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diff --git a/1845-0.txt b/1845-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..90285f8 --- /dev/null +++ b/1845-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9020 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Zuleika Dobson + or, An Oxford Love Story + +Author: Max Beerbohm + +Posting Date: November 25, 2008 [EBook #1845] +Release Date: August, 1999 +Last Updated: October 18, 2016 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZULEIKA DOBSON *** + + + + +Produced by Judy Boss + + + + + +ZULEIKA DOBSON + +or, AN OXFORD LOVE STORY + +By Max Beerbohm + + + + + + NOTE to the 1922 edition + + I was in Italy when this book was first published. + A year later (1912) I visited London, and I found + that most of my friends and acquaintances spoke to + me of Zu-like-a--a name which I hardly recognised + and thoroughly disapproved. I had always thought + of the lady as Zu-leek-a. Surely it was thus that + Joseph thought of his Wife, and Selim of his Bride? + And I do hope that it is thus that any reader of + these pages will think of Miss Dobson. + + M.B. + Rapallo, 1922. + + + + +ILLI ALMAE MATRI + + + + + +ZULEIKA DOBSON + + + + +I + +That old bell, presage of a train, had just sounded through Oxford +station; and the undergraduates who were waiting there, gay figures in +tweed or flannel, moved to the margin of the platform and gazed idly +up the line. Young and careless, in the glow of the afternoon sunshine, +they struck a sharp note of incongruity with the worn boards they stood +on, with the fading signals and grey eternal walls of that antique +station, which, familiar to them and insignificant, does yet whisper to +the tourist the last enchantments of the Middle Age. + +At the door of the first-class waiting-room, aloof and venerable, stood +the Warden of Judas. An ebon pillar of tradition seemed he, in his garb +of old-fashioned cleric. Aloft, between the wide brim of his silk hat +and the white extent of his shirt-front, appeared those eyes which +hawks, that nose which eagles, had often envied. He supported his years +on an ebon stick. He alone was worthy of the background. + +Came a whistle from the distance. The breast of an engine was descried, +and a long train curving after it, under a flight of smoke. It grew +and grew. Louder and louder, its noise foreran it. It became a furious, +enormous monster, and, with an instinct for safety, all men receded +from the platform’s margin. (Yet came there with it, unknown to them, +a danger far more terrible than itself.) Into the station it came +blustering, with cloud and clangour. Ere it had yet stopped, the door of +one carriage flew open, and from it, in a white travelling dress, in a +toque a-twinkle with fine diamonds, a lithe and radiant creature slipped +nimbly down to the platform. + +A cynosure indeed! A hundred eyes were fixed on her, and half as many +hearts lost to her. The Warden of Judas himself had mounted on his nose +a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Him espying, the nymph darted in his +direction. The throng made way for her. She was at his side. + +“Grandpapa!” she cried, and kissed the old man on either cheek. (Not a +youth there but would have bartered fifty years of his future for that +salute.) + +“My dear Zuleika,” he said, “welcome to Oxford! Have you no luggage?” + +“Heaps!” she answered. “And a maid who will find it.” + +“Then,” said the Warden, “let us drive straight to College.” He offered +her his arm, and they proceeded slowly to the entrance. She chatted +gaily, blushing not in the long avenue of eyes she passed through. All +the youths, under her spell, were now quite oblivious of the relatives +they had come to meet. Parents, sisters, cousins, ran unclaimed about +the platform. Undutiful, all the youths were forming a serried suite to +their enchantress. In silence they followed her. They saw her leap into +the Warden’s landau, they saw the Warden seat himself upon her left. Nor +was it until the landau was lost to sight that they turned--how slowly, +and with how bad a grace!--to look for their relatives. + +Through those slums which connect Oxford with the world, the landau +rolled on towards Judas. Not many youths occurred, for nearly all--it +was the Monday of Eights Week--were down by the river, cheering the +crews. There did, however, come spurring by, on a polo-pony, a very +splendid youth. His straw hat was encircled with a riband of blue and +white, and he raised it to the Warden. + +“That,” said the Warden, “is the Duke of Dorset, a member of my College. +He dines at my table to-night.” + +Zuleika, turning to regard his Grace, saw that he had not reined in and +was not even glancing back at her over his shoulder. She gave a little +start of dismay, but scarcely had her lips pouted ere they curved to a +smile--a smile with no malice in its corners. + +As the landau rolled into “the Corn,” another youth--a pedestrian, and +very different--saluted the Warden. He wore a black jacket, rusty and +amorphous. His trousers were too short, and he himself was too short: +almost a dwarf. His face was as plain as his gait was undistinguished. +He squinted behind spectacles. + +“And who is that?” asked Zuleika. + +A deep flush overspread the cheek of the Warden. “That,” he said, “is +also a member of Judas. His name, I believe, is Noaks.” + +“Is he dining with us to-night?” asked Zuleika. + +“Certainly not,” said the Warden. “Most decidedly not.” + +Noaks, unlike the Duke, had stopped for an ardent retrospect. He gazed +till the landau was out of his short sight; then, sighing, resumed his +solitary walk. + +The landau was rolling into “the Broad,” over that ground which had once +blackened under the fagots lit for Latimer and Ridley. It rolled past +the portals of Balliol and of Trinity, past the Ashmolean. From those +pedestals which intersperse the railing of the Sheldonian, the high +grim busts of the Roman Emperors stared down at the fair stranger in +the equipage. Zuleika returned their stare with but a casual glance. The +inanimate had little charm for her. + +A moment later, a certain old don emerged from Blackwell’s, where he had +been buying books. Looking across the road, he saw, to his amazement, +great beads of perspiration glistening on the brows of those Emperors. +He trembled, and hurried away. That evening, in Common Room, he told +what he had seen; and no amount of polite scepticism would convince him +that it was but the hallucination of one who had been reading too much +Mommsen. He persisted that he had seen what he described. It was not +until two days had elapsed that some credence was accorded him. + +Yes, as the landau rolled by, sweat started from the brows of the +Emperors. They, at least, foresaw the peril that was overhanging Oxford, +and they gave such warning as they could. Let that be remembered to +their credit. Let that incline us to think more gently of them. In their +lives we know, they were infamous, some of them--“nihil non commiserunt +stupri, saevitiae, impietatis.” But are they too little punished, after +all? Here in Oxford, exposed eternally and inexorably to heat and frost, +to the four winds that lash them and the rains that wear them away, they +are expiating, in effigy, the abominations of their pride and cruelty +and lust. Who were lechers, they are without bodies; who were tyrants, +they are crowned never but with crowns of snow; who made themselves even +with the gods, they are by American visitors frequently mistaken for +the Twelve Apostles. It is but a little way down the road that the two +Bishops perished for their faith, and even now we do never pass the spot +without a tear for them. Yet how quickly they died in the flames! To +these Emperors, for whom none weeps, time will give no surcease. Surely, +it is sign of some grace in them that they rejoiced not, this bright +afternoon, in the evil that was to befall the city of their penance. + + + + + +II + +The sun streamed through the bay-window of a “best” bedroom in the +Warden’s house, and glorified the pale crayon-portraits on the wall, +the dimity curtains, the old fresh chintz. He invaded the many trunks +which--all painted Z. D.--gaped, in various stages of excavation, around +the room. The doors of the huge wardrobe stood, like the doors of +Janus’ temple in time of war, majestically open; and the sun seized this +opportunity of exploring the mahogany recesses. But the carpet, which +had faded under his immemorial visitations, was now almost ENTIRELY +hidden from him, hidden under layers of fair fine linen, layers of +silk, brocade, satin, chiffon, muslin. All the colours of the rainbow, +materialised by modistes, were there. Stacked on chairs were I know not +what of sachets, glove-cases, fan-cases. There were innumerable packages +in silver-paper and pink ribands. There was a pyramid of bandboxes. +There was a virgin forest of boot-trees. And rustling quickly hither and +thither, in and out of this profusion, with armfuls of finery, was an +obviously French maid. Alert, unerring, like a swallow she dipped and +darted. Nothing escaped her, and she never rested. She had the air of +the born unpacker--swift and firm, yet withal tender. Scarce had her +arms been laden but their loads were lying lightly between shelves or +tightly in drawers. To calculate, catch, distribute, seemed in her but a +single process. She was one of those who are born to make chaos cosmic. + +Insomuch that ere the loud chapel-clock tolled another hour all the +trunks had been sent empty away. The carpet was unflecked by any scrap +of silver-paper. From the mantelpiece, photographs of Zuleika surveyed +the room with a possessive air. Zuleika’s pincushion, a-bristle with +new pins, lay on the dimity-flounced toilet-table, and round it stood +a multitude of multiform glass vessels, domed, all of them, with dull +gold, on which Z. D., in zianites and diamonds, was encrusted. On +a small table stood a great casket of malachite, initialled in like +fashion. On another small table stood Zuleika’s library. Both books were +in covers of dull gold. On the back of one cover BRADSHAW, in beryls, +was encrusted; on the back of the other, A.B.C. GUIDE, in amethysts, +beryls, chrysoprases, and garnets. And Zuleika’s great cheval-glass +stood ready to reflect her. Always it travelled with her, in a great +case specially made for it. It was framed in ivory, and of fluted ivory +were the slim columns it swung between. Of gold were its twin sconces, +and four tall tapers stood in each of them. + +The door opened, and the Warden, with hospitable words, left his +grand-daughter at the threshold. + +Zuleika wandered to her mirror. “Undress me, Melisande,” she said. Like +all who are wont to appear by night before the public, she had the habit +of resting towards sunset. + +Presently Melisande withdrew. Her mistress, in a white peignoir tied +with a blue sash, lay in a great chintz chair, gazing out of the +bay-window. The quadrangle below was very beautiful, with its walls of +rugged grey, its cloisters, its grass carpet. But to her it was of no +more interest than if it had been the rattling court-yard to one of +those hotels in which she spent her life. She saw it, but heeded it not. +She seemed to be thinking of herself, or of something she desired, or of +some one she had never met. There was ennui, and there was wistfulness, +in her gaze. Yet one would have guessed these things to be transient--to +be no more than the little shadows that sometimes pass between a bright +mirror and the brightness it reflects. + +Zuleika was not strictly beautiful. Her eyes were a trifle large, and +their lashes longer than they need have been. An anarchy of small curls +was her chevelure, a dark upland of misrule, every hair asserting its +rights over a not discreditable brow. For the rest, her features were +not at all original. They seemed to have been derived rather from a +gallimaufry of familiar models. From Madame la Marquise de Saint-Ouen +came the shapely tilt of the nose. The mouth was a mere replica of +Cupid’s bow, lacquered scarlet and strung with the littlest pearls. +No apple-tree, no wall of peaches, had not been robbed, nor any Tyrian +rose-garden, for the glory of Miss Dobson’s cheeks. Her neck was +imitation-marble. Her hands and feet were of very mean proportions. She +had no waist to speak of. + +Yet, though a Greek would have railed at her asymmetry, and an +Elizabethan have called her “gipsy,” Miss Dobson now, in the midst of +the Edwardian Era, was the toast of two hemispheres. Late in her ‘teens +she had become an orphan and a governess. Her grandfather had refused +her appeal for a home or an allowance, on the ground that he would not +be burdened with the upshot of a marriage which he had once forbidden +and not yet forgiven. Lately, however, prompted by curiosity or by +remorse, he had asked her to spend a week or so of his declining +years with him. And she, “resting” between two engagements--one at +Hammerstein’s Victoria, N.Y.C., the other at the Folies Bergeres, +Paris--and having never been in Oxford, had so far let bygones be +bygones as to come and gratify the old man’s whim. + +It may be that she still resented his indifference to those early +struggles which, even now, she shuddered to recall. For a governess’ +life she had been, indeed, notably unfit. Hard she had thought it, that +penury should force her back into the school-room she was scarce out of, +there to champion the sums and maps and conjugations she had never +tried to master. Hating her work, she had failed signally to pick up +any learning from her little pupils, and had been driven from house +to house, a sullen and most ineffectual maiden. The sequence of her +situations was the swifter by reason of her pretty face. Was there a +grown-up son, always he fell in love with her, and she would let his +eyes trifle boldly with hers across the dinner-table. When he offered +her his hand, she would refuse it--not because she “knew her place,” + but because she did not love him. Even had she been a good teacher, her +presence could not have been tolerated thereafter. Her corded trunk, +heavier by another packet of billets-doux and a month’s salary in +advance, was soon carried up the stairs of some other house. + +It chanced that she came, at length, to be governess in a large family +that had Gibbs for its name and Notting Hill for its background. Edward, +the eldest son, was a clerk in the city, who spent his evenings in the +practice of amateur conjuring. He was a freckled youth, with hair that +bristled in places where it should have lain smooth, and he fell in love +with Zuleika duly, at first sight, during high-tea. In the course of the +evening, he sought to win her admiration by a display of all his tricks. +These were familiar to this household, and the children had been sent +to bed, the mother was dozing, long before the seance was at an end. But +Miss Dobson, unaccustomed to any gaieties, sat fascinated by the young +man’s sleight of hand, marvelling that a top-hat could hold so many +goldfish, and a handkerchief turn so swiftly into a silver florin. All +that night, she lay wide awake, haunted by the miracles he had wrought. +Next evening, when she asked him to repeat them, “Nay,” he whispered, +“I cannot bear to deceive the girl I love. Permit me to explain the +tricks.” So he explained them. His eyes sought hers across the bowl of +gold-fish, his fingers trembled as he taught her to manipulate the magic +canister. One by one, she mastered the paltry secrets. Her respect for +him waned with every revelation. He complimented her on her skill. “I +could not do it more neatly myself!” he said. “Oh, dear Miss Dobson, +will you but accept my hand, all these things shall be yours--the cards, +the canister, the goldfish, the demon egg-cup--all yours!” Zuleika, +with ravishing coyness, answered that if he would give her them now, she +would “think it over.” The swain consented, and at bed-time she +retired with the gift under her arm. In the light of her bedroom candle +Marguerite hung not in greater ecstasy over the jewel-casket than +hung Zuleika over the box of tricks. She clasped her hands over the +tremendous possibilities it held for her--manumission from her bondage, +wealth, fame, power. Stealthily, so soon as the house slumbered, +she packed her small outfit, embedding therein the precious gift. +Noiselessly, she shut the lid of her trunk, corded it, shouldered it, +stole down the stairs with it. Outside--how that chain had grated! +and her shoulder, how it was aching!--she soon found a cab. She took +a night’s sanctuary in some railway-hotel. Next day, she moved into +a small room in a lodging-house off the Edgware Road, and there for +a whole week she was sedulous in the practice of her tricks. Then she +inscribed her name on the books of a “Juvenile Party Entertainments +Agency.” + +The Christmas holidays were at hand, and before long she got an +engagement. It was a great evening for her. Her repertory was, it must +be confessed, old and obvious; but the children, in deference to their +hostess, pretended not to know how the tricks were done, and assumed +their prettiest airs of wonder and delight. One of them even pretended +to be frightened, and was led howling from the room. In fact, the whole +thing went off splendidly. The hostess was charmed, and told Zuleika +that a glass of lemonade would be served to her in the hall. Other +engagements soon followed. Zuleika was very, very happy. I cannot claim +for her that she had a genuine passion for her art. The true conjurer +finds his guerdon in the consciousness of work done perfectly and for +its own sake. Lucre and applause are not necessary to him. If he were +set down, with the materials of his art, on a desert island, he would +yet be quite happy. He would not cease to produce the barber’s-pole from +his mouth. To the indifferent winds he would still speak his patter, and +even in the last throes of starvation would not eat his live rabbit or +his gold-fish. Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her +time in looking for a man’s foot-print. She was, indeed, far too human +a creature to care much for art. I do not say that she took her work +lightly. She thought she had genius, and she liked to be told that this +was so. But mainly she loved her work as a means of mere self-display. +The frank admiration which, into whatsoever house she entered, the +grown-up sons flashed on her; their eagerness to see her to the door; +their impressive way of putting her into her omnibus--these were the +things she revelled in. She was a nymph to whom men’s admiration was the +greater part of life. By day, whenever she went into the streets, +she was conscious that no man passed her without a stare; and this +consciousness gave a sharp zest to her outings. Sometimes she was +followed to her door--crude flattery which she was too innocent to fear. +Even when she went into the haberdasher’s to make some little purchase +of tape or riband, or into the grocer’s--for she was an epicure in her +humble way--to buy a tin of potted meat for her supper, the homage of +the young men behind the counter did flatter and exhilarate her. As the +homage of men became for her, more and more, a matter of course, the +more subtly necessary was it to her happiness. The more she won of it, +the more she treasured it. She was alone in the world, and it saved her +from any moment of regret that she had neither home nor friends. For +her the streets that lay around her had no squalor, since she paced them +always in the gold nimbus of her fascinations. Her bedroom seemed not +mean nor lonely to her, since the little square of glass, nailed above +the wash-stand, was ever there to reflect her face. Thereinto, indeed, +she was ever peering. She would droop her head from side to side, she +would bend it forward and see herself from beneath her eyelashes, then +tilt it back and watch herself over her supercilious chin. And she would +smile, frown, pout, languish--let all the emotions hover upon her face; +and always she seemed to herself lovelier than she had ever been. + +Yet was there nothing Narcissine in her spirit. Her love for her own +image was not cold aestheticism. She valued that image not for its own +sake, but for sake of the glory it always won for her. In the little +remote music-hall, where she was soon appearing nightly as an “early +turn,” she reaped glory in a nightly harvest. She could feel that all +the gallery-boys, because of her, were scornful of the sweethearts +wedged between them, and she knew that she had but to say “Will any +gentleman in the audience be so good as to lend me his hat?” for the +stalls to rise as one man and rush towards the platform. But greater +things were in store for her. She was engaged at two halls in the West +End. Her horizon was fast receding and expanding. Homage became nightly +tangible in bouquets, rings, brooches--things acceptable and (luckier +than their donors) accepted. Even Sunday was not barren for Zuleika: +modish hostesses gave her postprandially to their guests. Came that +Sunday night, notanda candidissimo calculo! when she received certain +guttural compliments which made absolute her vogue and enabled her to +command, thenceforth, whatever terms she asked for. + +Already, indeed, she was rich. She was living at the most exorbitant +hotel in all Mayfair. She had innumerable gowns and no necessity to buy +jewels; and she also had, which pleased her most, the fine cheval-glass +I have described. At the close of the Season, Paris claimed her for +a month’s engagement. Paris saw her and was prostrate. Boldini did a +portrait of her. Jules Bloch wrote a song about her; and this, for a +whole month, was howled up and down the cobbled alleys of Montmartre. +And all the little dandies were mad for “la Zuleika.” The jewellers +of the Rue de la Paix soon had nothing left to put in their +windows--everything had been bought for “la Zuleika.” For a whole month, +baccarat was not played at the Jockey Club--every member had succumbed +to a nobler passion. For a whole month, the whole demi-monde was +forgotten for one English virgin. Never, even in Paris, had a woman +triumphed so. When the day came for her departure, the city wore such an +air of sullen mourning as it had not worn since the Prussians marched to +its Elysee. Zuleika, quite untouched, would not linger in the conquered +city. Agents had come to her from every capital in Europe, and, for a +year, she ranged, in triumphal nomady, from one capital to another. In +Berlin, every night, the students escorted her home with torches. Prince +Vierfuenfsechs-Siebenachtneun offered her his hand, and was condemned +by the Kaiser to six months’ confinement in his little castle. In Yildiz +Kiosk, the tyrant who still throve there conferred on her the Order of +Chastity, and offered her the central couch in his seraglio. She +gave her performance in the Quirinal, and, from the Vatican, the Pope +launched against her a Bull which fell utterly flat. In Petersburg, the +Grand Duke Salamander Salamandrovitch fell enamoured of her. Of every +article in the apparatus of her conjuring-tricks he caused a replica +to be made in finest gold. These treasures he presented to her in that +great malachite casket which now stood on the little table in her room; +and thenceforth it was with these that she performed her wonders. +They did not mark the limit of the Grand Duke’s generosity. He was for +bestowing on Zuleika the half of his immensurable estates. The Grand +Duchess appealed to the Tzar. Zuleika was conducted across the frontier, +by an escort of love-sick Cossacks. On the Sunday before she left +Madrid, a great bull-fight was held in her honour. Fifteen bulls +received the coup-de-grace, and Alvarez, the matador of matadors, died +in the arena with her name on his lips. He had tried to kill the +last bull without taking his eyes off la divina senorita. A prettier +compliment had never been paid her, and she was immensely pleased with +it. For that matter, she was immensely pleased with everything. She +moved proudly to the incessant music of a paean, aye! of a paean that +was always crescendo. + +Its echoes followed her when she crossed the Atlantic, till they were +lost in the louder, deeper, more blatant paean that rose for her from +the shores beyond. All the stops of that “mighty organ, many-piped,” the +New York press, were pulled out simultaneously, as far as they could be +pulled, in Zuleika’s honour. She delighted in the din. She read every +line that was printed about her, tasting her triumph as she had never +tasted it before. And how she revelled in the Brobdingnagian drawings of +her, which, printed in nineteen colours, towered between the columns or +sprawled across them! There she was, measuring herself back to back with +the Statue of Liberty; scudding through the firmament on a comet, +whilst a crowd of tiny men in evening-dress stared up at her from the +terrestrial globe; peering through a microscope held by Cupid over a +diminutive Uncle Sam; teaching the American Eagle to stand on its head; +and doing a hundred-and-one other things--whatever suggested itself +to the fancy of native art. And through all this iridescent maze of +symbolism were scattered many little slabs of realism. At home, on the +street, Zuleika was the smiling target of all snap-shooters, and all the +snap-shots were snapped up by the press and reproduced with annotations: +Zuleika Dobson walking on Broadway in the sables gifted her by Grand +Duke Salamander--she says “You can bounce blizzards in them”; Zuleika +Dobson yawning over a love-letter from millionaire Edelweiss; relishing +a cup of clam-broth--she says “They don’t use clams out there”; ordering +her maid to fix her a warm bath; finding a split in the gloves she has +just drawn on before starting for the musicale given in her honour by +Mrs. Suetonius X. Meistersinger, the most exclusive woman in New York; +chatting at the telephone to Miss Camille Van Spook, the best-born girl +in New York; laughing over the recollection of a compliment made her by +George Abimelech Post, the best-groomed man in New York; meditating a +new trick; admonishing a waiter who has upset a cocktail over her skirt; +having herself manicured; drinking tea in bed. Thus was Zuleika enabled +daily to be, as one might say, a spectator of her own wonderful life. +On her departure from New York, the papers spoke no more than the +truth when they said she had had “a lovely time.” The further she went +West--millionaire Edelweiss had loaned her his private car--the lovelier +her time was. Chicago drowned the echoes of New York; final Frisco +dwarfed the headlines of Chicago. Like one of its own prairie-fires, she +swept the country from end to end. Then she swept back, and sailed for +England. She was to return for a second season in the coming Fall. At +present, she was, as I have said, “resting.” + +As she sat here in the bay-window of her room, she was not reviewing +the splendid pageant of her past. She was a young person whose reveries +never were in retrospect. For her the past was no treasury of distinct +memories, all hoarded and classified, some brighter than others and more +highly valued. All memories were for her but as the motes in one fused +radiance that followed her and made more luminous the pathway of +her future. She was always looking forward. She was looking forward +now--that shade of ennui had passed from her face--to the week she was +to spend in Oxford. A new city was a new toy to her, and--for it was +youth’s homage that she loved best--this city of youths was a toy after +her own heart. + +Aye, and it was youths who gave homage to her most freely. She was +of that high-stepping and flamboyant type that captivates youth most +surely. Old men and men of middle age admired her, but she had not that +flower-like quality of shyness and helplessness, that look of innocence, +so dear to men who carry life’s secrets in their heads. Yet Zuleika +WAS very innocent, really. She was as pure as that young shepherdess +Marcella, who, all unguarded, roved the mountains and was by all the +shepherds adored. Like Marcella, she had given her heart to no man, had +preferred none. Youths were reputed to have died for love of her, +as Chrysostom died for love of the shepherdess; and she, like the +shepherdess, had shed no tear. When Chrysostom was lying on his bier in +the valley, and Marcella looked down from the high rock, Ambrosio, +the dead man’s comrade, cried out on her, upbraiding her with bitter +words--“Oh basilisk of our mountains!” Nor do I think Ambrosio spoke too +strongly. Marcella cared nothing for men’s admiration, and yet, instead +of retiring to one of those nunneries which are founded for her kind, +she chose to rove the mountains, causing despair to all the shepherds. +Zuleika, with her peculiar temperament, would have gone mad in a +nunnery. “But,” you may argue, “ought not she to have taken the veil, +even at the cost of her reason, rather than cause so much despair in the +world? If Marcella was a basilisk, as you seem to think, how about Miss +Dobson?” Ah, but Marcella knew quite well, boasted even, that she never +would or could love any man. Zuleika, on the other hand, was a woman of +really passionate fibre. She may not have had that conscious, separate, +and quite explicit desire to be a mother with which modern playwrights +credit every unmated member of her sex. But she did know that she could +love. And, surely, no woman who knows that of herself can be rightly +censured for not recluding herself from the world: it is only women +without the power to love who have no right to provoke men’s love. + +Though Zuleika had never given her heart, strong in her were the desire +and the need that it should be given. Whithersoever she had fared, she +had seen nothing but youths fatuously prostrate to her--not one upright +figure which she could respect. There were the middle-aged men, the old +men, who did not bow down to her; but from middle-age, as from eld, she +had a sanguine aversion. She could love none but a youth. Nor--though +she herself, womanly, would utterly abase herself before her +ideal--could she love one who fell prone before her. And before her all +youths always did fall prone. She was an empress, and all youths were +her slaves. Their bondage delighted her, as I have said. But no empress +who has any pride can adore one of her slaves. Whom, then, could proud +Zuleika adore? It was a question which sometimes troubled her. There +were even moments when, looking into her cheval-glass, she cried out +against that arrangement in comely lines and tints which got for her +the dulia she delighted in. To be able to love once--would not that be +better than all the homage in the world? But would she ever meet whom, +looking up to him, she could love--she, the omnisubjugant? Would she +ever, ever meet him? + +It was when she wondered thus, that the wistfulness came into her eyes. +Even now, as she sat by the window, that shadow returned to them. She +was wondering, shyly, had she met him at length? That young equestrian +who had not turned to look at her; whom she was to meet at dinner +to-night... was it he? The ends of her blue sash lay across her lap, +and she was lazily unravelling their fringes. “Blue and white!” she +remembered. “They were the colours he wore round his hat.” And she gave +a little laugh of coquetry. She laughed, and, long after, her lips were +still parted in a smile. + +So did she sit, smiling, wondering, with the fringes of her sash +between her fingers, while the sun sank behind the opposite wall of the +quadrangle, and the shadows crept out across the grass, thirsty for the +dew. + + + + +III + +The clock in the Warden’s drawing-room had just struck eight, and +already the ducal feet were beautiful on the white bearskin hearthrug. +So slim and long were they, of instep so nobly arched, that only with +a pair of glazed ox-tongues on a breakfast-table were they comparable. +Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of him who ended in +them. + +The Warden was talking to him, with all the deference of elderly +commoner to patrician boy. The other guests--an Oriel don and his +wife--were listening with earnest smile and submissive droop, at a +slight distance. Now and again, to put themselves at their ease, they +exchanged in undertone a word or two about the weather. + +“The young lady whom you may have noticed with me,” the Warden was +saying, “is my orphaned grand-daughter.” (The wife of the Oriel don +discarded her smile, and sighed, with a glance at the Duke, who was +himself an orphan.) “She has come to stay with me.” (The Duke glanced +quickly round the room.) “I cannot think why she is not down yet.” (The +Oriel don fixed his eyes on the clock, as though he suspected it of +being fast.) “I must ask you to forgive her. She appears to be a bright, +pleasant young woman.” + +“Married?” asked the Duke. + +“No,” said the Warden; and a cloud of annoyance crossed the boy’s face. +“No; she devotes her life entirely to good works.” + +“A hospital nurse?” the Duke murmured. + +“No, Zuleika’s appointed task is to induce delightful wonder rather than +to alleviate pain. She performs conjuring-tricks.” + +“Not--not Miss Zuleika Dobson?” cried the Duke. + +“Ah yes. I forgot that she had achieved some fame in the outer world. +Perhaps she has already met you?” + +“Never,” said the young man coldly. “But of course I have heard of Miss +Dobson. I did not know she was related to you.” + +The Duke had an intense horror of unmarried girls. All his vacations +were spent in eluding them and their chaperons. That he should be +confronted with one of them--with such an one of them!