"I shall be very glad to go and sit among them, if that will suit you. It is a sort of meeting I should like to join in," said Deronda, not without relief in the prospect of an interval before he went through the strain of his next private conversation with Mordecai.
In three minutes they had opened the glazed door with the red curtain, and were in the little parlor, hardly much more than fifteen feet square, where the gaslight shone through a slight haze of smoke on what to Deronda was a new and striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various ages, from between twenty and thirty to fifty, all shabbily dressed, most of them with clay pipes in their mouths, were listening with a look of concentrated intelligence to a man in a pepper-and-salt dress, with blonde hair, short nose, broad forehead and general breadth, who, holding his pipe slightly uplifted in the left hand, and beating his knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley (the comparison of the avalanche in his "Prometheus Unbound")
"As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth Is loosened, and the nations echo round."
The entrance of the new-comers broke the fixity of attention, and called for re-arrangement of seats in the too narrow semicircle round the fire-place and the table holding the glasses, spare pipes and tobacco. This was the soberest of clubs; but sobriety is no reason why smoking and "taking something" should be less imperiously needed as a means of getting a decent status in company and debate. Mordecai was received with welcoming voices which had a slight cadence of compassion in them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion.
"I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects," said Mordecai. "He has traveled and studied much."

"I shall be very glad to sit among them, if that will suit you," said Deronda, relieved at the prospect of an interval before he went through the strain of his next private conversation with Mordecai.
In three minutes they were in the little parlour, where the gaslight shone through a haze of smoke on to a striking scene. Half-a-dozen men of various ages, between twenty and fifty, all shabbily dressed, most of them with clay pipes, were listening with a look of concentrated intelligence to a man in pepper-and-salt clothes, with blonde hair and broad forehead, who, holding his pipe in his left hand, and beating his knee with the right, was just finishing a quotation from Shelley:
"As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo round."
The entrance of the new-comers called for a re-arrangement of seats in the narrow semicircle round the fire-place and the table. Mordecai was received with welcoming voices which had compassion in them, but naturally all glances passed immediately to his companion.
"I have brought a friend who is interested in our subjects," said Mordecai. "He has travelled and studied much."
