"If some mortal, born too soon, Were laid away in some great trance--the ages Coming and going all the while--till dawned His true time's advent; and could then record The words they spoke who kept watch by his bed, Then I might tell more of the breath so light Upon my eyelids, and the fingers warm Among my hair. Youth is confused; yet never So dull was I but, when that spirit passed, I turned to him, scarce consciously, as turns A water-snake when fairies cross his sleep." --BROWNING: _Paracelsus_.
This was the letter which Sir Hugo put into Deronda's hands:,
TO MY SON, DANIEL DERONDA.
My good friend and yours, Sir Hugo Mallinger, will have told you that I wish to see you. My health is shaken, and I desire there should be no time lost before I deliver to you what I have long withheld. Let nothing hinder you from being at the _Albergo dell' Italia_ in Genoa by the fourteenth of this month. Wait for me there. I am uncertain when I shall be able to make the journey from Spezia, where I shall be staying. That will depend on several things. Wait for me--the Princess Halm-Eberstein. Bring with you the diamond ring that Sir Hugo gave you. I shall like to see it again.--Your unknown mother,
LEONORA HALM-EBERSTEIN.
This letter with its colorless wording gave Deronda no clue to what was in reserve for him; but he could not do otherwise than accept Sir Hugo's reticence, which seemed to imply some pledge not to anticipate the mother's disclosures; and the discovery that his life-long conjectures had been mistaken checked further surmise. Deronda could not hinder his imagination from taking a quick flight over what seemed possibilities, but he refused to contemplate any of them as more likely than another, lest he should be nursing it into a dominant desire or repugnance, instead of simply preparing himself with resolve to meet the fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be.
In this state of mind he could not have communicated to any one the reason for the absence which in some quarters he was obliged to mention beforehand, least of all to Mordecai, whom it would affect as powerfully as it did himself, only in rather a different way. If he were to say, "I am going to learn the truth about my birth," Mordecai's hope would gather what might prove a painful, dangerous excitement. To exclude suppositions, he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by Sir Hugo's wish, and threw as much indifference as he could into his manner of announcing it, saying he was uncertain of its duration, but it would perhaps be very short.
"I will ask to have the child Jacob to stay with me," said Mordecai, comforting himself in this way, after the first mournful glances.
"I will drive round and ask Mrs. Cohen to let him come," said Mirah.
"The grandmother will deny you nothing," said Deronda. "I'm glad you were a little wrong as well as I," he added, smiling at Mordecai. "You thought that old Mrs. Cohen would not bear to see Mirah."
"I undervalued her heart," said Mordecai. "She is capable of rejoicing that another's plant blooms though her own be withered."
"Oh, they are dear good people; I feel as if we all belonged to each other," said Mirah, with a tinge of merriment in her smile.
"What should you have felt if that Ezra had been your brother?" said Deronda, mischievously--a little provoked that she had taken kindly at once to people who had caused him so much prospective annoyance on her account.
Mirah looked at him with a slight surprise for a moment, and then said, "He is not a bad man--I think he would never forsake any one." But when she uttered the words she blushed deeply, and glancing timidly at Mordecai, turned away to some occupation. Her father was in her mind, and this was a subject on which she and her brother had a painful mutual consciousness. "If he should come and find us!" was a thought which to Mirah sometimes made the street daylight as shadowy as a haunted forest where each turn screened for her an imaginary apparition.
Deronda felt what was her involuntary allusion, and understood the blush. How could he be slow to understand feelings which now seemed nearer than ever to his own? for the words of his mother's letter implied that his filial relation was not to be freed from painful conditions; indeed, singularly enough that letter which had brought his mother nearer as a living reality had thrown her into more remoteness for his affections. The tender yearning after a being whose life might have been the worse for not having his care and love, the image of a mother who had not had all her dues, whether of reverence or compassion, had long been secretly present with him in his observation of all the women he had come near. But it seemed now that this picturing of his mother might fit the facts no better than his former conceptions about Sir Hugo. He wondered to find that when this mother's very hand-writing had come to him with words holding her actual feeling, his affections had suddenly shrunk into a state of comparative neutrality toward her. A veiled figure with enigmatic speech had thrust away that image which, in spite of uncertainty, his clinging thought had gradually modeled and made the possessor of his tenderness and duteous longing. When he set off to Genoa, the interest really uppermost in his mind had hardly so much relation to his mother as to Mordecai and Mirah.
"God bless you, Dan!" Sir Hugo had said, when they shook hands. "Whatever else changes for you, it can't change my being the oldest friend you have known, and the one who has all along felt the most for you. I couldn't have loved you better if you'd been my own--only I should have been better pleased with thinking of you always as the future master of the Abbey instead of my fine nephew; and then you would have seen it necessary for you to take a political line. However--things must be as they may." It was a defensive movement of the baronet's to mingle purposeless remarks with the expression of serious feeling.
When Deronda arrived at the _Italia_ in Genoa, no Princess Halm-Eberstein was there; but on the second day there was a letter for him, saying that her arrival might happen within a week, or might be deferred a fortnight and more; she was under circumstances which made it impossible for her to fix her journey more precisely, and she entreated him to wait as patiently as he could.
With this indefinite prospect of suspense on matters of supreme moment to him, Deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement on philosophic grounds, as a means of quieting excited feeling and giving patience a lift over a weary road. His former visit to the superb city had been only cursory, and left him much to learn beyond the prescribed round of sight-seeing, by spending the cooler hours in observant wandering about the streets, the quay, and the environs; and he often took a boat that he might enjoy the magnificent view of the city and harbor from the sea. All sights, all subjects, even the expected meeting with his mother, found a central union in Mordecai and Mirah, and the ideas immediately associated with them; and among the thoughts that most filled his mind while his boat was pushing about within view of the grand harbor was that of the multitudinous Spanish Jews centuries ago driven destitute from their Spanish homes, suffered to land from the crowded ships only for a brief rest on this grand quay of Genoa, overspreading it with a pall of famine and plague--dying mothers and dying children at their breasts--fathers and sons a-gaze at each other's haggardness, like groups from a hundred Hunger-towers turned out beneath the midday sun. Inevitably dreamy constructions of a possible ancestry for himself would weave themselves with historic memories which had begun to have a new interest for him on his discovery of Mirah, and now, under the influence of Mordecai, had become irresistibly dominant. He would have sealed his mind against such constructions if it had been possible, and he had never yet fully admitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify Mordecai's conviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter, and that wishing was folly--nay, on the question of parentage, wishing seemed part of that meanness which disowns kinship: it was a disowning by anticipation. What he had to do was simply to accept the fact; and he had really no strong presumption to go upon, now that he was assured of his mistake about Sir Hugo. There had been a resolved concealment which made all inference untrustworthy, and the very name he bore might be a false one. If Mordecai was wrong--if he, the so-called Daniel Deronda, were held by ties entirely aloof from any such course as his friend's pathetic hope had marked out?--he would not say "I wish"; but he could not help feeling on which side the sacrifice lay.
