In fact, she was undergoing a sort of discipline for the refractory which, as little as possible like conversion, bends half the self with a terrible strain, and exasperates the unwillingness of the other half. Grandcourt had an active divination rather than discernment of refractoriness in her, and what had happened about Mirah quickened his suspicion that there was an increase of it dependent on the occasions when she happened to see Deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them: he did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it was nonsense that evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind--an inward action which might become disagreeable outward. Husbands in the old time are known to have suffered from a threatening devoutness in their wives, presenting itself first indistinctly as oddity, and ending in that mild form of lunatic asylum, a nunnery: Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which the unity between them in his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check. Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than the speeches we have just heard.

In fact, she was undergoing a sort of unwilling discipline for the refractory which bent her with a terrible strain. Grandcourt had divined this refractoriness in her, and suspected that it increased whenever she happened to see Deronda: there was some "confounded nonsense" between them. He did not imagine it exactly as flirtation, and his imagination in other branches was rather restricted; but it evidently kept up a kind of simmering in her mind which might turn out to be disagreeable. Grandcourt had a vague perception of threatening moods in Gwendolen which his views of marriage required him peremptorily to check.
Among the means he chose, one was peculiar, and was less ably calculated than usual.