--in Oxford, +seemed to him sheer violation of sanctuary. The tone, therefore, in +which he said “I shall be charmed,” in answer to the Warden’s request +that he would take Zuleika into dinner, was very glacial. So was his +gaze when, a moment later, the young lady made her entry. + +“She did not look like an orphan,” said the wife of the Oriel don, +subsequently, on the way home. The criticism was a just one. Zuleika +would have looked singular in one of those lowly double-files of +straw-bonnets and drab cloaks which are so steadying a feature of +our social system. Tall and lissom, she was sheathed from the bosom +downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with +emeralds. Her dark hair was not even strained back from her forehead and +behind her ears, as an orphan’s should be. Parted somewhere at the side, +it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right +ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their +difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the little face between. + +Was the young Duke bewitched? Instantly, utterly. But none could +have guessed as much from his cold stare, his easy and impassive bow. +Throughout dinner, none guessed that his shirt-front was but the screen +of a fierce warfare waged between pride and passion. Zuleika, at the +foot of the table, fondly supposed him indifferent to her. Though he +sat on her right, not one word or glance would he give her. All his +conversation was addressed to the unassuming lady who sat on his other +side, next to the Warden. Her he edified and flustered beyond measure +by his insistent courtesy. Her husband, alone on the other side of +the table, was mortified by his utter failure to engage Zuleika in +small-talk. Zuleika was sitting with her profile turned to him--the +profile with the pink pearl--and was gazing full at the young Duke. She +was hardly more affable than a cameo. “Yes,” “No,” “I don’t know,” + were the only answers she would vouchsafe to his questions. A vague “Oh +really?” was all he got for his timid little offerings of information. +In vain he started the topic of modern conjuring-tricks as compared with +the conjuring-tricks performed by the ancient Egyptians. Zuleika did not +even say “Oh really?” when he told her about the metamorphosis of the +bulls in the Temple of Osiris. He primed himself with a glass of sherry, +cleared his throat. “And what,” he asked, with a note of firmness, “did +you think of our cousins across the water?” Zuleika said “Yes;” and +then he gave in. Nor was she conscious that he ceased talking to her. At +intervals throughout the rest of dinner, she murmured “Yes,” and “No,” + and “Oh really?” though the poor little don was now listening silently +to the Duke and the Warden. + +She was in a trance of sheer happiness. At last, she thought, her hope +was fulfilled--that hope which, although she had seldom remembered it in +the joy of her constant triumphs, had been always lurking in her, lying +near to her heart and chafing her, like the shift of sackcloth which +that young brilliant girl, loved and lost of Giacopone di Todi, wore +always in secret submission to her own soul, under the fair soft robes +and the rubies men saw on her. At last, here was the youth who would not +bow down to her; whom, looking up to him, she could adore. She ate and +drank automatically, never taking her gaze from him. She felt not one +touch of pique at his behaviour. She was tremulous with a joy that was +new to her, greater than any joy she had known. Her soul was as a flower +in its opetide. She was in love. Rapt, she studied every lineament of +the pale and perfect face--the brow from which bronze-coloured hair rose +in tiers of burnished ripples; the large steel-coloured eyes, with their +carven lids; the carven nose, and the plastic lips. She noted how long +and slim were his fingers, and how slender his wrists. She noted the +glint cast by the candles upon his shirt-front. The two large white +pearls there seemed to her symbols of his nature. They were like two +moons: cold, remote, radiant. Even when she gazed at the Duke’s face, +she was aware of them in her vision. + +Nor was the Duke unconscious, as he seemed to be, of her scrutiny. +Though he kept his head averse, he knew that always her eyes were +watching him. Obliquely, he saw them; saw, too, the contour of the face, +and the black pearl and the pink; could not blind himself, try as he +would. And he knew that he was in love. + +Like Zuleika herself, this young Duke was in love for the first time. +Wooed though he had been by almost as many maidens as she by youths, his +heart, like hers, had remained cold. But he had never felt, as she +had, the desire to love. He was not now rejoicing, as she was, in the +sensation of first love; nay, he was furiously mortified by it, and +struggled with all his might against it. He had always fancied himself +secure against any so vulgar peril; always fancied that by him at least, +the proud old motto of his family--“Pas si bete”--would not be belied. +And I daresay, indeed, that had he never met Zuleika, the irresistible, +he would have lived, and at a very ripe old age died, a dandy without +reproach. For in him the dandiacal temper had been absolute hitherto, +quite untainted and unruffled. He was too much concerned with his +own perfection ever to think of admiring any one else. Different from +Zuleika, he cared for his wardrobe and his toilet-table not as a means +to making others admire him the more, but merely as a means through +which he could intensify, a ritual in which to express and realise, his +own idolatry. At Eton he had been called “Peacock,” and this nick-name +had followed him up to Oxford. It was not wholly apposite, however. For, +whereas the peacock is a fool even among birds, the Duke had already +taken (besides a particularly brilliant First in Mods) the Stanhope, +the Newdigate, the Lothian, and the Gaisford Prize for Greek Verse. And +these things he had achieved currente calamo, “wielding his pen,” as +Scott said of Byron, “with the easy negligence of a nobleman.” He was +now in his third year of residence, and was reading, a little, for +Literae Humaniores. There is no doubt that but for his untimely death he +would have taken a particularly brilliant First in that school also. + +For the rest, he had many accomplishments. He was adroit in the killing +of all birds and fishes, stags and foxes. He played polo, cricket, +racquets, chess, and billiards as well as such things can be played. +He was fluent in all modern languages, had a very real talent in +water-colour, and was accounted, by those who had had the privilege of +hearing him, the best amateur pianist on this side of the Tweed. Little +wonder, then, that he was idolised by the undergraduates of his day. +He did not, however, honour many of them with his friendship. He had a +theoretic liking for them as a class, as the “young barbarians all at +play” in that little antique city; but individually they jarred on him, +and he saw little of them. Yet he sympathised with them always, and, on +occasion, would actively take their part against the dons. In the middle +of his second year, he had gone so far that a College Meeting had to be +held, and he was sent down for the rest of term. The Warden placed his +own landau at the disposal of the illustrious young exile, who therein +was driven to the station, followed by a long, vociferous procession +of undergraduates in cabs. Now, it happened that this was a time of +political excitement in London. The Liberals, who were in power, +had passed through the House of Commons a measure more than usually +socialistic; and this measure was down for its second reading in the +Lords on the very day that the Duke left Oxford, an exile. It was but a +few weeks since he had taken his seat in the Lords; and this afternoon, +for the want of anything better to do, he strayed in. The Leader of the +House was already droning his speech for the bill, and the Duke found +himself on one of the opposite benches. There sat his compeers, sullenly +waiting to vote for a bill which every one of them detested. As the +speaker subsided, the Duke, for the fun of the thing, rose. He made +a long speech against the bill. His gibes at the Government were so +scathing, so utterly destructive his criticism of the bill itself, so +lofty and so irresistible the flights of his eloquence, that, when he +resumed his seat, there was only one course left to the Leader of the +House. He rose and, in a few husky phrases, moved that the bill “be read +this day six months.” All England rang with the name of the young Duke. +He himself seemed to be the one person unmoved by his exploit. He did +not re-appear in the Upper Chamber, and was heard to speak in slighting +terms of its architecture, as well as of its upholstery. Nevertheless, +the Prime Minister became so nervous that he procured for him, a month +later, the Sovereign’s offer of a Garter which had just fallen vacant. +The Duke accepted it. He was, I understand, the only undergraduate on +whom this Order had ever been conferred. He was very much pleased with +the insignia, and when, on great occasions, he wore them, no one dared +say that the Prime Minister’s choice was not fully justified. But you +must not imagine that he cared for them as symbols of achievement and +power. The dark blue riband, and the star scintillating to eight +points, the heavy mantle of blue velvet, with its lining of taffeta +and shoulder-knots of white satin, the crimson surcoat, the great +embullioned tassels, and the chain of linked gold, and the plumes of +ostrich and heron uprising from the black velvet hat--these things had +for him little significance save as a fine setting, a finer setting than +the most elaborate smoking-suit, for that perfection of aspect which +the gods had given him. This was indeed the gift he valued beyond +all others. He knew well, however, that women care little for a man’s +appearance, and that what they seek in a man is strength of character, +and rank, and wealth. These three gifts the Duke had in a high degree, +and he was by women much courted because of them. Conscious that every +maiden he met was eager to be his Duchess, he had assumed always a +manner of high austerity among maidens, and even if he had wished to +flirt with Zuleika he would hardly have known how to do it. But he did +not wish to flirt with her. That she had bewitched him did but make +it the more needful that he should shun all converse with her. It was +imperative that he should banish her from his mind, quickly. He must not +dilute his own soul’s essence. He must not surrender to any passion his +dandihood. The dandy must be celibate, cloistral; is, indeed, but a monk +with a mirror for beads and breviary--an anchorite, mortifying his soul +that his body may be perfect. Till he met Zuleika, the Duke had not +known the meaning of temptation. He fought now, a St. Anthony, against +the apparition. He would not look at her, and he hated her. He loved +her, and he could not help seeing her. The black pearl and the pink +seemed to dangle ever nearer and clearer to him, mocking him and +beguiling. Inexpellible was her image. + +So fierce was the conflict in him that his outward nonchalance gradually +gave way. As dinner drew to its close, his conversation with the wife +of the Oriel don flagged and halted. He sank, at length, into a deep +silence. He sat with downcast eyes, utterly distracted. + +Suddenly, something fell, plump! into the dark whirlpool of his +thoughts. He started. The Warden was leaning forward, had just said +something to him. + +“I beg your pardon?” asked the Duke. Dessert, he noticed, was on the +table, and he was paring an apple. The Oriel don was looking at him with +sympathy, as at one who had swooned and was just “coming to.” + +“Is it true, my dear Duke,” the Warden repeated, “that you have been +persuaded to play to-morrow evening at the Judas concert?” + +“Ah yes, I am going to play something.” + +Zuleika bent suddenly forward, addressed him. “Oh,” she cried, clasping +her hands beneath her chin, “will you let me come and turn over the +leaves for you?” + +He looked her full in the face. It was like seeing suddenly at close +quarters some great bright monument that one has long known only as a +sun-caught speck in the distance. He saw the large violet eyes open to +him, and their lashes curling to him; the vivid parted lips; and the +black pearl, and the pink. + +“You are very kind,” he murmured, in a voice which sounded to him quite +far away. “But I always play without notes.” + +Zuleika blushed. Not with shame, but with delirious pleasure. For that +snub she would just then have bartered all the homage she had hoarded. +This, she felt, was the climax. She would not outstay it. She rose, +smiling to the wife of the Oriel don. Every one rose. The Oriel don held +open the door, and the two ladies passed out of the room. + +The Duke drew out his cigarette case. As he looked down at the +cigarettes, he was vaguely conscious of some strange phenomenon +somewhere between them and his eyes. Foredone by the agitation of the +past hour, he did not at once realise what it was that he saw. His +impression was of something in bad taste, some discord in his costume +... a black pearl and a pink pearl in his shirt-front! + +Just for a moment, absurdly over-estimating poor Zuleika’s skill, he +supposed himself a victim of legerdemain. Another moment, and the import +of the studs revealed itself. He staggered up from his chair, covering +his breast with one arm, and murmured that he was faint. As he hurried +from the room, the Oriel don was pouring out a tumbler of water and +suggesting burnt feathers. The Warden, solicitous, followed him into +the hall. He snatched up his hat, gasping that he had spent a delightful +evening--was very sorry--was subject to these attacks. Once outside, he +took frankly to his heels. + +At the corner of the Broad, he looked back over his shoulder. He had +half expected a scarlet figure skimming in pursuit. There was nothing. +He halted. Before him, the Broad lay empty beneath the moon. He went +slowly, mechanically, to his rooms. + +The high grim busts of the Emperors stared down at him, their faces more +than ever tragically cavernous and distorted. They saw and read in +that moonlight the symbols on his breast. As he stood on his doorstep, +waiting for the door to be opened, he must have seemed to them a thing +for infinite compassion. For were they not privy to the doom that the +morrow, or the morrow’s morrow, held for him--held not indeed for him +alone, yet for him especially, as it were, and for him most lamentably? + + + + +IV + +The breakfast-things were not yet cleared away. A plate streaked with +fine strains of marmalade, an empty toast-rack, a broken roll--these and +other things bore witness to a day inaugurated in the right spirit. + +Away from them, reclining along his window-seat, was the Duke. Blue +spirals rose from his cigarette, nothing in the still air to trouble +them. From their railing, across the road, the Emperors gazed at him. + +For a young man, sleep is a sure solvent of distress. There whirls not +for him in the night any so hideous a phantasmagoria as will not become, +in the clarity of next morning, a spruce procession for him to lead. +Brief the vague horror of his awakening; memory sweeps back to him, +and he sees nothing dreadful after all. “Why not?” is the sun’s bright +message to him, and “Why not indeed?” his answer. After hours of +agony and doubt prolonged to cock-crow, sleep had stolen to the Duke’s +bed-side. He awoke late, with a heavy sense of disaster; but lo! when he +remembered, everything took on a new aspect. He was in love. “Why not?” + He mocked himself for the morbid vigil he had spent in probing and +vainly binding the wounds of his false pride. The old life was done +with. He laughed as he stepped into his bath. Why should the disseizin +of his soul have seemed shameful to him? He had had no soul till it +passed out of his keeping. His body thrilled to the cold water, his soul +as to a new sacrament. He was in love, and that was all he wished for... +There, on the dressing-table, lay the two studs, visible symbols of his +love. Dear to him, now, the colours of them! He took them in his hand, +one by one, fondling them. He wished he could wear them in the day-time; +but this, of course, was impossible. His toilet finished, he dropped +them into the left pocket of his waistcoat. + +Therein, near to his heart, they were lying now, as he looked out at +the changed world--the world that had become Zuleika. “Zuleika!” his +recurrent murmur, was really an apostrophe to the whole world. + +Piled against the wall were certain boxes of black japanned tin, which +had just been sent to him from London. At any other time he would +certainly not have left them unopened. For they contained his robes of +the Garter. Thursday, the day after to-morrow, was the date fixed for +the investiture of a foreign king who was now visiting England: and the +full chapter of Knights had been commanded to Windsor for the ceremony. +Yesterday the Duke had looked keenly forward to his excursion. It was +only in those too rarely required robes that he had the sense of being +fully dressed. But to-day not a thought had he of them. + +Some clock clove with silver the stillness of the morning. Ere came the +second stroke, another and nearer clock was striking. And now there were +others chiming in. The air was confused with the sweet babel of its many +spires, some of them booming deep, measured sequences, some tinkling +impatiently and outwitting others which had begun before them. And when +this anthem of jealous antiphonies and uneven rhythms had dwindled quite +away and fainted in one last solitary note of silver, there started +somewhere another sequence; and this, almost at its last stroke, was +interrupted by yet another, which went on to tell the hour of noon in +its own way, quite slowly and significantly, as though none knew it. + +And now Oxford was astir with footsteps and laughter--the laughter and +quick footsteps of youths released from lecture-rooms. The Duke shifted +from the window. Somehow, he did not care to be observed, though it was +usually at this hour that he showed himself for the setting of some +new fashion in costume. Many an undergraduate, looking up, missed the +picture in the window-frame. + +The Duke paced to and fro, smiling ecstatically. He took the two studs +from his pocket and gazed at them. He looked in the glass, as one +seeking the sympathy of a familiar. For the first time in his life, +he turned impatiently aside. It was a new kind of sympathy he needed +to-day. + +The front door slammed, and the staircase creaked to the ascent of two +heavy boots. The Duke listened, waited irresolute. The boots passed his +door, were already clumping up the next flight. “Noaks!” he cried. The +boots paused, then clumped down again. The door opened and disclosed +that homely figure which Zuleika had seen on her way to Judas. + +Sensitive reader, start not at the apparition! Oxford is a plexus of +anomalies. These two youths were (odd as it may seem to you) subject to +the same Statutes, affiliated to the same College, reading for the same +School; aye! and though the one had inherited half a score of noble and +castellated roofs, whose mere repairs cost him annually thousands and +thousands of pounds, and the other’s people had but one little mean +square of lead, from which the fireworks of the Crystal Palace were +clearly visible every Thursday evening, in Oxford one roof sheltered +both of them. Furthermore, there was even some measure of intimacy +between them. It was the Duke’s whim to condescend further in the +direction of Noaks than in any other. He saw in Noaks his own foil and +antithesis, and made a point of walking up the High with him at least +once in every term. Noaks, for his part, regarded the Duke with feelings +mingled of idolatry and disapproval. The Duke’s First in Mods oppressed +him (who, by dint of dogged industry, had scraped a Second) more than +all the other differences between them. But the dullard’s envy of +brilliant men is always assuaged by the suspicion that they will come to +a bad end. Noaks may have regarded the Duke as a rather pathetic figure, +on the whole. + +“Come in, Noaks,” said the Duke. “You have been to a lecture?” + +“Aristotle’s Politics,” nodded Noaks. + +“And what were they?” asked the Duke. He was eager for sympathy in his +love. But so little used was he to seeking sympathy that he could not +unburden himself. He temporised. Noaks muttered something about getting +back to work, and fumbled with the door-handle. + +“Oh, my dear fellow, don’t go,” said the Duke. “Sit down. Our Schools +don’t come on for another year. A few minutes can’t make a difference in +your Class. I want to--to tell you something, Noaks. Do sit down.” + +Noaks sat down on the edge of a chair. The Duke leaned against the +mantel-piece, facing him. “I suppose, Noaks,” he said, “you have never +been in love.” + +“Why shouldn’t I have been in love?” asked the little man, angrily. + +“I can’t imagine you in love,” said the Duke, smiling. + +“And I can’t imagine YOU. You’re too pleased with yourself,” growled +Noaks. + +“Spur your imagination, Noaks,” said his friend. “I AM in love.” + +“So am I,” was an unexpected answer, and the Duke (whose need of +sympathy was too new to have taught him sympathy with others) laughed +aloud. “Whom do you love?” he asked, throwing himself into an arm-chair. + +“I don’t know who she is,” was another unexpected answer. + +“When did you meet her?” asked the Duke. “Where? What did you say to +her?” + +“Yesterday. In the Corn. I didn’t SAY anything to her.” + +“Is she beautiful?” + +“Yes. What’s that to you?” + +“Dark or fair?” + +“She’s dark. She looks like a foreigner. She looks like--like one of +those photographs in the shop-windows.” + +“A rhapsody, Noaks! What became of her? Was she alone?” + +“She was with the old Warden, in his carriage.” + +Zuleika--Noaks! The Duke started, as at an affront, and glared. Next +moment, he saw the absurdity of the situation. He relapsed into his +chair, smiling. “She’s the Warden’s niece,” he said. “I dined at the +Warden’s last night.” + +Noaks sat still, peering across at the Duke. For the first time in his +life, he was resentful of the Duke’s great elegance and average stature, +his high lineage and incomputable wealth. Hitherto, these things +had been too remote for envy. But now, suddenly, they seemed near to +him--nearer and more overpowering than the First in Mods had ever been. +“And of course she’s in love with you?” he snarled. + +Really, this was for the Duke a new issue. So salient was his own +passion that he had not had time to wonder whether it were returned. +Zuleika’s behaviour during dinner... But that was how so many young +women had behaved. It was no sign of disinterested love. It might mean +merely... Yet no! Surely, looking into her eyes, he had seen there a +radiance finer than could have been lit by common ambition. Love, none +other, must have lit in those purple depths the torches whose clear +flames had leapt out to him. She loved him. She, the beautiful, the +wonderful, had not tried to conceal her love for him. She had shown him +all--had shown all, poor darling! only to be snubbed by a prig, driven +away by a boor, fled from by a fool. To the nethermost corner of his +soul, he cursed himself for what he had done, and for all he had left +undone. He would go to her on his knees. He would implore her to impose +on him insufferable penances. There was no penance, how bittersweet +soever, could make him a little worthy of her. + +“Come in!” he cried mechanically. Entered the landlady’s daughter. + +“A lady downstairs,” she said, “asking to see your Grace. Says she’ll +step round again later if your Grace is busy.” + +“What is her name?” asked the Duke, vacantly. He was gazing at the girl +with pain-shot eyes. + +“Miss Zuleika Dobson,” pronounced the girl. + +He rose. + +“Show Miss Dobson up,” he said. + +Noaks had darted to the looking-glass and was smoothing his hair with a +tremulous, enormous hand. + +“Go!” said the Duke, pointing to the door. Noaks went, quickly. Echoes +of his boots fell from the upper stairs and met the ascending susurrus +of a silk skirt. + +The lovers met. There was an interchange of ordinary greetings: from the +Duke, a comment on the weather; from Zuleika, a hope that he was well +again--they had been so sorry to lose him last night. Then came a pause. +The landlady’s daughter was clearing away the breakfast-things. +Zuleika glanced comprehensively at the room, and the Duke gazed at the +hearthrug. The landlady’s daughter clattered out with her freight. They +were alone. + +“How pretty!” said Zuleika. She was looking at his star of the Garter, +which sparkled from a litter of books and papers on a small side-table. + +“Yes,” he answered. “It is pretty, isn’t it?” + +“Awfully pretty!” she rejoined. + +This dialogue led them to another hollow pause. The Duke’s heart beat +violently within him. Why had he not asked her to take the star and keep +it as a gift? Too late now! Why could he not throw himself at her feet? +Here were two beings, lovers of each other, with none by. And yet... + +She was examining a water-colour on the wall, seemed to be absorbed by +it. He watched her. She was even lovelier than he had remembered; +or rather her loveliness had been, in some subtle way, transmuted. +Something had given to her a graver, nobler beauty. Last night’s nymph +had become the Madonna of this morning. Despite her dress, which was +of a tremendous tartan, she diffused the pale authentic radiance of a +spirituality most high, most simple. The Duke wondered where lay the +change in her. He could not understand. Suddenly she turned to him, and +he understood. No longer the black pearl and the pink, but two white +pearls!... He thrilled to his heart’s core. + +“I hope,” said Zuleika, “you aren’t awfully vexed with me for coming +like this?” + +“Not at all,” said the Duke. “I am delighted to see you.” How inadequate +the words sounded, how formal and stupid! + +“The fact is,” she continued, “I don’t know a soul in Oxford. And +I thought perhaps you’d give me luncheon, and take me to see the +boat-races. Will you?” + +“I shall be charmed,” he said, pulling the bell-rope. Poor fool! he +attributed the shade of disappointment on Zuleika’s face to the coldness +of his tone. He would dispel that shade. He would avow himself. He would +leave her no longer in this false position. So soon as he had told them +about the meal, he would proclaim his passion. + +The bell was answered by the landlady’s daughter. + +“Miss Dobson will stay to luncheon,” said the Duke. The girl withdrew. +He wished he could have asked her not to. + +He steeled himself. “Miss Dobson,” he said, “I wish to apologise to +you.” + +Zuleika looked at him eagerly. “You can’t give me luncheon? You’ve got +something better to do?” + +“No. I wish to ask you to forgive me for my behaviour last night.” + +“There is nothing to forgive.” + +“There is. My manners were vile. I know well what happened. Though you, +too, cannot have forgotten, I won’t spare myself the recital. You were +my hostess, and I ignored you. Magnanimous, you paid me the prettiest +compliment woman ever paid to man, and I insulted you. I left the house +in order that I might not see you again. To the doorsteps down which +he should have kicked me, your grandfather followed me with words of +kindliest courtesy. If he had sped me with a kick so skilful that my +skull had been shattered on the kerb, neither would he have outstepped +those bounds set to the conduct of English gentlemen, nor would you have +garnered more than a trifle on account of your proper reckoning. I do +not say that you are the first person whom I have wantonly injured. But +it is a fact that I, in whom pride has ever been the topmost quality, +have never expressed sorrow to any one for anything. Thus, I might urge +that my present abjectness must be intolerably painful to me, and should +incline you to forgive. But such an argument were specious merely. +I will be quite frank with you. I will confess to you that, in this +humbling of myself before you, I take a pleasure as passionate as it is +strange. A confusion of feelings? Yet you, with a woman’s instinct, will +have already caught the clue to it. It needs no mirror to assure me +that the clue is here for you, in my eyes. It needs no dictionary of +quotations to remind me that the eyes are the windows of the soul. And I +know that from two open windows my soul has been leaning and signalling +to you, in a code far more definitive and swifter than words of mine, +that I love you.” + +Zuleika, listening to him, had grown gradually paler and paler. She had +raised her hands and cowered as though he were about to strike her. And +then, as he pronounced the last three words, she had clasped her hands +to her face and with a wild sob darted away from him. She was leaning +now against the window, her head bowed and her shoulders quivering. + +The Duke came softly behind her. “Why should you cry? Why should you +turn away from me? Did I frighten you with the suddenness of my words? I +am not versed in the tricks of wooing. I should have been more patient. +But I love you so much that I could hardly have waited. A secret hope +that you loved me too emboldened me, compelled me. You DO love me. I +know it. And, knowing it, I do but ask you to give yourself to me, to +be my wife. Why should you cry? Why should you shrink from me? Dear, +if there were anything... any secret... if you had ever loved and been +deceived, do you think I should honour you the less deeply, should not +cherish you the more tenderly? Enough for me, that you are mine. Do you +think I should ever reproach you for anything that may have--” + +Zuleika turned on him. “How dare you?” she gasped. “How dare you speak +to me like that?” + +The Duke reeled back. Horror had come into his eyes. “You do not love +me!” he cried. + +“LOVE you?” she retorted. “YOU?” + +“You no longer love me. Why? Why?” + +“What do you mean?” + +“You loved me. Don’t trifle with me. You came to me loving me with all +your heart.” + +“How do you know?” + +“Look in the glass.” She went at his bidding. He followed her. “You +see them?” he said, after a long pause. Zuleika nodded. The two pearls +quivered to her nod. + +“They were white when you came to me,” he sighed. “They were white +because you loved me. From them it was that I knew you loved me even as +I loved you. But their old colours have come back to them. That is how I +know that your love for me is dead.” + +Zuleika stood gazing pensively, twitching the two pearls between her +fingers. Tears gathered in her eyes. She met the reflection of her +lover’s eyes, and her tears brimmed over. She buried her face in her +hands, and sobbed like a child. + +Like a child’s, her sobbing ceased quite suddenly. She groped for her +handkerchief, angrily dried her eyes, and straightened and smoothed +herself. + +“Now I’m going,” she said. + +“You came here of your own accord, because you loved me,” said the Duke. +“And you shall not go till you have told me why you have left off loving +me.” + +“How did you know I loved you?” she asked after a pause. “How did you +know I hadn’t simply put on another pair of ear-rings?” + +The Duke, with a melancholy laugh, drew the two studs from his +waistcoat-pocket. “These are the studs I wore last night,” he said. + +Zuleika gazed at them. “I see,” she said; then, looking up, “When did +they become like that?” + +“It was when you left the dining-room that I saw the change in them.” + +“How strange! It was when I went into the drawing-room that I noticed +mine. I was looking in the glass, and”--She started. “Then you were in +love with me last night?” + +“I began to be in love with you from the moment I saw you.” + +“Then how could you have behaved as you did?” + +“Because I was a pedant. I tried to ignore you, as pedants always do try +to ignore any fact they cannot fit into their pet system. The basis +of my pet system was celibacy. I don’t mean the mere state of being +a bachelor. I mean celibacy of the soul--egoism, in fact. You have +converted me from that. I am now a confirmed tuist.” + +“How dared you insult me?” she cried, with a stamp of her foot. +“How dared you make a fool of me before those people? Oh, it is too +infamous!” + +“I have already asked you to forgive me for that. You said there was +nothing to forgive.” + +“I didn’t dream that you were in love with me.” + +“What difference can that make?” + +“All the difference! All the difference in life!” + +“Sit down! You bewilder me,” said the Duke. “Explain yourself!” he +commanded. + +“Isn’t that rather much for a man to ask of a woman?” + +“I don’t know. I have no experience of women. In the abstract, it seems +to me that every man has a right to some explanation from the woman who +has ruined his life.” + +“You are frightfully sorry for yourself,” said Zuleika, with a bitter +laugh. “Of course it doesn’t occur to you that _I_ am at all to be +pitied. No! you are blind with selfishness. You love me--I don’t love +you: that is all you can realise. Probably you think you are the first +man who has ever fallen on such a plight.” + +Said the Duke, bowing over a deprecatory hand, “If there were to pass my +window one tithe of them whose hearts have been lost to Miss Dobson, I +should win no solace from that interminable parade.” + +Zuleika blushed. “Yet,” she said more gently, “be sure they would all be +not a little envious of YOU! Not one of them ever touched the surface of +my heart. You stirred my heart to its very depths. Yes, you made me love +you madly. The pearls told you no lie. You were my idol--the one thing +in the wide world to me. You were so different from any man I had ever +seen except in dreams. You did not make a fool of yourself. I admired +you. I respected you. I was all afire with adoration of you. And now,” + she passed her hand across her eyes, “now it is all over. The idol has +come sliding down its pedestal to fawn and grovel with all the other +infatuates in the dust about my feet.” + +The Duke looked thoughtfully at her. “I thought,” he said, “that you +revelled in your power over men’s hearts. I had always heard that you +lived for admiration.” + +“Oh,” said Zuleika, “of course I like being admired. Oh yes, I like all +that very much indeed. In a way, I suppose, I’m even pleased that +YOU admire me. But oh, what a little miserable pleasure that is in +comparison with the rapture I have forfeited! I had never known the +rapture of being in love. I had longed for it, but I had never guessed +how wonderfully wonderful it was. It came to me. I shuddered and wavered +like a fountain in the wind. I was more helpless and flew lightlier +than a shred of thistledown among the stars. All night long, I could not +sleep for love of you; nor had I any desire of sleep, save that it might +take me to you in a dream. I remember nothing that happened to me this +morning before I found myself at your door.” + +“Why did you ring the bell? Why didn’t you walk away?” + +“Why? I had come to see you, to be near you, to be WITH you.” + +“To force yourself on me.” + +“Yes.” + +“You know the meaning of the term ‘effective occupation’? Having marched +in, how could you have held your position, unless”-- + +“Oh, a man doesn’t necessarily drive a woman away because he isn’t in +love with her.” + +“Yet that was what you thought I had done to you last night.” + +“Yes, but I didn’t suppose you would take the trouble to do it again. +And if you had, I should have only loved you the more. I thought you +would most likely be rather amused, rather touched, by my importunity. I +thought you would take a listless advantage, make a plaything of me--the +diversion of a few idle hours in summer, and then, when you had tired +of me, would cast me aside, forget me, break my heart. I desired nothing +better than that. That is what I must have been vaguely hoping for. But +I had no definite scheme. I wanted to be with you and I came to you. It +seems years ago, now! How my heart beat as I waited on the doorstep! ‘Is +his Grace at home?’ ‘I don’t know. I’ll inquire. What name shall I say?’ +I saw in the girl’s eyes that she, too, loved you. Have YOU seen that?” + +“I have never looked at her,” said the Duke. + +“No wonder, then, that she loves you,” sighed Zuleika. “She read my +secret at a glance. Women who love the same man have a kind of bitter +freemasonry. We resented each other. She envied me my beauty, my dress. +I envied the little fool her privilege of being always near to you. +Loving you, I could conceive no life sweeter than hers--to be always +near you; to black your boots, carry up your coals, scrub your doorstep; +always to be working for you, hard and humbly and without thanks. If you +had refused to see me, I would have bribed that girl with all my jewels +to cede me her position.” + +The Duke made a step towards her. “You would do it still,” he said in a +low voice. + +Zuleika raised her eyebrows. “I would not offer her one garnet,” she +said, “now.” + +“You SHALL love me again,” he cried. “I will force you to. You said just +now that you had ceased to love me because I was just like other men. I +am not. My heart is no tablet of mere wax, from which an instant’s heat +can dissolve whatever impress it may bear, leaving it blank and soft +for another impress, and another, and another. My heart is a bright hard +gem, proof against any die. Came Cupid, with one of his arrow-points +for graver, and what he cut on the gem’s surface never can be effaced. +There, deeply and forever, your image is intagliated. No years, nor +fires, nor cataclysm of total Nature, can efface from that great gem +your image.” + +“My dear Duke,” said Zuleika, “don’t be so silly. Look at the matter +sensibly. I know that lovers don’t try to regulate their emotions +according to logic; but they do, nevertheless, unconsciously conform +with some sort of logical system. I left off loving you when I found +that you loved me. There is the premiss. Very well! Is it likely that I +shall begin to love you again because you can’t leave off loving me?” + +The Duke groaned. There was a clatter of plates outside, and she whom +Zuleika had envied came to lay the table for luncheon. + +A smile flickered across Zuleika’s lips; and “Not one garnet!” she +murmured. + + + + +V + +Luncheon passed in almost unbroken silence. Both Zuleika and the Duke +were ravenously hungry, as people always are after the stress of any +great emotional crisis. Between them, they made very short work of +a cold chicken, a salad, a gooseberry-tart and a Camembert. The Duke +filled his glass again and again. The cold classicism of his face had +been routed by the new romantic movement which had swept over his soul. +He looked two or three months older than when first I showed him to my +reader. + +He drank his coffee at one draught, pushed back his chair, threw away +the cigarette he had just lit. “Listen!” he said. + +Zuleika folded her hands on her lap. + +“You do not love me. I accept as final your hint that you never will +love me. I need not say--could not, indeed, ever say--how deeply, deeply +you have pained me. As lover, I am rejected. But that rejection,” he +continued, striking the table, “is no stopper to my suit. It does but +drive me to the use of arguments. My pride shrinks from them. Love, +however, is greater than pride; and I, John, Albert, Edward, Claude, +Orde, Angus, Tankerton,* Tanville-Tankerton,** fourteenth Duke of +Dorset, Marquis of Dorset, Earl of Grove, Earl of Chastermaine, Viscount +Brewsby, Baron Grove, Baron Petstrap, and Baron Wolock, in the Peerage +of England, offer you my hand. Do not interrupt me. Do not toss your +head. Consider well what I am saying. Weigh the advantages you would +gain by acceptance of my hand. Indeed, they are manifold and tremendous. +They are also obvious: do not shut your eyes to them. You, Miss Dobson, +what are you? A conjurer, and a vagrant; without means, save such as you +can earn by the sleight of your hand; without position; without a +home; all unguarded but by your own self-respect. That you follow an +honourable calling, I do not for one moment deny. I do, however, ask +you to consider how great are its perils and hardships, its fatigues and +inconveniences. From all these evils I offer you instant refuge. I offer +you, Miss Dobson, a refuge more glorious and more augustly gilded +than you, in your airiest flights of fancy, can ever have hoped for or +imagined. I own about 340,000 acres. My town-residence is in St. James’s +Square. Tankerton, of which you may have seen photographs, is the chief +of my country-seats. It is a Tudor house, set on the ridge of a valley. +The valley, its park, is halved by a stream so narrow that the deer leap +across. The gardens are estraded upon the slope. Round the house runs +a wide paven terrace. There are always two or three peacocks trailing +their sheathed feathers along the balustrade, and stepping how stiffly! +as though they had just been unharnessed from Juno’s chariot. Two +flights of shallow steps lead down to the flowers and fountains. Oh, +the gardens are wonderful. There is a Jacobean garden of white roses. +Between the ends of two pleached alleys, under a dome of branches, is +a little lake, with a Triton of black marble, and with water-lilies. +Hither and thither under the archipelago of water-lilies, dart +gold-fish--tongues of flame in the dark water. There is also a long +strait alley of clipped yew. It ends in an alcove for a pagoda +of painted porcelain which the Prince Regent--peace be to his +ashes!--presented to my great-grandfather. There are many twisting +paths, and sudden aspects, and devious, fantastic arbours. Are you fond +of horses? In my stables of pine-wood and plated-silver seventy are +installed. Not all of them together could vie in power with one of the +meanest of my motor-cars.” + + *Pronounced as Tacton. + + **Pronounced as Tavvle-Tacton. + +“Oh, I never go in motors,” said Zuleika. “They make one look like +nothing on earth, and like everybody else.” + +“I myself,” said the Duke, “use them little for that very reason. Are +you interested in farming? At Tankerton there is a model farm which +would at any rate amuse you, with its heifers and hens and pigs that are +like so many big new toys. There is a tiny dairy, which is called ‘Her +Grace’s.’ You could make, therein, real butter with your own hands, and +round it into little pats, and press every pat with a different device. +The boudoir that would be yours is a blue room. Four Watteaus hang in +it. In the dining-hall hang portraits of my forefathers--in petto, +your forefathers-in-law--by many masters. Are you fond of peasants? +My tenantry are delightful creatures, and there is not one of them who +remembers the bringing of the news of the Battle of Waterloo. When a +new Duchess is brought to Tankerton, the oldest elm in the park must +be felled. That is one of many strange old customs. As she is driven +through the village, the children of the tenantry must strew the road +with daisies. The bridal chamber must be lighted with as many candles as +years have elapsed since the creation of the Dukedom. If you came into +it, there would be”--and the youth, closing his eyes, made a rapid +calculation--“exactly three hundred and eighty-eight candles. On the eve +of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come and perch on the +battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting. At dawn +they fly away, none knows whither. On the eve of the death of any other +Tanville-Tankerton, comes (no matter what be the time of year) a cuckoo. +It stays for an hour, cooing, then flies away, none knows whither. +Whenever this portent occurs, my steward telegraphs to me, that I, as +head of the family, be not unsteeled against the shock of a bereavement, +and that my authority be sooner given for the unsealing and garnishing +of the family-vault. Not every forefather of mine rests quiet beneath +his escutcheoned marble. There are they who revisit, in their wrath or +their remorse, the places wherein erst they suffered or wrought evil. +There is one who, every Halloween, flits into the dining-hall, and +hovers before the portrait which Hans Holbein made of him, and flings +his diaphanous grey form against the canvas, hoping, maybe, to catch +from it the fiery flesh-tints and the solid limbs that were his, and so +to be re-incarnate. He flies against the painting, only to find himself +t’other side of the wall it hangs on. There are five ghosts permanently +residing in the right wing of the house, two in the left, and eleven in +the park. But all are quite noiseless and quite harmless. My servants, +when they meet them in the corridors or on the stairs, stand aside to +let them pass, thus paying them the respect due to guests of mine; but +not even the rawest housemaid ever screams or flees at sight of them. I, +their host, often waylay them and try to commune with them; but always +they glide past me. And how gracefully they glide, these ghosts! It is a +pleasure to watch them. It is a lesson in deportment. May they never be +laid! Of all my household-pets, they are the dearest to me. I am Duke +of Strathsporran and Cairngorm, Marquis of Sorby, and Earl Cairngorm, in +the Peerage of Scotland. In the glens of the hills about Strathsporran +are many noble and nimble stags. But I have never set foot in my house +there, for it is carpeted throughout with the tartan of my clan. You +seem to like tartan. What tartan is it you are wearing?” + +Zuleika looked down at her skirt. “I don’t know,” she said. “I got it in +Paris.” + +“Well,” said the Duke, “it is very ugly. The Dalbraith tartan is +harmonious in comparison, and has, at least, the excuse of history. If +you married me, you would have the right to wear it. You would have many +strange and fascinating rights. You would go to Court. I admit that the +Hanoverian Court is not much. Still, it is better than nothing. At your +presentation, moreover, you would be given the entree. Is that nothing +to you? You would be driven to Court in my statecoach. It is swung so +high that the streetsters can hardly see its occupant. It is lined +with rose-silk; and on its panels, and on its hammer-cloth, my arms +are emblazoned--no one has ever been able to count the quarterings. You +would be wearing the family-jewels, reluctantly surrendered to you by my +aunt. They are many and marvellous, in their antique settings. I don’t +want to brag. It humiliates me to speak to you as I am speaking. But +I am heart-set on you, and to win you there is not a precious stone I +would leave unturned. Conceive a parure all of white stones--diamonds, +white sapphires, white topazes, tourmalines. Another, of rubies and +amethysts, set in gold filigree. Rings that once were poison-combs on +Florentine fingers. Red roses for your hair--every petal a hollowed +ruby. Amulets and ape-buckles, zones and fillets. Aye! know that you +would be weeping for wonder before you had seen a tithe of these gauds. +Know, too, Miss Dobson, that in the Peerage of France I am Duc d’Etretat +et de la Roche Guillaume. Louis Napoleon gave the title to my father for +not cutting him in the Bois. I have a house in the Champs Elysees. There +is a Swiss in its courtyard. He stands six-foot-seven in his stockings, +and the chasseurs are hardly less tall than he. Wherever I go, there are +two chefs in my retinue. Both are masters in their art, and furiously +jealous of each other. When I compliment either of them on some dish, +the other challenges him. They fight with rapiers, next morning, in the +garden of whatever house I am occupying. I do not know whether you are +greedy? If so, it may interest you to learn that I have a third chef, +who makes only souffles, and an Italian pastry-cook; to say nothing of +a Spaniard for salads, an Englishwoman for roasts, and an Abyssinian for +coffee. You found no trace of their handiwork in the meal you have just +had with me? No; for in Oxford it is a whim of mine--I may say a point +of honour--to lead the ordinary life of an undergraduate. What I eat +in this room is cooked by the heavy and unaided hand of Mrs. Batch, +my landlady. It is set before me by the unaided and--or are you in +error?--loving hand of her daughter. Other ministers have I none here. I +dispense with my private secretaries. I am unattended by a single valet. +So simple a way of life repels you? You would never be called upon to +share it. If you married me, I should take my name off the books of my +College. I propose that we should spend our honeymoon at Baiae. I have +a villa at Baiae. It is there that I keep my grandfather’s collection of +majolica. The sun shines there always. A long olive-grove secretes the +garden from the sea. When you walk in the garden, you know the sea only +in blue glimpses through the vacillating leaves. White-gleaming from the +bosky shade of this grove are several goddesses. Do you care for Canova? +I don’t myself. If you do, these figures will appeal to you: they are in +his best manner. Do you love the sea? This is not the only house of mine +that looks out on it. On the coast of County Clare--am I not Earl of +Enniskerry and Baron Shandrin in the Peerage of Ireland?--I have an +ancient castle. Sheer from a rock stands it, and the sea has always +raged up against its walls. Many ships lie wrecked under that loud +implacable sea. But mine is a brave strong castle. No storm affrights +it; and not the centuries, clustering houris, with their caresses can +seduce it from its hard austerity. I have several titles which for the +moment escape me. Baron Llffthwchl am I, and... and... but you can +find them for yourself in Debrett. In me you behold a Prince of the Holy +Roman Empire, and a Knight of the Most Noble Order of the Garter. Look +well at me! I am Hereditary Comber of the Queen’s Lap-Dogs. I am young. +I am handsome. My temper is sweet, and my character without blemish. In +fine, Miss Dobson, I am a most desirable parti.” + +“But,” said Zuleika, “I don’t love you.” + +The Duke stamped his foot. “I beg your pardon,” he said hastily. “I +ought not to have done that. But--you seem to have entirely missed the +point of what I was saying.” + +“No, I haven’t,” said Zuleika. + +“Then what,” cried the Duke, standing over her, “what is your reply?” + +Said Zuleika, looking up at him, “My reply is that I think you are an +awful snob.” + +The Duke turned on his heel, and strode to the other end of the room. +There he stood for some moments, his back to Zuleika. + +“I think,” she resumed in a slow, meditative voice, “that you are, with +the possible exception of a Mr. Edelweiss, THE most awful snob I have +ever met.” + +The Duke looked back over his shoulder. He gave Zuleika the stinging +reprimand of silence. She was sorry, and showed it in her eyes. She felt +she had gone too far. True, he was nothing to her now. But she had loved +him once. She could not forget that. + +“Come!” she said. “Let us be good friends. Give me your hand!” He came +to her, slowly. “There!” + +The Duke withdrew his fingers before she unclasped them. That +twice-flung taunt rankled still. It was monstrous to have been called +a snob. A snob!--he, whose readiness to form what would certainly be +regarded as a shocking misalliance ought to have stifled the charge, not +merely vindicated him from it! He had forgotten, in the blindness of his +love, how shocking the misalliance would be. Perhaps she, unloving, had +not been so forgetful? Perhaps her refusal had been made, generously, +for his own sake. Nay, rather for her own. Evidently, she had felt that +the high sphere from which he beckoned was no place for the likes of +her. Evidently, she feared she would pine away among those strange +splendours, never be acclimatised, always be unworthy. He had thought to +overwhelm her, and he had done his work too thoroughly. Now he must try +to lighten the load he had imposed. + +Seating himself opposite to her, “You remember,” he said, “that there is +a dairy at Tankerton?” + +“A dairy? Oh yes.” + +“Do you remember what it is called?” + +Zuleika knit her brows. + +He helped her out. “It is called ‘Her Grace’s’.” + +“Oh, of course!” said Zuleika. + +“Do you know WHY it is called so?” + +“Well, let’s see... I know you told me.” + +“Did I? I think not. I will tell you now... That cool out-house dates +from the middle of the eighteenth century. My great-great-grandfather, +when he was a very old man, married en troisiemes noces a dairy-maid +on the Tankerton estate. Meg Speedwell was her name. He had seen her +walking across a field, not many months after the interment of his +second Duchess, Maria, that great and gifted lady. I know not whether it +was that her bonny mien fanned in him some embers of his youth, or that +he was loth to be outdone in gracious eccentricity by his crony the Duke +of Dewlap, who himself had just taken a bride from a dairy. (You have +read Meredith’s account of that affair? No? You should.) Whether it was +veritable love or mere modishness that formed my ancestor’s resolve, +presently the bells were ringing out, and the oldest elm in the park was +being felled, in Meg Speedwell’s honour, and the children were strewing +daisies on which Meg Speedwell trod, a proud young hoyden of a bride, +with her head in the air and her heart in the seventh heaven. The Duke +had given her already a horde of fine gifts; but these, he had said, +were nothing--trash in comparison with the gift that was to ensure for +her a perdurable felicity. After the wedding-breakfast, when all the +squires had ridden away on their cobs, and all the squires’ ladies in +their coaches, the Duke led his bride forth from the hall, leaning on +her arm, till they came to a little edifice of new white stone, very +spick and span, with two lattice-windows and a bright green door +between. This he bade her enter. A-flutter with excitement, she +turned the handle. In a moment she flounced back, red with shame and +anger--flounced forth from the fairest, whitest, dapperest dairy, +wherein was all of the best that the keenest dairy-maid might need. The +Duke bade her dry her eyes, for that it ill befitted a great lady to be +weeping on her wedding-day. ‘As for gratitude,’ he chuckled, ‘zounds! +that is a wine all the better for the keeping.’ Duchess Meg soon forgot +this unworthy wedding-gift, such was her rapture in the other, the so +august, appurtenances of her new life. What with her fine silk gowns +and farthingales, and her powder-closet, and the canopied bed she slept +in--a bed bigger far than the room she had slept in with her sisters, +and standing in a room far bigger than her father’s cottage; and +what with Betty, her maid, who had pinched and teased her at the +village-school, but now waited on her so meekly and trembled so +fearfully at a scolding; and what with the fine hot dishes that were set +before her every day, and the gallant speeches and glances of the fine +young gentlemen whom the Duke invited from London, Duchess Meg was quite +the happiest Duchess in all England. For a while, she was like a child +in a hay-rick. But anon, as the sheer delight of novelty wore away, she +began to take a more serious view of her position. She began to realise +her responsibilities. She was determined to do all that a great lady +ought to do. Twice every day she assumed the vapours. She schooled +herself in the mysteries of Ombre, of Macao. She spent hours over the +tambour-frame. She rode out on horse-back, with a riding-master. She had +a music-master to teach her the spinet; a dancing-master, too, to teach +her the Minuet and the Triumph and the Gaudy. All these accomplishments +she found mighty hard. She was afraid of her horse. All the morning, she +dreaded the hour when it would be brought round from the stables. She +dreaded her dancing-lesson. Try as she would, she could but stamp her +feet flat on the parquet, as though it had been the village-green. She +dreaded her music-lesson. Her fingers, disobedient to her ambition, +clumsily thumped the keys of the spinet, and by the notes of the score +propped up before her she was as cruelly perplexed as by the black and +red pips of the cards she conned at the gaming-table, or by the red +and gold threads that were always straying and snapping on her +tambour-frame. Still she persevered. Day in, day out, sullenly, she +worked hard to be a great lady. But skill came not to her, and hope +dwindled; only the dull effort remained. One accomplishment she did +master--to wit, the vapours: they became for her a dreadful reality. She +lost her appetite for the fine hot dishes. All night long she lay awake, +restless, tearful, under the fine silk canopy, till dawn stared her +into slumber. She seldom scolded Betty. She who had been so lusty and so +blooming saw in her mirror that she was pale and thin now; and the fine +young gentlemen, seeing it too, paid more heed now to their wine and +their dice than to her. And always, when she met him, the Duke smiled +the same mocking smile. Duchess Meg was pining slowly and surely away... +One morning, in Spring-time, she altogether vanished. Betty, bringing +the cup of chocolate to the bedside, found the bed empty. She raised the +alarm among her fellows. They searched high and low. Nowhere was their +mistress. The news was broken to their master, who, without comment, +rose, bade his man dress him, and presently walked out to the place +where he knew he would find her. And there, to be sure, she was, +churning, churning for dear life. Her sleeves were rolled above her +elbows, and her skirt was kilted high; and, as she looked back over her +shoulder and saw the Duke, there was the flush of roses in her cheeks, +and the light of a thousand thanks in her eyes. ‘Oh,’ she cried, ‘what +a curtsey I would drop you, but that to let go the handle were to spoil +all!’ And every morning, ever after, she woke when the birds woke, rose +when they rose, and went singing through the dawn to the dairy, there to +practise for her pleasure that sweet and lowly handicraft which she had +once practised for her need. And every evening, with her milking-stool +under her arm, and her milk-pail in her hand, she went into the field +and called the cows to her, as she had been wont to do. To those other, +those so august, accomplishments she no more pretended. She gave them +the go-by. And all the old zest and joyousness of her life came back +to her. Soundlier than ever slept she, and sweetlier dreamed, under the +fine silk canopy, till the birds called her to her work. Greater than +ever was her love of the fine furbelows that were hers to flaunt in, and +sharper her appetite for the fine hot dishes, and more tempestuous her +scolding of Betty, poor maid. She was more than ever now the cynosure, +the adored, of the fine young gentlemen. And as for her husband, she +looked up to him as the wisest, kindest man in all the world.” + +“And the fine young gentlemen,” said Zuleika, “did she fall in love with +any of them?” + +“You forget,” said the Duke coldly, “she was married to a member of my +family.” + +“Oh, I beg your pardon. But tell me: did they ALL adore her?” + +“Yes. Every one of them, wildly, madly.” + +“Ah,” murmured Zuleika, with a smile of understanding. A shadow crossed +her face, “Even so,” she said, with some pique, “I don’t suppose she had +so very many adorers. She never went out into the world.” + +“Tankerton,” said the Duke drily, “is a large house, and my +great-great-grandfather was the most hospitable of men. However,” he +added, marvelling that she had again missed the point so utterly, “my +purpose was not to confront you with a past rival in conquest, but to +set at rest a fear which I had, I think, roused in you by my somewhat +full description of the high majestic life to which you, as my bride, +would be translated.” + +“A fear? What sort of a fear?” + +“That you would not breathe freely--that you would starve (if I may use +a somewhat fantastic figure) among those strawberry-leaves. And so I +told you the story of Meg Speedwell, and how she lived happily ever +after. Nay, hear me out! The blood of Meg Speedwell’s lord flows in +my veins. I think I may boast that I have inherited something of his +sagacity. In any case, I can profit by his example. Do not fear that +I, if you were to wed me, should demand a metamorphosis of your present +self. I should take you as you are, gladly. I should encourage you to be +always exactly as you are--a radiant, irresistible member of the upper +middle-class, with a certain freedom of manner acquired through a +life of peculiar liberty. Can you guess what would be my principal +wedding-gift to you? Meg Speedwell had her dairy. For you, would be +built another outhouse--a neat hall wherein you would perform your +conjuring-tricks, every evening except Sunday, before me and my tenants +and my servants, and before such of my neighbours as might care to come. +None would respect you the less, seeing that I approved. Thus in +you would the pleasant history of Meg Speedwell repeat itself. You, +practising for your pleasure--nay, hear me out!--that sweet and lowly +handicraft which--” + +“I won’t listen to another word!” cried Zuleika. “You are the most +insolent person I have ever met. I happen to come of a particularly good +family. I move in the best society. My manners are absolutely perfect. +If I found myself in the shoes of twenty Duchesses simultaneously, I +should know quite well how to behave. As for the one pair you can offer +me, I kick them away--so. I kick them back at you. I tell you--” + +“Hush,” said the Duke, “hush! You are over-excited. There will be a +crowd under my window. There, there! I am sorry. I thought--” + +“Oh, I know what you thought,” said Zuleika, in a quieter tone. “I am +sure you meant well. I am sorry I lost my temper. Only, you might have +given me credit for meaning what I said: that I would not marry you, +because I did not love you. I daresay there would be great advantages +in being your Duchess. But the fact is, I have no worldly wisdom. To me, +marriage is a sacrament. I could no more marry a man about whom I could +not make a fool of myself than I could marry one who made a fool of +himself about me. Else had I long ceased to be a spinster. Oh my friend, +do not imagine that I have not rejected, in my day, a score of suitors +quite as eligible as you.” + +“As eligible? Who were they?” frowned the Duke. + +“Oh, Archduke this, and Grand Duke that, and His Serene Highness the +other. I have a wretched memory for names.” + +“And my name, too, will soon escape you, perhaps?” + +“No. Oh, no. I shall always remember yours. You see, I was in love with +you. You deceived me into loving you...” She sighed. “Oh, had you but +been as strong as I thought you... Still, a swain the more. That is +something.” She leaned forward, smiling archly. “Those studs--show me +them again.” + +The Duke displayed them in the hollow of his hand. She touched them +lightly, reverently, as a tourist touches a sacred relic in a church. + +At length, “Do give me them,” she said. “I will keep them in a little +secret partition of my jewel-case.” The Duke had closed his fist. “Do!” + she pleaded. “My other jewels--they have no separate meanings for me. +I never remember who gave me this one or that. These would be quite +different. I should always remember their history... Do!” + +“Ask me for anything else,” said the Duke. “These are the one thing I +could not part with--even to you, for whose sake they are hallowed.” + +Zuleika pouted. On the verge of persisting, she changed her mind, and +was silent. + +“Well!” she said abruptly, “how about these races? Are you going to take +me to see them?” + +“Races? What races?” murmured the Duke. “Oh yes. I had forgotten. Do you +really mean that you want to see them?” + +“Why, of course! They are great fun, aren’t they?” + +“And you are in a mood for great fun? Well, there is plenty of time. The +Second Division is not rowed till half-past four.” + +“The Second Division? Why not take me to the First?” + +“That is not rowed till six.” + +“Isn’t this rather an odd arrangement?” + +“No doubt. But Oxford never pretended to be strong in mathematics.” + +“Why, it’s not yet three!” cried Zuleika, with a woebegone stare at the +clock. “What is to be done in the meantime?” + +“Am not I sufficiently diverting?” asked the Duke bitterly. + +“Quite candidly, no. Have you any friend lodging with you here?” + +“One, overhead. A man named Noaks.” + +“A small man, with spectacles?” + +“Very small, with very large spectacles.” + +“He was pointed out to me yesterday, as I was driving from the Station +... No, I don’t think I want to meet him. What can you have in common +with him?” + +“One frailty, at least: he, too, Miss Dobson, loves you.” + +“But of course he does. He saw me drive past. Very few of the others,” + she said, rising and shaking herself, “have set eyes on me. Do let us go +out and look at the Colleges. I do need change of scene. If you were a +doctor, you would have prescribed that long ago. It is very bad for me +to be here, a kind of Cinderella, moping over the ashes of my love for +you. Where is your hat?” + +Looking round, she caught sight of herself in the glass. “Oh,” she +cried, “what a fright I do look! I must never be seen like this!” + +“You look very beautiful.” + +“I don’t. That is a lover’s illusion. You yourself told me that this +tartan was perfectly hideous. There was no need to tell me that. I +came thus because I was coming to see you. I chose this frock in the +deliberate fear that you, if I made myself presentable, might succumb at +second sight of me. I would have sent out for a sack and dressed myself +in that, I would have blacked my face all over with burnt cork, only I +was afraid of being mobbed on the way to you.” + +“Even so, you would but have been mobbed for your incorrigible beauty.” + +“My beauty! How I hate it!” sighed Zuleika. “Still, here it is, and I +must needs make the best of it. Come! Take me to Judas. I will change my +things. Then I shall be fit for the races.” + +As these two emerged, side by side, into the street, the Emperors +exchanged stony sidelong glances. For they saw the more than normal +pallor of the Duke’s face, and something very like desperation in his +eyes. They saw the tragedy progressing to its foreseen close. Unable to +stay its course, they were grimly fascinated now. + + + + +VI + +“The evil that men do lives after them; the good is oft interred with +their bones.” At any rate, the sinner has a better chance than the saint +of being hereafter remembered. We, in whom original sin preponderates, +find him easier to understand. He is near to us, clear to us. The saint +is remote, dim. A very great saint may, of course, be remembered through +some sheer force of originality in him; and then the very mystery that +involves him for us makes him the harder to forget: he haunts us the +more surely because we shall never understand him. But the ordinary +saints grow faint to posterity; whilst quite ordinary sinners pass +vividly down the ages. + +Of the disciples of Jesus, which is he that is most often remembered +and cited by us? Not the disciple whom Jesus loved; neither of the +Boanerges, nor any other of them who so steadfastly followed Him and +served Him; but the disciple who betrayed Him for thirty pieces of +silver. Judas Iscariot it is who outstands, overshadowing those +other fishermen. And perhaps it was by reason of this precedence that +Christopher Whitrid, Knight, in the reign of Henry VI., gave the name of +Judas to the College which he had founded. Or perhaps it was because he +felt that in a Christian community not even the meanest and basest of +men should be accounted beneath contempt, beyond redemption. + +At any rate, thus he named his foundation. And, though for Oxford men +the savour of the name itself has long evaporated through its local +connexion, many things show that for the Founder himself it was no empty +vocable. In a niche above the gate stands a rudely carved statue +of Judas, holding a money-bag in his right hand. Among the original +statutes of the College is one by which the Bursar is enjoined to +distribute in Passion Week thirty pieces of silver among the needier +scholars “for saike of atonynge.” The meadow adjoining the back of the +College has been called from time immemorial “the Potter’s Field.” And +the name of Salt Cellar is not less ancient and significant. + +Salt Cellar, that grey and green quadrangle visible from the room +assigned to Zuleika, is very beautiful, as I have said. So tranquil is +it as to seem remote not merely from the world, but even from Oxford, so +deeply is it hidden away in the core of Oxford’s heart. So tranquil +is it, one would guess that nothing had ever happened in it. For five +centuries these walls have stood, and during that time have beheld, one +would say, no sight less seemly than the good work of weeding, mowing, +rolling, that has made, at length, so exemplary the lawn. These +cloisters that grace the south and east sides--five centuries have +passed through them, leaving in them no echo, leaving on them no +sign, of all that the outer world, for good or evil, has been doing so +fiercely, so raucously. + +And yet, if you are versed in the antiquities of Oxford, you know that +this small, still quadrangle has played its part in the rough-and-tumble +of history, and has been the background of high passions and strange +fates. The sun-dial in its midst has told the hours to more than one +bygone King. Charles I. lay for twelve nights in Judas; and it was here, +in this very quadrangle, that he heard from the lips of a breathless and +blood-stained messenger the news of Chalgrove Field. Sixty years later, +James, his son, came hither, black with threats, and from one of the +hind-windows of the Warden’s house--maybe, from the very room where now +Zuleika was changing her frock--addressed the Fellows, and presented +to them the Papist by him chosen to be their Warden, instead of the +Protestant whom they had elected. They were not of so stern a stuff as +the Fellows of Magdalen, who, despite His Majesty’s menaces, had just +rejected Bishop Farmer. The Papist was elected, there and then, al +fresco, without dissent. Cannot one see them, these Fellows of Judas, +huddled together round the sun-dial, like so many sheep in a storm? The +King’s wrath, according to a contemporary record, was so appeased by +their pliancy that he deigned to lie for two nights in Judas, and at +a grand refection in Hall “was gracious and merrie.” Perhaps it was in +lingering gratitude for such patronage that Judas remained so pious to +his memory even after smug Herrenhausen had been dumped down on us for +ever. Certainly, of all the Colleges none was more ardent than Judas for +James Stuart. Thither it was that young Sir Harry Esson led, under cover +of night, three-score recruits whom he had enlisted in the surrounding +villages. The cloisters of Salt Cellar were piled with arms and stores; +and on its grass--its sacred grass!