"Not in the least. I always know what they will say. I can't at all guess
what this Mr. Deronda would say. What _does_ he say?"

"Nothing, chiefly. I sat with his party for a good hour last night on the
terrace, and he never spoke--and was not smoking either. He looked bored."

"Another reason why I should like to know him. I am always bored."

"I should think he would be charmed to have an introduction. Shall I bring
it about? Will you allow it, baroness?"

"Why not?--since he is related to Sir Hugo Mallinger. It is a new _role_
of yours, Gwendolen, to be always bored," continued Madame von Langen,
when Mr. Vandernoodt had moved away. "Until now you have always seemed
eager about something from morning till night."

"That is just because I am bored to death. If I am to leave off play I
must break my arm or my collar-bone. I must make something happen; unless
you will go into Switzerland and take me up the Matterhorn."

"Perhaps this Mr. Deronda's acquaintance will do instead of the
Matterhorn."

"Perhaps."

But Gwendolen did not make Deronda's acquaintance on this occasion. Mr.
Vandernoodt did not succeed in bringing him up to her that evening, and
when she re-entered her own room she found a letter recalling her home.