Across these two importunate thoughts, which he resisted as much as one can resist anything in that unstrung condition which belongs to suspense, there came continually an anxiety which he made no effort to banish--dwelling on it rather with a mournfulness, which often seems to us the best atonement we can make to one whose need we have been unable to meet. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. In the wonderful mixtures of our nature there is a feeling distinct from that exclusive passionate love of which some men and women (by no means all) are capable, which yet is not the same with friendship, nor with a merely benevolent regard, whether admiring or compassionate: a man, say--for it is a man who is here concerned--hardly represents to himself this shade of feeling toward a woman more nearly than in words, "I should have loved her, if----": the "if" covering some prior growth in the inclinations, or else some circumstances which have made an inward prohibitory law as a stay against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance. The "if" in Deronda's case carried reasons of both kinds; yet he had never throughout his relations with Gwendolen been free from the nervous consciousness that there was something to guard against not only on her account but on his own--some precipitancy in the manifestations of impulsive feeling--some ruinous inroad of what is but momentary on the permanent chosen treasure of the heart--some spoiling of her trust, which wrought upon him now as if it had been the retreating cry of a creature snatched and carried out of his reach by swift horsemen or swifter waves, while his own strength was only a stronger sense of weakness. How could his feelings for Gwendolen ever be exactly like his feelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he desired to stand apart from them? Strangely the figure entered into the pictures of his present and future; strangely (and now it seemed sadly) their two lots had come in contact, hers narrowly personal, his charged with far-reaching sensibilities, perhaps with durable purposes, which were hardly more present to her than the reasons why men migrate are present to the birds that come as usual for the crumbs and find them no more. Not that Deronda was too ready to imagine himself of supreme importance to a woman; but her words of insistence that he must "remain near her--must not forsake her"--continually recurred to him with the clearness and importunity of imagined sounds, such as Dante has said pierce us like arrows whose points carry the sharpness of pity,
"Lamenti saettaron me diversi Che di pieta ferrati avean gli strali".
Day after day passed, and the very air of Italy seemed to carry the consciousness that war had been declared against Austria, and every day was a hurrying march of crowded Time toward the world-changing battle of Sadowa. Meanwhile, in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the converging outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued holiday-makers, and the sweet evening changing her office--scattering abroad those whom the midday had sent under shelter, and sowing all paths with happy social sounds, little tinklings of mule-bells and whirrings of thrumbed strings, light footsteps and voices, if not leisurely, then with the hurry of pleasure in them; while the encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with fine dwellings and gardens, seemed also to come forth and gaze in fullness of beauty after their long siesta, till all strong color melted in the stream of moonlight which made the Streets a new spectacle with shadows, both still and moving, on cathedral steps and against the faades of massive palaces; and then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great Lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the blackness above. Deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of the days as he might have watched a wonderful clock where the striking of the hours was made solemn with antique figures advancing and retreating in monitory procession, while he still kept his ear open for another kind of signal which would have its solemnity too: He was beginning to sicken of occupation, and found himself contemplating all activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. In his letters to Mordecai and Hans, he had avoided writing about himself, but he was really getting into that state of mind to which all subjects become personal; and the few books he had brought to make him a refuge in study were becoming unreadable, because the point of view that life would make for him was in that agitating moment of uncertainty which is close upon decision.
Many nights were watched through by him in gazing from the open window of his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the heavens; often in struggling under the oppressive skepticism which represented his particular lot, with all the importance he was allowing Mordecai to give it, as of no more lasting effect than a dream--a set of changes which made passion to him, but beyond his consciousness were no more than an imperceptible difference of mass and shadow; sometimes with a reaction of emotive force which gave even to sustained disappointment, even to the fulfilled demand of sacrifice, the nature of a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it might be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet irresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities might befall him--the blending of a complete personal love in one current with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion (what human creature escapes it?) against things in general because they are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which Gwendolen and her equivocal fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world along with the concealments which he had felt as a hardship in his own life, and which were acting in him now under the form of an afflicting doubtfulness about the mother who had announced herself coldly and still kept away.
But at last she was come. One morning in his third week of waiting there was a new kind of knock at the door. A servant in Chasseurs livery entered and delivered in French the verbal message that, the Princess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during the day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would dine early, so as to be at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him.

This was the letter which Sir Hugo gave to Deronda:-
'TO MY SON, DANIEL DERONDA.
'My good friend, Sir Hugo Mallinger, will have told you that I wish to see you. My health is shaken, and I desire to lose no time before I deliver to you what I have long withheld. Be at the Albergo dell' Italia in Genoa by the fourteenth of this month. Wait for me there. I am uncertain when I shall be able to make the journey from Spezia, where I shall be staying. That will depend on several things. Wait for me: the Princess Halm-Eberstein. Bring with you the diamond ring that Sir Hugo gave you. I shall like to see it again. Your unknown mother,
'LEONORA HALM-EBERSTEIN.'
This letter with its colourless wording gave Deronda no clue to what awaited him. He could not help imagining possibilities, but he refused to regard any of them as likely. He simply attempted to prepare himself to meet the fact bravely, whatever it might turn out to be.
He could not tell anyone the reason for his absence, least of all Mordecai, whom it would affect as powerfully as it did himself, only in a different way. If he were to say, "I am going to learn the truth about my birth," Mordecai's hopes might be dangerously excited. So he spoke of his journey as being undertaken by Sir Hugo's wish, with as much indifference and vagueness as he could.