--the squad was incessantly drilled, +against the good day when Ormond should land his men in Devon. For a +whole month Salt Cellar was a secret camp. But somehow, at length--woe +to “lost causes and impossible loyalties”--Herrenhausen had wind of +it; and one night, when the soldiers of the white cockade lay snoring +beneath the stars, stealthily the white-faced Warden unbarred his +postern--that very postern through which now Zuleika had passed on the +way to her bedroom--and stealthily through it, one by one on tip-toe, +came the King’s foot-guards. Not many shots rang out, nor many swords +clashed, in the night air, before the trick was won for law and order. +Most of the rebels were overpowered in their sleep; and those who had +time to snatch arms were too dazed to make good resistance. Sir Harry +Esson himself was the only one who did not live to be hanged. He had +sprung up alert, sword in hand, at the first alarm, setting his back to +the cloisters. There he fought calmly, ferociously, till a bullet went +through his chest. “By God, this College is well-named!” were the words +he uttered as he fell forward and died. + +Comparatively tame was the scene now being enacted in this place. The +Duke, with bowed head, was pacing the path between the lawn and the +cloisters. Two other undergraduates stood watching him, whispering +to each other, under the archway that leads to the Front Quadrangle. +Presently, in a sheepish way, they approached him. He halted and looked +up. + +“I say,” stammered the spokesman. + +“Well?” asked the Duke. Both youths were slightly acquainted with him; +but he was not used to being spoken to by those whom he had not first +addressed. Moreover, he was loth to be thus disturbed in his sombre +reverie. His manner was not encouraging. + +“Isn’t it a lovely day for the Eights?” faltered the spokesman. + +“I conceive,” the Duke said, “that you hold back some other question.” + +The spokesman smiled weakly. Nudged by the other, he muttered “Ask him +yourself!” + +The Duke diverted his gaze to the other, who, with an angry look at the +one, cleared his throat, and said “I was going to ask if you thought +Miss Dobson would come and have luncheon with me to-morrow?” + +“A sister of mine will be there,” explained the one, knowing the Duke to +be a precisian. + +“If you are acquainted with Miss Dobson, a direct invitation should be +sent to her,” said the Duke. “If you are not--” The aposiopesis was icy. + +“Well, you see,” said the other of the two, “that is just the +difficulty. I AM acquainted with her. But is she acquainted with ME? I +met her at breakfast this morning, at the Warden’s.” + +“So did I,” added the one. + +“But she--well,” continued the other, “she didn’t take much notice of +us. She seemed to be in a sort of dream.” + +“Ah!” murmured the Duke, with melancholy interest. + +“The only time she opened her lips,” said the other, “was when she asked +us whether we took tea or coffee.” + +“She put hot milk in my tea,” volunteered the one, “and upset the cup +over my hand, and smiled vaguely.” + +“And smiled vaguely,” sighed the Duke. + +“She left us long before the marmalade stage,” said the one. + +“Without a word,” said the other. + +“Without a glance?” asked the Duke. It was testified by the one and the +other that there had been not so much as a glance. + +“Doubtless,” the disingenuous Duke said, “she had a headache... Was she +pale?” + +“Very pale,” answered the one. + +“A healthy pallor,” qualified the other, who was a constant reader of +novels. + +“Did she look,” the Duke inquired, “as if she had spent a sleepless +night?” + +That was the impression made on both. + +“Yet she did not seem listless or unhappy?” + +No, they would not go so far as to say that. + +“Indeed, were her eyes of an almost unnatural brilliance?” + +“Quite unnatural,” confessed the one. + +“Twin stars,” interpolated the other. + +“Did she, in fact, seem to be consumed by some inward rapture?” + +Yes, now they came to think of it, this was exactly how she HAD seemed. + +It was sweet, it was bitter, for the Duke. “I remember,” Zuleika had +said to him, “nothing that happened to me this morning till I found +myself at your door.” It was bitter-sweet to have that outline filled in +by these artless pencils. No, it was only bitter, to be, at his time of +life, living in the past. + +“The purpose of your tattle?” he asked coldly. + +The two youths hurried to the point from which he had diverted them. +“When she went by with you just now,” said the one, “she evidently +didn’t know us from Adam.” + +“And I had so hoped to ask her to luncheon,” said the other. + +“Well?” + +“Well, we wondered if you would re-introduce us. And then perhaps...” + +There was a pause. The Duke was touched to kindness for these +fellow-lovers. He would fain preserve them from the anguish that beset +himself. So humanising is sorrow. + +“You are in love with Miss Dobson?” he asked. + +Both nodded. + +“Then,” said he, “you will in time be thankful to me for not affording +you further traffic with that lady. To love and be scorned--does Fate +hold for us a greater inconvenience? You think I beg the question? Let +me tell you that I, too, love Miss Dobson, and that she scorns me.” + +To the implied question “What chance would there be for you?” the reply +was obvious. + +Amazed, abashed, the two youths turned on their heels. + +“Stay!” said the Duke. “Let me, in justice to myself, correct an +inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in +myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns me +simply because I love her. All who love her she scorns. To see her is +to love her. Therefore shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her from +your horizon. Ignore her. Will you do this?” + +“We will try,” said the one, after a pause. + +“Thank you very much,” added the other. + +The Duke watched them out of sight. He wished he could take the good +advice he had given them... Suppose he did take it! Suppose he went +to the Bursar, obtained an exeat, fled straight to London! What just +humiliation for Zuleika to come down and find her captive gone! He +pictured her staring around the quadrangle, ranging the cloisters, +calling to him. He pictured her rustling to the gate of the College, +inquiring at the porter’s lodge. “His Grace, Miss, he passed through a +minute ago. He’s going down this afternoon.” + +Yet, even while his fancy luxuriated in this scheme, he well knew that +he would not accomplish anything of the kind--knew well that he would +wait here humbly, eagerly, even though Zuleika lingered over her toilet +till crack o’ doom. He had no desire that was not centred in her. Take +away his love for her, and what remained? Nothing--though only in the +past twenty-four hours had this love been added to him. Ah, why had +he ever seen her? He thought of his past, its cold splendour and +insouciance. But he knew that for him there was no returning. His boats +were burnt. The Cytherean babes had set their torches to that flotilla, +and it had blazed like match-wood. On the isle of the enchantress he was +stranded for ever. For ever stranded on the isle of an enchantress who +would have nothing to do with him! What, he wondered, should be done in +so piteous a quandary? There seemed to be two courses. One was to pine +slowly and painfully away. The other... + +Academically, the Duke had often reasoned that a man for whom life holds +no chance of happiness cannot too quickly shake life off. Now, of a +sudden, there was for that theory a vivid application. + +“Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer” was not a point by which he, +“more an antique Roman than a Dane,” was at all troubled. Never had he +given ear to that cackle which is called Public Opinion. The judgment +of his peers--this, he had often told himself, was the sole arbitrage he +could submit to; but then, who was to be on the bench? Peerless, he was +irresponsible--the captain of his soul, the despot of his future. No +injunction but from himself would he bow to; and his own injunctions--so +little Danish was he--had always been peremptory and lucid. Lucid and +peremptory, now, the command he issued to himself. + +“So sorry to have been so long,” carolled a voice from above. The Duke +looked up. “I’m all but ready,” said Zuleika at her window. + +That brief apparition changed the colour of his resolve. He realised +that to die for love of this lady would be no mere measure of +precaution, or counsel of despair. It would be in itself a passionate +indulgence--a fiery rapture, not to be foregone. What better could +he ask than to die for his love? Poor indeed seemed to him now +the sacrament of marriage beside the sacrament of death. Death was +incomparably the greater, the finer soul. Death was the one true bridal. + +He flung back his head, spread wide his arms, quickened his pace almost +to running speed. Ah, he would win his bride before the setting of the +sun. He knew not by what means he would win her. Enough that even now, +full-hearted, fleet-footed, he was on his way to her, and that she heard +him coming. + +When Zuleika, a vision in vaporous white, came out through the postern, +she wondered why he was walking at so remarkable a pace. To him, wildly +expressing in his movement the thought within him, she appeared as his +awful bride. With a cry of joy, he bounded towards her, and would have +caught her in his arms, had she not stepped nimbly aside. + +“Forgive me!” he said, after a pause. “It was a mistake--an idiotic +mistake of identity. I thought you were...” + +Zuleika, rigid, asked “Have I many doubles?” + +“You know well that in all the world is none so blest as to be like you. +I can only say that I was over-wrought. I can only say that it shall not +occur again.” + +She was very angry indeed. Of his penitence there could be no doubt. But +there are outrages for which no penitence can atone. This seemed to be +one of them. Her first impulse was to dismiss the Duke forthwith and for +ever. But she wanted to show herself at the races. And she could not go +alone. And except the Duke there was no one to take her. True, there was +the concert to-night; and she could show herself there to advantage; but +she wanted ALL Oxford to see her--see her NOW. + +“I am forgiven?” he asked. In her, I am afraid, self-respect outweighed +charity. “I will try,” she said merely, “to forget what you have done.” + Motioning him to her side, she opened her parasol, and signified her +readiness to start. + +They passed together across the vast gravelled expanse of the Front +Quadrangle. In the porch of the College there were, as usual, some +chained-up dogs, patiently awaiting their masters. Zuleika, of course, +did not care for dogs. One has never known a good man to whom dogs were +not dear; but many of the best women have no such fondness. You will +find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always one who has +failed to inspire sympathy in men. For the attractive woman, dogs are +mere dumb and restless brutes--possibly dangerous, certainly soulless. +Yet will coquetry teach her to caress any dog in the presence of a +man enslaved by her. Even Zuleika, it seems, was not above this rather +obvious device for awaking envy. Be sure she did not at all like the +look of the very big bulldog who was squatting outside the porter’s +lodge. Perhaps, but for her present anger, she would not have stooped +endearingly down to him, as she did, cooing over him and trying to pat +his head. Alas, her pretty act was a failure. The bulldog cowered away +from her, horrifically grimacing. This was strange. Like the majority +of his breed, Corker (for such was his name) had ever been wistful to +be noticed by any one--effusively grateful for every word or pat, an +ever-ready wagger and nuzzler, to none ineffable. No beggar, no burglar, +had ever been rebuffed by this catholic beast. But he drew the line at +Zuleika. + +Seldom is even a fierce bulldog heard to growl. Yet Corker growled at +Zuleika. + + + + +VII + +The Duke did not try to break the stony silence in which Zuleika walked. +Her displeasure was a luxury to him, for it was so soon to be dispelled. +A little while, and she would be hating herself for her pettiness. Here +was he, going to die for her; and here was she, blaming him for a breach +of manners. Decidedly, the slave had the whip-hand. He stole a sidelong +look at her, and could not repress a smile. His features quickly +composed themselves. The Triumph of Death must not be handled as a +cheap score. He wanted to die because he would thereby so poignantly +consummate his love, express it so completely, once and for all... +And she--who could say that she, knowing what he had done, might not, +illogically, come to love him? Perhaps she would devote her life to +mourning him. He saw her bending over his tomb, in beautiful humble +curves, under a starless sky, watering the violets with her tears. + +Shades of Novalis and Friedrich Schlegel and other despicable +maunderers! He brushed them aside. He would be practical. The point was, +when and how to die? Time: the sooner the better. Manner:.. less easy to +determine. He must not die horribly, nor without dignity. The manner of +the Roman philosophers? But the only kind of bath which an undergraduate +can command is a hip-bath. Stay! there was the river. Drowning (he had +often heard) was a rather pleasant sensation. And to the river he was +even now on his way. + +It troubled him that he could swim. Twice, indeed, from his yacht, +he had swum the Hellespont. And how about the animal instinct of +self-preservation, strong even in despair? No matter! His soul’s set +purpose would subdue that. The law of gravitation that brings one to the +surface? There his very skill in swimming would help him. He would swim +under water, along the river-bed, swim till he found weeds to cling to, +weird strong weeds that he would coil round him, exulting faintly... + +As they turned into Radcliffe Square, the Duke’s ear caught the sound of +a far-distant gun. He started, and looked up at the clock of St. Mary’s. +Half-past four! The boats had started. + +He had heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, +the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate oneself. He did not +wish Zuleika to store up yet more material for penitence. And so “I am +sorry,” he said. “That gun--did you hear it? It was the signal for the +race. I shall never forgive myself.” + +“Then we shan’t see the race at all?” cried Zuleika. + +“It will be over, alas, before we are near the river. All the people +will be coming back through the meadows.” + +“Let us meet them.” + +“Meet a torrent? Let us have tea in my rooms and go down quietly for the +other Division.” + +“Let us go straight on.” + +Through the square, across the High, down Grove Street, they passed. +The Duke looked up at the tower of Merton, “os oupot authis alla nyn +paunstaton.” Strange that to-night it would still be standing here, +in all its sober and solid beauty--still be gazing, over the roofs and +chimneys, at the tower of Magdalen, its rightful bride. Through untold +centuries of the future it would stand thus, gaze thus. He winced. +Oxford walls have a way of belittling us; and the Duke was loth to +regard his doom as trivial. + +Aye, by all minerals we are mocked. Vegetables, yearly deciduous, are +far more sympathetic. The lilac and laburnum, making lovely now the +railed pathway to Christ Church meadow, were all a-swaying and a-nodding +to the Duke as he passed by. “Adieu, adieu, your Grace,” they were +whispering. “We are very sorry for you--very sorry indeed. We never +dared suppose you would predecease us. We think your death a very great +tragedy. Adieu! Perhaps we shall meet in another world--that is, if the +members of the animal kingdom have immortal souls, as we have.” + +The Duke was little versed in their language; yet, as he passed between +these gently garrulous blooms, he caught at least the drift of their +salutation, and smiled a vague but courteous acknowledgment, to the +right and the left alternately, creating a very favourable impression. + +No doubt, the young elms lining the straight way to the barges had seen +him coming; but any whispers of their leaves were lost in the murmur of +the crowd returning from the race. Here, at length, came the torrent +of which the Duke had spoken; and Zuleika’s heart rose at it. Here was +Oxford! From side to side the avenue was filled with a dense procession +of youths--youths interspersed with maidens whose parasols were as +flotsam and jetsam on a seething current of straw hats. Zuleika neither +quickened nor slackened her advance. But brightlier and brightlier shone +her eyes. + +The vanguard of the procession was pausing now, swaying, breaking at +sight of her. She passed, imperial, through the way cloven for her. All +a-down the avenue, the throng parted as though some great invisible +comb were being drawn through it. The few youths who had already +seen Zuleika, and by whom her beauty had been bruited throughout the +University, were lost in a new wonder, so incomparably fairer was she +than the remembered vision. And the rest hardly recognised her from the +descriptions, so incomparably fairer was the reality than the hope. + +She passed among them. None questioned the worthiness of her escort. +Could I give you better proof the awe in which our Duke was held? Any +man is glad to be seen escorting a very pretty woman. He thinks it adds +to his prestige. Whereas, in point of fact, his fellow-men are saying +merely “Who’s that appalling fellow with her?” or “Why does she go about +with that ass So-and-So?” Such cavil may in part be envy. But it is a +fact that no man, howsoever graced, can shine in juxtaposition to a very +pretty woman. The Duke himself cut a poor figure beside Zuleika. Yet not +one of all the undergraduates felt she could have made a wiser choice. + +She swept among them. Her own intrinsic radiance was not all that +flashed from her. She was a moving reflector and refractor of all the +rays of all the eyes that mankind had turned on her. Her mien told the +story of her days. Bright eyes, light feet--she trod erect from a vista +whose glare was dazzling to all beholders. She swept among them, a +miracle, overwhelming, breath-bereaving. Nothing at all like her had +ever been seen in Oxford. + +Mainly architectural, the beauties of Oxford. True, the place is no +longer one-sexed. There are the virguncules of Somerville and Lady +Margaret’s Hall; but beauty and the lust for learning have yet to be +allied. There are the innumerable wives and daughters around the Parks, +running in and out of their little red-brick villas; but the indignant +shade of celibacy seems to have called down on the dons a Nemesis which +precludes them from either marrying beauty or begetting it. (From the +Warden’s son, that unhappy curate, Zuleika inherited no tittle of +her charm. Some of it, there is no doubt, she did inherit from the +circus-rider who was her mother.) + +But the casual feminine visitors? Well, the sisters and cousins of an +undergraduate seldom seem more passable to his comrades than to himself. +Altogether, the instinct of sex is not pandered to in Oxford. It is not, +however, as it may once have been, dormant. The modern importation of +samples of femininity serves to keep it alert, though not to gratify it. +A like result is achieved by another modern development--photography. +The undergraduate may, and usually does, surround himself with +photographs of pretty ladies known to the public. A phantom harem! Yet +the houris have an effect on their sultan. Surrounded both by plain +women of flesh and blood and by beauteous women on pasteboard, the +undergraduate is the easiest victim of living loveliness--is as a fire +ever well and truly laid, amenable to a spark. And if the spark be such +a flaring torch as Zuleika?