we call the dullness of things is a disease in ourselves. Else how can any one find an intense interest in life? And many do.”
“Ah, I see! The fault I find in the world is my own fault,” said Gwendolen, smiling at him. Then after a moment, looking up at the ivory again, she said, “Do you never find fault with the world or with others?”