"I will ask to have the child Jacob to stay with me," said Mordecai.
"I will ask Mrs. Cohen to let him come," said Mirah.
"The grandmother will deny you nothing," said Deronda. "I'm glad you were wrong," he added, smiling at Mordecai. "You thought that old Mrs. Cohen would not bear to see Mirah."
"I undervalued her heart," said Mordecai. "She is capable of rejoicing that another's plant blooms though her own be withered."
"Oh, they are dear good people; I feel as if we all belonged to each other," said Mirah, with merriment.
"What should you have felt if that Ezra had been your brother?" said Deronda mischievously.
Mirah looked at him with slight surprise, and said, "He is not a bad man - I think he would never forsake anyone." Then she blushed deeply, glancing timidly at Mordecai: her father was in her mind. "If he should find us!" was a thought which sometimes haunted Mirah.
Deronda understood the blush, for her feelings about her parent seemed near to his own. That letter which had brought his mother nearer in reality had made her more remote in his affections. The tender yearning after an imagined mother had long been secretly present within him in his observation of all women. But it seemed now that this picture of his mother might not fit the facts: her enigmatic letter had thrust away that image created by his longing.
When Deronda arrived at the Italia in Genoa, no Princess Halm-Eberstein was there; but there was a letter for him, saying that she might arrive within a week or two, and entreating him to wait patiently.
Under this suspense, Deronda set about the difficult task of seeking amusement as a means of quieting his excitement and giving patience a lift over a weary road. He spent the cooler hours in wandering about to observe the streets and the quay; and he often took a boat to enjoy the magnificent view of the city from the sea.
Mordecai and Mirah were ever-present in his thoughts; and while his boat was pushing about within view of the grand harbour, he imagined the multitudinous Spanish Jews centuries ago, driven destitute and starving from their homes into crowded ships, and allowed only a brief rest on this grand quay of Genoa. Inevitably, dreamy constructions of his possible ancestry would weave themselves with this history, which had acquired a new interest for him since meeting Mirah and Mordecai. He had never yet fully admitted to himself that he wished the facts to verify Mordecai's conviction: he inwardly repeated that he had no choice in the matter, and that wishing was folly. He had simply to accept the fact.
Across these thoughts, there came continually another anxiety which he made no effort to banish. Rather, he dwelt on it with a mournfulness which often seems to us the best atonement we can make to one whom we have been unable to help. The anxiety was for Gwendolen. His feeling for her was not passionate love, yet was not the same as friendship, or a merely benevolent regard. A man may express this feeling in the words, "I should have loved her, if": the "if" covering some circumstance set against the emotions ready to quiver out of balance.
Deronda had never throughout his relations with Gwendolen been free from the nervous consciousness that there was something to guard against, not only on her account but on his own - that any impulsive action on his part would ruin her trust in him, which worked upon him now like the retreating cry of a creature snatched and carried out of his reach. How could his feelings for Gwendolen ever be exactly like his feelings for other women, even when there was one by whose side he desired to stand? Although Deronda did not imagine himself to be of supreme importance to any woman, Gwendolen's insistence that he must "remain near her - must not forsake her" continually recurred to him with piercing clearness.
Day after day passed, and in Genoa, the noons were getting hotter, the outer roads getting deeper with white dust, the oleanders in the tubs along the wayside gardens looking more and more like fatigued holiday-makers, and the sweet evening sowing the paths with happy tinklings of mule-bells and thrumming of strings, light footsteps and voices; while the encircling heights, crowned with forts, skirted with gardens, seemed to come forth in fullness of beauty after their long siesta, till all strong colour melted in the moonlight. Then slowly with the descending moon all sank in deep night and silence, and nothing shone but the port lights of the great Lanterna in the blackness below, and the glimmering stars in the blackness above.
Deronda, in his suspense, watched this revolving of the days as he might have watched a wonderful antique clock, and found himself contemplating all activity with the aloofness of a prisoner awaiting ransom. In his letters to Mordecai and Hans, he avoided writing about himself, but he was really in that state of mind in which all subjects become personal; and the few books he had brought with him were unreadable in his agitating uncertainty.
On many nights, he gazed from the open window of his room on the double, faintly pierced darkness of the sea and the heavens; often struggling under the oppressive scepticism which made him think of his lot as of no more lasting effect than a dream; sometimes with an emotional reaction which gave even to disappointment the nature of a satisfied energy, and spread over his young future, whatever it might be, the attraction of devoted service; sometimes with a sweet irresistible hopefulness that the very best of human possibilities might befall him - the blending of a complete personal love with a larger duty; and sometimes again in a mood of rebellion against things in general because they are thus and not otherwise, a mood in which Gwendolen and her fate moved as busy images of what was amiss in the world along with the concealments in his own life, which now afflicted him with doubt about the mother who had announced herself coldly and still kept away.
But at last she was come. One morning in his third week of waiting there was a knock at the door. A liveried servant entered and delivered the message that the Princess Halm-Eberstein had arrived, that she was going to rest during the day, but would be obliged if Monsieur would be at liberty at seven, when she would be able to receive him.

Book 7 - THE MOTHER AND THE SON | Chapter 50


We please our fancy with ideal webs Of innovation, but our life meanwhile Is in the loom, where busy passion plies The shuttle to and fro, and gives our deeds The accustomed pattern.
Gwendolen's note, coming "pat betwixt too early and too late," was put into Klesmer's hands just when he was leaving Quetcham, and in order to meet her appeal to his kindness he, with some inconvenience to himself spent the night at Wanchester. There were reasons why he would not remain at Quetcham.
That magnificent mansion, fitted with regard to the greatest expense, had in fact became too hot for him, its owners having, like some great politicians, been astonished at an insurrection against the established order of things, which we plain people after the event can perceive to have been prepared under their very noses.
