When Deronda went to Chelsea he was not made as comfortable as he ought to have been by Mrs Meyrick's evident release from anxiety about the beloved but incalculable son. Mirah seemed livelier than before, and for the first time he saw her laugh. It was when they were talking of Hans, he being naturally the mother's first topic. Mirah wished to know if Deronda had seen Mr Hans going through a sort of character piece without changing his dress.
"He passes from one figure to another as if he were a bit of flame, where you fancied the figures without seeing them," said Mirah, full of her subject; "he is so wonderfully quick. I used never to like comic things on the stage—they were dwelt on too long; but all in one minute Mr Hans makes himself a blind bard, and then Rienzi addressing the Romans, and then an opera-dancer, and then a desponding young gentleman—I am sorry for them all, and yet I laugh, all in one"—here Mirah gave a little laugh that might have entered into a song.
"We hardly thought that Mirah could laugh till Hans came," said Mrs Meyrick, seeing that Deronda, like herself, was observing the pretty picture.
"Hans seems in great force just now," said
