Day after day the same pattern of thinking was repeated. There came nothing to change the situation--no new elements in the sketch--only a recurrence which engraved it. The May weeks went on into June, and still Mrs. Grandcourt was outwardly in the same place, presenting herself as she was expected to do in the accustomed scenes, with the accustomed grace, beauty, and costume; from church at one end of the week, through all the scale of desirable receptions, to opera at the other. Church was not markedly distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-presentation, for marriage had included no instruction that enabled her to connect liturgy and sermon with any larger order of the world than that of unexplained and perhaps inexplicable social fashions. While a laudable zeal was laboring to carry the light of spiritual law up the alleys where law is chiefly known as the policeman, the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt, condescending a little to a fashionable rector and conscious of a feminine advantage over a learned dean, was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse.
Can we wonder at the practical submission which hid her constructive rebellion? The combination is common enough, as we know from the number of persons who make us aware of it in their own case by a clamorous unwearied statement of the reasons against their submitting to a situation which, on inquiry, we discover to be the least disagreeable within their reach. Poor Gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now marked some hardening in a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of feeling.

Day after day she thought along the same lines, and nothing changed. May turned into June, and still Mrs. Grandcourt was presenting herself with the accustomed grace, beauty, and costume, whether at church or the opera. Church was not distinguished in her mind from the other forms of self-presentation, for the brilliant Mrs. Grandcourt was, so far as pastoral care and religious fellowship were concerned, in as complete a solitude as a man in a lighthouse.
Can we wonder at the submission which hid her rebellion? The combination is common enough. Poor Gwendolen had both too much and too little mental power and dignity to make herself exceptional. No wonder that Deronda now saw some hardening in a look and manner which were schooled daily to the suppression of feeling.