There were as usual many guests in the house, and among them one in whom Miss Arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political man of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt on public grounds that he required a larger fortune to support the title properly. Heiresses vary, and persons interested in one of them beforehand are prepared to find that she is too yellow or too red, tall and toppling or short and square, violent and capricious or moony and insipid; but in every case it is taken for granted that she will consider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others think her fortunes ought to go. Nature, however, not only accommodates herself ill to our favorite practices by making "only children" daughters, but also now and then endows the misplaced daughter with a clear head and a strong will. The Arrowpoints had already felt some anxiety owing to these endowments of their Catherine. She would not accept the view of her social duty which required her to marry a needy nobleman or a commoner on the ladder toward nobility; and they were not without uneasiness concerning her persistence in declining suitable offers. As to the possibility of her being in love with Klesmer they were not at all uneasy--a very common sort of blindness. For in general mortals have a great power of being astonished at the presence of an effect toward which they have done everything, and at the absence of an effect toward which they had done nothing but desire it. Parents are astonished at the ignorance of their sons, though they have used the most time-honored and expensive means of securing it; husbands and wives are mutually astonished at the loss of affection which they have taken no pains to keep; and all of us in our turn are apt to be astonished that our neighbors do not admire us. In this way it happens that the truth seems highly improbable. The truth is something different from the habitual lazy combinations begotten by our wishes. The Arrowpoints' hour of astonishment was come.
When there is a passion between an heiress and a proud independent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an understanding; but the difficulties are likely to be overcome unless the proud man secures himself by a constant _alibi_. Brief meetings after studied absence are potent in disclosure: but more potent still is frequent companionship, with full sympathy in taste and admirable qualities on both sides; especially where the one is in the position of teacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability which also gives the teacher delight. The situation is famous in history, and has no less charm now than it had in the days of Abelard.
But this kind of comparison had not occurred to the Arrowpoints when they first engaged Klesmer to come down to Quetcham. To have a first-rate musician in your house is a privilege of wealth; Catherine's musical talent demanded every advantage; and she particularly desired to use her quieter time in the country for more thorough study. Klesmer was not yet a Liszt, understood to be adored by ladies of all European countries with the exception of Lapland: and even with that understanding it did not follow that he would make proposals to an heiress. No musician of honor would do so. Still less was it conceivable that Catherine would give him the slightest pretext for such daring. The large check that Mr. Arrowpoint was to draw in Klesmer's name seemed to make him as safe an inmate as a footman. Where marriage is inconceivable, a girl's sentiments are safe.
Klesmer was eminently a man of honor, but marriages rarely begin with formal proposals, and moreover, Catherine's limit of the conceivable did not exactly correspond with her mother's.
Outsiders might have been more apt to think that Klesmer's position was dangerous for himself if Miss Arrowpoint had been an acknowledged beauty; not taking into account that the most powerful of all beauty is that which reveals itself after sympathy and not before it. There is a charm of eye and lip which comes with every little phrase that certifies delicate perception or fine judgment, with every unostentatious word or smile that shows a heart awake to others; and no sweep of garment or turn of figure is more satisfying than that which enters as a restoration of confidence that one person is present on whom no intention will be lost. What dignity of meaning goes on gathering in frowns and laughs which are never observed in the wrong place; what suffused adorableness in a human frame where there is a mind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute finely! The more obvious beauty, also adorable sometimes--one may say it without blasphemy--begins by being an apology for folly, and ends like other apologies in becoming tiresome by iteration; and that Klesmer, though very susceptible to it, should have a passionate attachment to Miss Arrowpoint, was no more a paradox than any other triumph of a manifold sympathy over a monotonous attraction. We object less to be taxed with the enslaving excess of our passions than with our deficiency in wider passion; but if the truth were known, our reputed intensity is often the dullness of not knowing what else to do with ourselves. Tannhuser, one suspects, was a knight of ill-furnished imagination, hardly of larger discourse than a heavy Guardsman; Merlin had certainly seen his best days, and was merely repeating himself, when he fell into that hopeless captivity; and we know that Ulysses felt so manifest an _ennui_ under similar circumstances that Calypso herself furthered his departure. There is indeed a report that he afterward left Penelope; but since she was habitually absorbed in worsted work, and it was probably from her that Telemachus got his mean, pettifogging disposition, always anxious about the property and the daily consumption of meat, no inference can be drawn from this already dubious scandal as to the relation between companionship and constancy.
Klesmer was as versatile and fascinating as a young Ulysses on a sufficient acquaintance--one whom nature seemed to have first made generously and then to have added music as a dominant power using all the abundant rest, and, as in Mendelssohn, finding expression for itself not only in the highest finish of execution, but in that fervor of creative work and theoretic belief which pierces the whole future of a life with the delight of congruous devoted purpose. His foibles of arrogance and vanity did not exceed such as may be found in the best English families; and Catherine Arrowpoint had no corresponding restlessness to clash with his: notwithstanding her native kindliness she was perhaps too coolly firm and self-sustained. But she was one of those satisfactory creatures whose intercourse has the charm of discovery; whose integrity of faculty and expression begets a wish to know what they will say on all subjects or how they will perform whatever they undertake; so that they end by raising not only a continual expectation but a continual sense of fulfillment--the systole and diastole of blissful companionship. In such cases the outward presentment easily becomes what the image is to the worshipper. It was not long before the two became aware that each was interesting to the other; but the "how far" remained a matter of doubt. Klesmer did not conceive that Miss Arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a possible lover, and she was not accustomed to think of herself as likely to stir more than a friendly regard, or to fear the expression of more from any man who was not enamored of her fortune. Each was content to suffer some unshared sense of denial for the sake of loving the other's society a little too well; and under these conditions no need had been felt to restrict Klesmer's visits for the last year either in country or in town. He knew very well that if Miss Arrowpoint had been poor he would have made ardent love to her instead of sending a storm through the piano, or folding his arms and pouring out a hyperbolical tirade about something as impersonal as the north pole; and she was not less aware that if it had been possible for Klesmer to wish for her hand she would have found overmastering reasons for giving it to him. Here was the safety of full cups, which are as secure from overflow as the half-empty, always supposing no disturbance. Naturally, silent feeling had not remained at the same point any more than the stealthly dial-hand, and in the present visit to Quetcham, Klesmer had begun to think that he would not come again; while Catherine was more sensitive to his frequent _brusquerie_, which she rather resented as a needless effort to assert his footing of superior in every sense except the conventional.
