"Oh, yes," she answered, as to a question about a matter of course, while she folded her arms again. "But,"----she added in a deeper tone,----"I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. It is a talent to love--I lack it. Others have loved me--and I have acted their love. I know very well what love makes of men and women--it is subjection. It takes another for a larger self, enclosing this one,"--she pointed to her own bosom. "I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been subject to me."
"Perhaps the man who was subject was the happier of the two," said Deronda--not with a smile, but with a grave, sad sense of his mother's privation.

"Oh, yes. But I am not a loving woman. That is the truth. I know what love makes of men and women - it is subjection. I was never willingly subject to any man. Men have been subject to me. 