"Certainly. I got her to throw herself precisely into this attitude. Little mother sat for Gessius Florus, and Mirah clasped her knees."—Here Hans went a little way off and looked at the effect of his touches.
"I daresay she knows nothing about Berenice's history," said Deronda, feeling more indignation than he would have been able to justify.
"Oh yes, she does—ladies' edition. Berenice was a fervid patriot, but was beguiled by love and ambition into attaching herself to the arch enemy of her people. Whence the Nemesis. Mirah takes it as a tragic parable, and cries to think what the penitent Berenice suffered as she wandered back to Jerusalem and sat desolate amidst desolation. That was her own phrase. I couldn't find in my heart to tell her I invented that part of the story."
"Show me your Trasteverina," said Deronda, chiefly in order to hinder himself from saying something else.
"Shall you mind turning over that folio?" said Hans. "My studies of heads are all there. But they are in confusion. You will perhaps find her next to a crop-eared undergraduate."
After Deronda had been turning over the drawings a minute or two, he said—
