Pulcheria. I don’t care to think about her. She was a second-rate English girl who got into a flutter about a lord.
Theodora. I don’t see that she is worse than if she were a first-rate American girl who should get into exactly the same flutter.
Pulcheria. It wouldn’t be the same flutter at all; it wouldn’t be any flutter. She wouldn’t be afraid of the lord, though she might be amused at him.
Theodora. I am sure I don’t perceive whom Gwendolen was afraid of. She was afraid of her misdeed—her broken promise—after she had committed it, and through that fear she was afraid of her husband. Well she might be! I can imagine nothing more vivid than the sense we get of his absolutely clammy selfishness.
Pulcheria. She was not afraid of Deronda when, immediately after her marriage and without any but the most casual acquaintance with him, she begins to hover about him at the Mallingers’ and to drop little confidences about her conjugal woes. That seems to me very indelicate; ask any woman.
Constantius. The very purpose of the author is to give us an idea of the sort of confidence that Deronda inspired—its irresistible potency.
Pulcheria. A lay father-confessor—horrid!
Constantius. And to give us an idea also of the acuteness of Gwendolen’s depression, of her haunting sense of impending trouble.
Theodora. It must be remembered that Gwendolen was in love with Deronda from the first, long before she knew it. She didn’t know it, poor girl, but that was it.
Pulcheria. That makes the matter worse. It is very disagreeable to see her hovering and rustling about a man who is indifferent to her.