Meanwhile enters the expectant peer, Mr. Bult, an esteemed party man who, rather neutral in private life, had strong opinions concerning the districts of the Niger, was much at home also in Brazils, spoke with decision of affairs in the South Seas, was studious of his Parliamentary and itinerant speeches, and had the general solidity and suffusive pinkness of a healthy Briton on the central table-land of life. Catherine, aware of a tacit understanding that he was an undeniable husband for an heiress, had nothing to say against him but that he was thoroughly tiresome to her. Mr. Bult was amiably confident, and had no idea that his insensibility to counterpoint could ever be reckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a serious human being who ought to have a vote; and he did not mind Miss Arrowpoint's addiction to music any more than her probable expenses in antique lace. He was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner outburst of Klesmer's on the lack of idealism in English politics, which left all mutuality between distant races to be determined simply by the need of a market; the crusades, to his mind, had at least this excuse, that they had a banner of sentiment round which generous feelings could rally: of course, the scoundrels rallied too, but what then? they rally in equal force round your advertisement van of "Buy cheap, sell dear." On this theme Klesmer's eloquence, gesticulatory and other, went on for a little while like stray fireworks accidentally ignited, and then sank into immovable silence. Mr. Bult was not surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of English idiom and his ability to put a point in a way that would have told at a constituents' dinner--to be accounted for probably by his being a Pole, or a Czech, or something of that fermenting sort, in a state of political refugeeism which had obliged him to make a profession of his music; and that evening in the drawing-room he for the first time went up to Klesmer at the piano, Miss Arrowpoint being near, and said,
"I had no idea before that you were a political man."
Klesmer's only answer was to fold his arms, put out his nether lip, and stare at Mr. Bult.
"You must have been used to public speaking. You speak uncommonly well, though I don't agree with you. From what you said about sentiment, I fancy you are a Panslavist."
"No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew," said Klesmer, flashing a smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious, wind-like rush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery rather offensive and Polish, but--Miss Arrowpoint being there--did not like to move away.
"Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas," said Miss Arrowpoint, trying to make the best of the situation. "He looks forward to a fusion of races."
"With all my heart," said Mr. Bult, willing to be gracious. "I was sure he had too much talent to be a mere musician."
"Ah, sir, you are under some mistake there," said Klesmer, firing up. "No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little. A creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is a mere politician. We are not ingenious puppets, sir, who live in a box and look out on the world only when it is gaping for amusement. We help to rule the nations and make the age as much as any other public men. We count ourselves on level benches with legislators. And a man who speaks effectively through music is compelled to something more difficult than parliamentary eloquence."
With the last word Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away.
Miss Arrowpoint colored, and Mr. Bult observed, with his usual phlegmatic stolidity, "Your pianist does not think small beer of himself."
"Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist," said Miss Arrowpoint, apologetically. "He is a great musician in the fullest sense of the word. He will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn."
"Ah, you ladies understand these things," said Mr. Bult, none the less convinced that these things were frivolous because Klesmer had shown himself a coxcomb.
Catherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, found an opportunity the next day in the music-room to say, "Why were you so heated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm."
"You wish me to be complaisant to him?" said Klesmer, rather fiercely.
"I think it is hardly worth your while to be other than civil."
"You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then?--you have a respect for a political platitudinarian as insensible as an ox to everything he can't turn into political capital. You think his monumental obtuseness suited to the dignity of the English gentleman."
"I did not say that."
"You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me."
"Now you are slightly nearer the truth," said Catherine, smiling.
"Then I had better put my burial-clothes in my portmanteau and set off at once."
"I don't see that. If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience."
"But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. But I beg pardon. It is impossible you should see the matter as I do. Even you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you."
"That is true," said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "He is of a caste to which I look up--a caste above mine."
Klesmer, who had been seated at a table looking over scores, started up and walked to a little distance, from which he said,
"That is finely felt--I am grateful. But I had better go, all the same. I have made up my mind to go, for good and all. You can get on exceedingly well without me: your operetta is on wheels--it will go of itself. And your Mr. Bull's company fits me 'wie die Faust ins Auge.' I am neglecting my engagements. I must go off to St. Petersburg."
There was no answer.
"You agree with me that I had better go?" said Klesmer, with some irritation.
"Certainly; if that is what your business and feeling prompt. I have only to wonder that you have consented to give us so much of your time in the last year. There must be treble the interest to you anywhere else. I have never thought of you consenting to come here as anything else than a sacrifice."
"Why should I make the sacrifice?" said Klesmer, going to seat himself at the piano, and touching the keys so as to give with the delicacy of an echo in the far distance a melody which he had set to Heine's "Ich hab' dich geliebet und liebe dich noch."
"That is the mystery," said Catherine, not wanting to affect anything, but from mere agitation. From the same cause she was tearing a piece of paper into minute morsels, as if at a task of utmost multiplication imposed by a cruel fairy.
"You can conceive no motive?" said Klesmer, folding his arms.
"None that seems in the least probable."
"Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world--the throned lady whose colors I carry between my heart and my armor."
Catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could her lips utter a word. Klesmer went on,
"This would be the last impertinence in me, if I meant to found anything upon it. That is out of the question. I meant no such thing. But you once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and what made you angriest was men's imputing to you the folly of believing that they courted you for your own sake. Did you not say so?"
"Very likely," was the answer, in a low murmur.
"It was a bitter word. Well, at least one man who has seen women as plenty as flowers in May has lingered about you for your own sake. And since he is one whom you can never marry, you will believe him. There is an argument in favor of some other man. But don't give yourself for a meal to a minotaur like Bult. I shall go now and pack. I shall make my excuses to Mrs. Arrowpoint." Klesmer rose as he ended, and walked quickly toward the door.
"You must take this heap of manuscript," then said Catherine, suddenly making a desperate effort. She had risen to fetch the heap from another table. Klesmer came back, and they had the length of the folio sheets between them.
"Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?" said Catherine. To her the effort was something like the leap of a woman from the deck into the lifeboat.
"It would be too hard--impossible--you could not carry it through. I am not worth what you would have to encounter. I will not accept the sacrifice. It would be thought a _msalliance_ for you and I should be liable to the worst accusations."
"Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together."
The decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and Catherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised to marry Klesmer.
Mrs. Arrowpoint's state of mind was pitiable. Imagine Jean Jacques, after his essay on the corrupting influence of the arts, waking up among children of nature who had no idea of grilling the raw bone they offered him for breakfast with the primitive couvert of a flint knife; or Saint Just, after fervidly denouncing all recognition of pre-eminence, receiving a vote of thanks for the unbroken mediocrity of his speech, which warranted the dullest patriots in delivering themselves at equal length. Something of the same sort befell the authoress of "Tasso," when what she had safely demanded of the dead Leonora was enacted by her own Catherine. It is hard for us to live up to our own eloquence, and keep pace with our winged words, while we are treading the solid earth and are liable to heavy dining. Besides, it has long been understood that the proprieties of literature are not those of practical life. Mrs. Arrowpoint naturally wished for the best of everything. She not only liked to feel herself at a higher level of literary sentiment than the ladies with whom she associated; she wished not to be behind them in any point of social consideration. While Klesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque and acceptable: but to see him by a sudden flash in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of what the world would say. And the poor lady had been used to represent her Catherine as a model of excellence.
Under the first shock she forgot everything but her anger, and snatched at any phrase that would serve as a weapon.
"If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall horsewhip him off the premises. Pray, speak, Mr. Arrowpoint."
The father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by saying, "This will never do, Cath."
"Do!" cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; "who in their senses ever thought it would do? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. It is a comedy you have got up, Catherine. Else you are mad."
"I am quite sane and serious, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame. He never thought of my marrying him. I found out that he loved me, and loving him, I told him I would marry him."
"Leave that unsaid, Catherine," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. "Every one else will say that for you. You will be a public fable. Every one will say that you must have made an offer to a man who has been paid to come to the house--who is nobody knows what--a gypsy, a Jew, a mere bubble of the earth."
"Never mind, mamma," said Catherine, indignant in her turn. "We all know he is a genius--as Tasso was."
"Those times were not these, nor is Klesmer Tasso," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, getting more heated. "There is no sting in _that_ sarcasm, except the sting of undutifulness."
"I am sorry to hurt you, mamma. But I will not give up the happiness of my life to ideas that I don't believe in and customs I have no respect for."
"You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that you are our only child--that it lies with you to place a great property in the right hands?"
"What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade."
"Mr. Arrowpoint, _will_ you sit by and hear this without speaking?"
"I am a gentleman, Cath. We expect you to marry a gentleman," said the father, exerting himself.
"And a man connected with the institutions of this country," said the mother. "A woman in your position has serious duties. Where duty and inclination clash, she must follow duty."
"I don't deny that," said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to her mother's heat. "But one may say very true things and apply them falsely. People can easily take the sacred word duty as a name for what they desire any one else to do."
"Your parent's desire makes no duty for you, then?"
"Yes, within reason. But before I give up the happiness of my life--"
"Catherine, Catherine, it will not be your happiness," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones.
"Well, what seems to me my happiness--before I give it up, I must see some better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman, or a man who votes with a party that he may be turned into a nobleman. I feel at liberty to marry the man I love and think worthy, unless some higher duty forbids."
"And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. It is a woman's duty not to lower herself. You are lowering yourself. Mr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?"
"You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you," said Mr. Arrowpoint. "He won't do at the head of estates. He has a deuced foreign look--is an unpractical man."
"I really can't see what that has to do with it, papa. The land of England has often passed into the hands of foreigners--Dutch soldiers, sons of foreign women of bad character:--if our land were sold to-morrow it would very likely pass into the hands of some foreign merchant on 'Change. It is in everybody's mouth that successful swindlers may buy up half the land in the country. How can I stem that tide?"
"It will never do to argue about marriage, Cath," said Mr. Arrowpoint. "It's no use getting up the subject like a parliamentary question. We must do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public good."
"I can't see any public good concerned here, papa," said Catherine. "Why is it to be expected of any heiress that she should carry the property gained in trade into the hands of a certain class? That seems to be a ridiculous mishmash of superannuated customs and false ambition. I should call it a public evil. People had better make a new sort of public good by changing their ambitions."
"That is mere sophistry, Catherine," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "Because you don't wish to marry a nobleman, you are not obliged to marry a mountebank or a charlatan."
"I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma."
"No, I dare say not," rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn. "You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each other."
"It can't be done, Cath," said Mr. Arrowpoint, wishing to substitute a better-humored reasoning for his wife's impetuosity. "A man like Klesmer can't marry such a property as yours. It can't be done."
"It certainly will not be done," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously. "Where is the man? Let him be fetched."
"I cannot fetch him to be insulted," said Catherine. "Nothing will be achieved by that."
"I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not marry your fortune," said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it."
"Then you had better fetch him."
Catherine only went into the music-room and said, "Come." She felt no need to prepare Klesmer.
"Herr Klesmer," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous stateliness, "it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us and our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution."
"Your marrying is out of the question," said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too heavily weighted with his task, and standing in an embarrassment unrelieved by a cigar. "It is a wild scheme altogether. A man has been called out for less."
"You have taken a base advantage of our confidence," burst in Mrs. Arrowpoint, unable to carry out her purpose and leave the burden of speech to her husband.
Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony.
"The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the house at once," continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without mentioning the money.
"I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter's wish," said Klesmer. "My engagement is to her."
"It is useless to discuss the question," said Mrs. Arrowpoint. "We shall never consent to the marriage. If Catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her. You will not marry her fortune. It is right you should know that."
"Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than I am worthy of."
"It is no sacrifice to me," said Catherine, "except that I am sorry to hurt my father and mother. I have always felt my fortune to be a wretched fatality of my life."
"You mean to defy us, then?" said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"I mean to marry Herr Klesmer," said Catherine, firmly.
"He had better not count on our relenting," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, whose manners suffered from that impunity in insult which has been reckoned among the privileges of women.
"Madam," said Klesmer, "certain reasons forbid me to retort. But understand that I consider it out of the power of either of you, or of your fortune, to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life but her companionship."
"You will leave the house, however," said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"I go at once," said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room.
"Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma," said Catherine; "I consider myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him."
The mother turned her head away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal.
"It's all very fine," said Mr. Arrowpoint, when Catherine was gone; "but what the deuce are we to do with the property?"
"There is Harry Brendall. He can take the name."
"Harry Brendall will get through it all in no time," said Mr. Arrowpoint, relighting his cigar.
And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, Klesmer had left Quetcham.

Gwendolen's note was put into Klesmer's hands just when he was leaving Quetcham. With some inconvenience to himself, he arranged to spend the night at Wanchester. There were reasons why he would not remain at Quetcham.
That magnificent mansion had in fact became too hot for him, its owners having been astonished at an insurrection against the established order of things, which had been prepared under their very noses.
There were many guests in the house, including one in whom Miss Arrowpoint foresaw a new pretender to her hand: a political man of good family who confidently expected a peerage, and felt that he required a larger fortune to support the title properly. It is taken for granted that an heiress will consider herself an appendage to her fortune, and marry where others think her fortunes ought to go; however, Nature now and then endows her with a clear head and a strong will. The Arrowpoints had already felt some anxiety about their Catherine, and were uneasy at her persistence in declining suitable offers. As to the possibility of her being in love with Klesmer they were not at all uneasy: for the habitual lazy assumptions begotten by our wishes often blind us to the truth.
When there is a passion between an heiress and a proud independent-spirited man, it is difficult for them to come to an understanding; but frequent companionship, with sympathy in taste, has the power to bring them together; especially where the one is a teacher and the other is delightedly conscious of receptive ability which also gives the teacher delight.
But this did not occur to the Arrowpoints when they first engaged Klesmer. Catherine's musical talent demanded every advantage; and she desired to use her time in the country for study. Klesmer was not yet a Liszt, and seemed as safe an inmate as a footman. That Catherine might fall in love with him was as inconceivable as that they could marry.
She was not an acknowledged beauty; but the most powerful beauty is that which reveals itself in sympathy; the word or smile that shows a heart awake to others. What adorableness is there in a mind that can flash out comprehension and hands that can execute finely!
Catherine Arrowpoint had no restlessness to clash with Klesmer's: for all her native kindliness, she was coolly firm and self-sustained. The two soon became aware that each was interesting to the other; but the "how far" remained a matter of doubt. Klesmer did not conceive that Miss Arrowpoint was likely to think of him as a possible lover, and she thought herself unlikely to stir more than a friendly regard in any man who was not enamoured of her fortune. Klesmer knew that if Miss Arrowpoint had been poor he would have made ardent love to her instead of sending a storm through the piano. He began to think that he would not visit Quetcham again. Meanwhile Catherine was aware that if it were possible for Klesmer to wish for her hand, she would give it to him.
Enter the expectant peer, Mr. Bult, an esteemed party man of solidity and healthy pinkness. Catherine had nothing to say against him except that he was thoroughly tiresome. Mr. Bult was amiably confident, and had no idea that his insensibility to music could be reckoned against him. Klesmer he hardly regarded in the light of a serious human being; and he was consequently a little amazed at an after-dinner outburst of Klesmer's on the lack of idealism in English politics. Mr. Bult was not surprised that Klesmer's opinions should be flighty, but was astonished at his command of English idiom, and assumed Klesmer must be a Pole or Czech refugee, or something of that sort. That evening he went up to Klesmer at the piano, and said-
"I had no idea that you were a political man."
Klesmer folded his arms and stared at Mr. Bult.
"You speak uncommonly well," continued Mr Bult, "though I don't agree with you. From what you said, I fancy you are a Panslavist."
"No; my name is Elijah. I am the Wandering Jew," said Klesmer, flashing a smile at Miss Arrowpoint, and suddenly making a mysterious rush backward and forward on the piano. Mr. Bult felt this buffoonery rather offensive and Polish.
"Herr Klesmer has cosmopolitan ideas," said Miss Arrowpoint. "He looks forward to a fusion of races."
"Indeed," said Mr. Bult graciously. "I was sure he had too much talent to be a mere musician."
"Sir, you are under some mistake," said Klesmer, firing up. "No man has too much talent to be a musician. Most men have too little. A creative artist is no more a mere musician than a great statesman is a mere politician. To speak effectively through music is more difficult than parliamentary eloquence."
With that Klesmer wheeled from the piano and walked away.
Miss Arrowpoint coloured, and Mr. Bult observed, "Your pianist thinks highly of himself."
"Herr Klesmer is something more than a pianist," said Miss Arrowpoint apologetically. "He is a great musician, who will rank with Schubert and Mendelssohn."
"Ah, you ladies understand these things."
Catherine, always sorry when Klesmer gave himself airs, said to him next day, "Why were you so heated last night with Mr. Bult? He meant no harm."
"You find no difficulty in tolerating him, then? - you respect a man full of platitudes and as insensible as an ox?"
"I did not say that."
"You mean that I acted without dignity, and you are offended with me."
"Now you are slightly nearer the truth," said Catherine, smiling.
"Then I had better pack my burial-clothes and set off at once."
"If I have to bear your criticism of my operetta, you should not mind my criticism of your impatience."
"But I do mind it. You would have wished me to take his ignorant impertinence about a 'mere musician' without letting him know his place. I am to hear my gods blasphemed as well as myself insulted. Even you can't understand the wrath of the artist: he is of another caste for you."
"That is true," said Catherine, with some betrayal of feeling. "He is of a caste to which I look up - a caste above mine."
Klesmer started up and walked a little distance, before saying-
"That is finely felt. I am grateful. But I have made up my mind to go, all the same. You can get on exceedingly well without me. I am neglecting my engagements. I must go to St. Petersburg."
"Certainly. I only wonder that you have given us so much of your time. I have never thought of your consenting to come here as anything other than a sacrifice."
"Why should I make the sacrifice?" said Klesmer, seating himself at the piano and delicately touching the keys.
"That is the mystery," said Catherine, in agitation. She was tearing a piece of paper into minute morsels, as if at a task imposed by a cruel fairy.
"You can conceive no motive?"
"None that seems in the least probable."
