"Oh, yes," said Mirah, after a momentary pause of surprise. "You knew it was what she would be sure to do--a Jewess who had not been faithful--who had done what she did and was penitent. She could have no joy but to afflict herself; and where else would she go? I think it is very beautiful that you should enter so into what a Jewess would feel."
"The Jewesses of that time sat on ruins," said Hans, starting up with a sense of being checkmated. "That makes them convenient for pictures."
"But the dress--the dress," said Amy; "is it settled?"
"Yes; is it not?" said Mirah, looking doubtfully at Mrs. Meyrick, who in her turn looked up at her son, and said, "What do you think, Hans?"
"That dress will not do," said Hans, decisively. "She is not going to sit on ruins. You must jump into a cab with her, little mother, and go to Regent Street. It's plenty of time to get anything you like--a black silk dress such as ladies wear. She must not be taken for an object of charity. She has talents to make people indebted to her."
"I think it is what Mr. Deronda would like--for her to have a handsome dress," said Mrs. Meyrick, deliberating.
"Of course it is," said Hans, with some sharpness. "You may take my word for what a gentleman would feel."
"I wish to do what Mr. Deronda would like me to do," said Mirah, gravely, seeing that Mrs. Meyrick looked toward her; and Hans, turning on his heel, went to Kate's table and took up one of her drawings as if his interest needed a new direction.
"Shouldn't you like to make a study of Klesmer's head, Hans?" said Kate. "I suppose you have often seen him?"
"Seen him!" exclaimed Hans, immediately throwing back his head and mane, seating himself at the piano and looking round him as if he were surveying an amphitheatre, while he held his fingers down perpendicularly toward the keys. But then in another instant he wheeled round on the stool, looked at Mirah and said, half timidly--"Perhaps you don't like this mimicry; you must always stop my nonsense when you don't like it."
Mirah had been smiling at the swiftly-made image, and she smiled still, but with a touch of something else than amusement, as she said--"Thank you. But you have never done anything I did not like. I hardly think he could, belonging to you," she added, looking at Mrs. Meyrick.