Gwendolen made the expected application, and was not without alarm at the notion of being a gawky. For she, too, with her melancholy distaste for things, preferred that her distaste should include admirers. But the sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the strain of expectation toward any meeting with Deronda. The novelty and excitement of her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign travel; whatever might be the inward despondency, there was a programme to be fulfilled, not without gratification to many-sided self. But, as always happens with a deep interest, the comparatively rare occasions on which she could exchange any words with Deronda had a diffusive effect in her consciousness, magnifying their communication with each other, and therefore enlarging the place she imagined it to have in his mind. How could Deronda help this? He certainly did not avoid her; rather he wished to convince her by every delicate indirect means that her confidence in him had not been indiscreet since it had not lowered his respect. Moreover he liked being near her--how could it be otherwise? She was something more than a problem: she was a lovely woman, for the turn of whose mind and fate he had a care which, however futile it might be, kept soliciting him as a responsibility, perhaps all the more that, when he dared to think of his own future, he saw it lying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who, because he had once been impelled to arrest her attention momentarily, as he might have seized her arm with warning to hinder her from stepping where there was danger, had turned to him with a beseeching persistent need.

Gwendolen understood him, and felt some alarm at the notion of being a gawky. For she, too, required admirers. But the sense of overhanging rebuke only intensified the anticipation of meeting Deronda. The excitement of her town life was like the hurry and constant change of foreign travel; there was always something to do, and not without pleasure. But the rare occasions on which she could exchange any words with Deronda became magnified in her consciousness, and enlarged the place she imagined herself to have in his mind.
How could Deronda help this? He certainly did not avoid her; rather he wished to let her know that her confidence in him had not lowered his respect. Moreover he liked being near her - how could it be otherwise? She was a lovely woman, and he cared about her fate perhaps all the more because he saw his own future lying far away from this splendid sad-hearted creature, who had turned to him with a beseeching need.