"Then I shall tell you. It is because you are to me the chief woman in the world - the throned lady whose colours I carry between my heart and my armour."
Catherine's hands trembled so much that she could no longer tear the paper: still less could she speak. Klesmer went on-
"You once said it was your doom to suspect every man who courted you of being an adventurer, and that what made you angriest was men's assuming you would believe that they courted you for your own sake. Well, at least one man has lingered for your own sake. And since he is one whom you can never marry, you may believe him. I shall go now and pack." Klesmer rose and walked quickly toward the door.
"You must take this heap of manuscript," said Catherine, in sudden desperation, rising to fetch the folio sheets. Klesmer turned back, and they stood with the sheets between them.
"Why should I not marry the man who loves me, if I love him?" said Catherine, with an effort something like the leap from the deck into the lifeboat.
"It would be too hard - impossible - you could not carry it through. I am not worth what you would have to encounter. We should be liable to the worst accusations."
"Is it the accusations you are afraid of? I am afraid of nothing but that we should miss the passing of our lives together."
The decisive word had been spoken: there was no doubt concerning the end willed by each: there only remained the way of arriving at it, and Catherine determined to take the straightest possible. She went to her father and mother in the library, and told them that she had promised to marry Klesmer.
Mrs. Arrowpoint's state of mind was pitiable. While Klesmer was seen in the light of a patronized musician, his peculiarities were picturesque: but to see him in the light of her son-in-law gave her a burning sense of what the world would say. Under the first shock she snatched angrily at any phrase that would serve as a weapon.
"If Klesmer has presumed to offer himself to you, your father shall horsewhip him off the premises. Speak, Mr. Arrowpoint."
The father took his cigar from his mouth, and rose to the occasion by saying, "This will never do, Cath."
"Do!" cried Mrs. Arrowpoint; "who in their senses ever thought it would do? You might as well say poisoning and strangling will not do. You are mad, Catherine."
"I am quite sane, mamma, and Herr Klesmer is not to blame. He never thought of marrying me. I found out that he loved me, and told him I would marry him."
"Leave that unsaid, Catherine," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, bitterly. "Everyone will say that you have made an offer to a man who has been paid to come to the house - who is nobody knows what - a gypsy, a Jew."
"No, mamma," said Catherine, indignant in her turn. "We all know he is a genius, as Tasso was. I am sorry to hurt you; but I will not give up the happiness of my life."
"You have lost all sense of duty, then? You have forgotten that as our only child, it lies with you to place a great property in the right hands?"
"What are the right hands? My grandfather gained the property in trade."
"Mr. Arrowpoint, will you sit by and hear this?"
"We expect you to marry a gentleman, Cath," said the father, exerting himself.
"A woman in your position has serious duties," said the mother. "Where duty and inclination clash, she must follow duty."
"I don't deny that," said Catherine, getting colder in proportion to her mother's heat. "But people can easily use the word duty as a name for what they desire anyone else to do. Before I give up my happiness-"
"It will not be your happiness," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, in her most raven-like tones.
"Before I give it up, I must see some better reason than the wish that I should marry a nobleman. I feel at liberty to marry the man I love, unless some higher duty forbids."
"And so it does, Catherine, though you are blinded and cannot see it. It is a woman's duty not to lower herself. Mr. Arrowpoint, will you tell your daughter what is her duty?"
"You must see, Catherine, that Klesmer is not the man for you," said Mr. Arrowpoint. "He has a deuced foreign look."
"I really can't see what that has to do with it, papa."
"We must do as other people do. We must think of the nation and the public good."
"I can't see any public good concerned here, papa," said Catherine.
"Because you don't wish to marry a nobleman," said Mrs Arrowpoint, "you are not obliged to marry a mountebank."
"I cannot understand the application of such words, mamma."
"No, I dare say not," rejoined Mrs. Arrowpoint, with significant scorn. "You have got to a pitch at which we are not likely to understand each other."
"It can't be done, Cath," said Mr. Arrowpoint, more good-humouredly. "A man like Klesmer can't marry such a property as yours. It can't be done."
"It certainly will not be done," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, imperiously. "Where is the man? Let him be fetched."
"I cannot fetch him to be insulted," said Catherine. "Nothing will be achieved by that."
"I suppose you would wish him to know that in marrying you he will not marry your fortune," said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"Certainly; if it were so, I should wish him to know it."
"Then you had better fetch him."
Catherine only went into the music-room and said, "Come." She felt no need to prepare Klesmer.
"Herr Klesmer," said Mrs. Arrowpoint, with a rather contemptuous stateliness, "it is unnecessary to repeat what has passed between us and our daughter. Mr. Arrowpoint will tell you our resolution."
"Your marrying is out of the question," said Mr. Arrowpoint, rather too heavily weighted with his task. "It is a wild scheme altogether."
"You have taken a base advantage of our confidence," burst in Mrs. Arrowpoint.
Klesmer made a low bow in silent irony.
"The pretension is ridiculous. You had better give it up and leave the house at once," continued Mr. Arrowpoint. He wished to do without mentioning the money.
"I can give up nothing without reference to your daughter's wish," said Klesmer. "My engagement is to her."
"We shall never consent to the marriage," said Mrs Arrowpoint. "If Catherine disobeys us we shall disinherit her."
"Madam, her fortune has been the only thing I have had to regret about her. But I must ask her if she will not think the sacrifice greater than I am worthy of."
"It is no sacrifice to me," said Catherine, "except that I am sorry to hurt my father and mother."
"You mean to defy us, then?" said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"I mean to marry Herr Klesmer," said Catherine firmly.
"He had better not count on our relenting," said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"Madam," said Klesmer, "I consider it out of your power to confer on me anything that I value. My rank as an artist is of my own winning, and I would not exchange it for any other. I am able to maintain your daughter, and I ask for no change in my life but her companionship."
"You will leave the house," said Mrs. Arrowpoint.
"I go at once," said Klesmer, bowing and quitting the room.
"Let there be no misunderstanding, mamma," said Catherine; "I consider myself engaged to Herr Klesmer, and I intend to marry him."
The mother turned away and waved her hand in sign of dismissal.
And thus, with nothing settled but the determination of the lovers, Klesmer had left Quetcham.