“Poor thing! she must have been fond of her husband to jump in after him.”
“It was an inadvertence—a little absence of mind,” said Hans, creasing his face roguishly, and throwing himself into a chair not far from Mirah. “Who can be fond of a jealous baritone, with freezing glances, always singing asides?—that was the husband’s rôle, depend upon it. Nothing can be neater than his getting drowned. The Duchess is at liberty now to marry a man with a fine head of hair, and glances that will melt instead of freezing her. And I shall be invited to the wedding.”
Here Mirah started from her sitting posture, and fixing her eyes on Hans, with an angry gleam in them, she said, in a deeply-shaken voice of indignation,
“Mr. Hans, you ought not to speak in that way. Mr. Deronda would not like you to speak so. Why will you say he is lucky—why will you use words of that sort about life and death—when what is life to one is death to another? How do you know it would be lucky if he loved Mrs. Grandcourt? It might be a great evil to him. She would take him away from my brother—I know she would. Mr. Deronda would not call that lucky to pierce my brother’s heart.”
All three were struck with the sudden transformation. Mirah’s face, with a look of anger that might have suited Ithuriel, pale, even to the lips that were usually so rich of tint, was not far from poor Hans, who sat transfixed, blushing under it as if he had been a girl, while he said, nervously,
“I am a fool and a brute, and I withdraw every word. I’ll go and hang myself like Judas—if it’s allowable to mention him.” Even in Hans’s sorrowful moments, his improvised words had inevitably some drollery.
But Mirah’s anger was not appeased: how could it be? She had burst into indignant speech as creatures in intense pain bite and make their teeth meet even through their own flesh, by way of making their agony bearable. She said no more, but, seating herself at the piano, pressed the sheet of music before her, as if she thought of beginning to play again.
It was Mab who spoke, while Mrs. Meyrick’s face seemed to reflect some of Hans’ discomfort.
“Mirah is quite right to scold you, Hans. You are always taking Mr. Deronda’s name in vain. And it is horrible, joking in that way about his marrying Mrs. Grandcourt. Men’s minds must be very black, I think,” ended Mab, with much scorn.
“Quite true, my dear,” said Hans, in a low tone, rising and turning on his heel to walk toward the back window.