--marvel not, reader, at the conflagration. + +Not only was the whole throng of youths drawing asunder before her: +much of it, as she passed, was forming up in her wake. Thus, with the +confluence of two masses--one coming away from the river, the other +returning to it--chaos seethed around her and the Duke before they were +half-way along the avenue. Behind them, and on either side of them, the +people were crushed inextricably together, swaying and surging this way +and that. “Help!” cried many a shrill feminine voice. “Don’t push!” “Let +me out!” “You brute!” “Save me, save me!” Many ladies fainted, whilst +their escorts, supporting them and protecting them as best they could, +peered over the heads of their fellows for one glimpse of the divine +Miss Dobson. Yet for her and the Duke, in the midst of the terrific +compress, there was space enough. In front of them, as by a miracle +of deference, a way still cleared itself. They reached the end of the +avenue without a pause in their measured progress. Nor even when they +turned to the left, along the rather narrow path beside the barges, was +there any obstacle to their advance. Passing evenly forward, they alone +were cool, unhustled, undishevelled. + +The Duke was so rapt in his private thoughts that he was hardly +conscious of the strange scene. And as for Zuleika, she, as well she +might be, was in the very best of good humours. + +“What a lot of house-boats!” she exclaimed. “Are you going to take me on +to one of them?” + +The Duke started. Already they were alongside the Judas barge. “Here,” + he said, “is our goal.” + +He stepped through the gate of the railings, out upon the plank, and +offered her his hand. + +She looked back. The young men in the vanguard were crushing their +shoulders against the row behind them, to stay the oncoming host. She +had half a mind to go back through the midst of them; but she really did +want her tea, and she followed the Duke on to the barge, and under his +auspices climbed the steps to the roof. + +It looked very cool and gay, this roof, under its awning of red and +white stripes. Nests of red and white flowers depended along either side +of it. Zuleika moved to the side which commanded a view of the bank. She +leaned her arms on the balustrade, and gazed down. + +The crowd stretched as far as she could see--a vista of faces upturned +to her. Suddenly it hove forward. Its vanguard was swept irresistibly +past the barge--swept by the desire of the rest to see her at closer +quarters. Such was the impetus that the vision for each man was but +a lightning-flash: he was whirled past, struggling, almost before his +brain took the message of his eyes. + +Those who were Judas men made frantic efforts to board the barge, trying +to hurl themselves through the gate in the railings; but they were swept +vainly on. + +Presently the torrent began to slacken, became a mere river, a mere +procession of youths staring up rather shyly. + +Before the last stragglers had marched by, Zuleika moved away to the +other side of the roof, and, after a glance at the sunlit river, +sank into one of the wicker chairs, and asked the Duke to look less +disagreeable and to give her some tea. + +Among others hovering near the little buffet were the two youths whose +parley with the Duke I have recorded. + +Zuleika was aware of the special persistence of their gaze. When the +Duke came back with her cup, she asked him who they were. He replied, +truthfully enough, that their names were unknown to him. + +“Then,” she said, “ask them their names, and introduce them to me.” + +“No,” said the Duke, sinking into the chair beside her. “That I shall +not do. I am your victim: not your pander. Those two men stand on the +threshold of a possibly useful and agreeable career. I am not going to +trip them up for you.” + +“I am not sure,” said Zuleika, “that you are very polite. Certainly you +are foolish. It is natural for boys to fall in love. If these two are +in love with me, why not let them talk to me? It were an experience on +which they would always look back with romantic pleasure. They may never +see me again. Why grudge them this little thing?” She sipped her tea. +“As for tripping them up on a threshold--that is all nonsense. What harm +has unrequited love ever done to anybody?” She laughed. “Look at ME! +When I came to your rooms this morning, thinking I loved in vain, did I +seem one jot the worse for it? Did I look different?” + +“You looked, I am bound to say, nobler, more spiritual.” + +“More spiritual?” she exclaimed. “Do you mean I looked tired or ill?” + +“No, you seemed quite fresh. But then, you are singular. You are no +criterion.” + +“You mean you can’t judge those two young men by me? Well, I am only a +woman, of course. I have heard of women, no longer young, wasting away +because no man loved them. I have often heard of a young woman fretting +because some particular young man didn’t love her. But I never heard of +her wasting away. Certainly a young man doesn’t waste away for love of +some particular young woman. He very soon makes love to some other one. +If his be an ardent nature, the quicker his transition. All the most +ardent of my past adorers have married. Will you put my cup down, +please?” + +“Past?” echoed the Duke, as he placed her cup on the floor. “Have any of +your lovers ceased to love you?” + +“Ah no, no; not in retrospect. I remain their ideal, and all that, of +course. They cherish the thought of me. They see the world in terms of +me. But I am an inspiration, not an obsession; a glow, not a blight.” + +“You don’t believe in the love that corrodes, the love that ruins?” + +“No,” laughed Zuleika. + +“You have never dipped into the Greek pastoral poets, nor sampled the +Elizabethan sonneteers?” + +“No, never. You will think me lamentably crude: my experience of life +has been drawn from life itself.” + +“Yet often you talk as though you had read rather much. Your way of +speech has what is called ‘the literary flavour’.” + +“Ah, that is an unfortunate trick which I caught from a writer, a Mr. +Beerbohm, who once sat next to me at dinner somewhere. I can’t break +myself of it. I assure you I hardly ever open a book. Of life, though, +my experience has been very wide. Brief? But I suppose the soul of man +during the past two or three years has been much as it was in the reign +of Queen Elizabeth and of--whoever it was that reigned over the Greek +pastures. And I daresay the modern poets are making the same old silly +distortions. But forgive me,” she added gently, “perhaps you yourself +are a poet?” + +“Only since yesterday,” answered the Duke (not less unfairly to himself +than to Roger Newdigate and Thomas Gaisford). And he felt he was +especially a dramatic poet. All the while that she had been sitting by +him here, talking so glibly, looking so straight into his eyes, flashing +at him so many pretty gestures, it was the sense of tragic irony +that prevailed in him--that sense which had stirred in him, and been +repressed, on the way from Judas. He knew that she was making her effect +consciously for the other young men by whom the roof of the barge was +now thronged. Him alone she seemed to observe. By her manner, she might +have seemed to be making love to him. He envied the men she was so +deliberately making envious--the men whom, in her undertone to him, she +was really addressing. But he did take comfort in the irony. Though she +used him as a stalking-horse, he, after all, was playing with her as a +cat plays with a mouse. While she chattered on, without an inkling that +he was no ordinary lover, and coaxing him to present two quite ordinary +young men to her, he held over her the revelation that he for love of +her was about to die. + +And, while he drank in the radiance of her beauty, he heard her +chattering on. “So you see,” she was saying, “it couldn’t do those young +men any harm. Suppose unrequited love IS anguish: isn’t the discipline +wholesome? Suppose I AM a sort of furnace: shan’t I purge, refine, +temper? Those two boys are but scorched from here. That is horrid; and +what good will it do them?” She laid a hand on his arm. “Cast them into +the furnace for their own sake, dear Duke! Or cast one of them, or,” she +added, glancing round at the throng, “any one of these others!” + +“For their own sake?” he echoed, withdrawing his arm. “If you were not, +as the whole world knows you to be, perfectly respectable, there might +be something in what you say. But as it is, you can but be an engine for +mischief; and your sophistries leave me unmoved. I shall certainly keep +you to myself.” + +“I hate you,” said Zuleika, with an ugly petulance that crowned the +irony. + +“So long as I live,” uttered the Duke, in a level voice, “you will +address no man but me.” + +“If your prophecy is to be fulfilled,” laughed Zuleika, rising from her +chair, “your last moment is at hand.” + +“It is,” he answered, rising too. + +“What do you mean?” she asked, awed by something in his tone. + +“I mean what I say: that my last moment is at hand.” He withdrew +his eyes from hers, and, leaning his elbows on the balustrade, gazed +thoughtfully at the river. “When I am dead,” he added, over his +shoulder, “you will find these fellows rather coy of your advances.” + +For the first time since his avowal of his love for her, Zuleika found +herself genuinely interested in him. A suspicion of his meaning had +flashed through her soul.--But no! surely he could not mean THAT! It +must have been a metaphor merely. And yet, something in his eyes... She +leaned beside him. Her shoulder touched his. She gazed questioningly at +him. He did not turn his face to her. He gazed at the sunlit river. + +The Judas Eight had just embarked for their voyage to the +starting-point. Standing on the edge of the raft that makes a floating +platform for the barge, William, the hoary bargee, was pushing them off +with his boat-hook, wishing them luck with deferential familiarity. +The raft was thronged with Old Judasians--mostly clergymen--who were +shouting hearty hortations, and evidently trying not to appear so old +as they felt--or rather, not to appear so startlingly old as their +contemporaries looked to them. It occurred to the Duke as a strange +thing, and a thing to be glad of, that he, in this world, would never be +an Old Judasian. Zuleika’s shoulder pressed his. He thrilled not at all. +To all intents, he was dead already. + +The enormous eight young men in the thread-like skiff--the skiff that +would scarce have seemed an adequate vehicle for the tiny “cox” who sat +facing them--were staring up at Zuleika with that uniformity of impulse +which, in another direction, had enabled them to bump a boat on two of +the previous “nights.” If to-night they bumped the next boat, Univ., +then would Judas be three places “up” on the river; and to-morrow Judas +would have a Bump Supper. Furthermore, if Univ. were bumped to-night, +Magdalen might be bumped to-morrow. Then would Judas, for the first +time in history, be head of the river. Oh tremulous hope! Yet, for +the moment, these eight young men seemed to have forgotten the awful +responsibility that rested on their over-developed shoulders. Their +hearts, already strained by rowing, had been transfixed this afternoon +by Eros’ darts. All of them had seen Zuleika as she came down to the +river; and now they sat gaping up at her, fumbling with their oars. The +tiny cox gaped too; but he it was who first recalled duty. With piping +adjurations he brought the giants back to their senses. The boat moved +away down stream, with a fairly steady stroke. + +Not in a day can the traditions of Oxford be sent spinning. From all the +barges the usual punt-loads of young men were being ferried across +to the towing-path--young men naked of knee, armed with rattles, +post-horns, motor-hooters, gongs, and other instruments of clangour. +Though Zuleika filled their thoughts, they hurried along the +towing-path, as by custom, to the starting-point. + +She, meanwhile, had not taken her eyes off the Duke’s profile. Nor +had she dared, for fear of disappointment, to ask him just what he had +meant. + +“All these men,” he repeated dreamily, “will be coy of your advances.” + It seemed to him a good thing that his death, his awful example, would +disinfatuate his fellow alumni. He had never been conscious of +public spirit. He had lived for himself alone. Love had come to him +yesternight, and to-day had waked in him a sympathy with mankind. It +was a fine thing to be a saviour. It was splendid to be human. He looked +quickly round to her who had wrought this change in him. + +But the loveliest face in all the world will not please you if you see +it suddenly, eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own. +It was thus that the Duke saw Zuleika’s: a monstrous deliquium a-glare. +Only for the fraction of an instant, though. Recoiling, he beheld the +loveliness that he knew--more adorably vivid now in its look of eager +questioning. And in his every fibre he thrilled to her. Even so had she +gazed at him last night, this morning. Aye, now as then, her soul was +full of him. He had recaptured, not her love, but his power to please +her. It was enough. He bowed his head; and “Moriturus te saluto” were +the words formed silently by his lips. He was glad that his death would +be a public service to the University. But the salutary lesson of +what the newspapers would call his “rash act” was, after all, only a +side-issue. The great thing, the prospect that flushed his cheek, was +the consummation of his own love, for its own sake, by his own death. +And, as he met her gaze, the question that had already flitted through +his brain found a faltering utterance; and “Shall you mourn me?” he +asked her. + +But she would have no ellipses. “What are you going to do?” she +whispered. + +“Do you not know?” + +“Tell me.” + +“Once and for all: you cannot love me?” + +Slowly she shook her head. The black pearl and the pink, quivering, gave +stress to her ultimatum. But the violet of her eyes was all but hidden +by the dilation of her pupils. + +“Then,” whispered the Duke, “when I shall have died, deeming life a vain +thing without you, will the gods give you tears for me? Miss Dobson, +will your soul awaken? When I shall have sunk for ever beneath these +waters whose supposed purpose here this afternoon is but that they be +ploughed by the blades of these young oarsmen, will there be struck from +that flint, your heart, some late and momentary spark of pity for me?” + +“Why of course, of COURSE!” babbled Zuleika, with clasped hands and +dazzling eyes. “But,” she curbed herself, “it is--it would--oh, you +mustn’t THINK of it! I couldn’t allow it! I--I should never forgive +myself!” + +“In fact, you would mourn me always?” + +“Why yes!.. Y-es-always.” What else could she say? But would his answer +be that he dared not condemn her to lifelong torment? + +“Then,” his answer was, “my joy in dying for you is made perfect.” + +Her muscles relaxed. Her breath escaped between her teeth. “You are +utterly resolved?” she asked. “Are you?” + +“Utterly.” + +“Nothing I might say could change your purpose?” + +“Nothing.” + +“No entreaty, howsoever piteous, could move you?” + +“None.” + +Forthwith she urged, entreated, cajoled, commanded, with infinite +prettiness of ingenuity and of eloquence. Never was such a cascade of +dissuasion as hers. She only didn’t say she could love him. She never +hinted that. Indeed, throughout her pleading rang this recurrent motif: +that he must live to take to himself as mate some good, serious, clever +woman who would be a not unworthy mother of his children. + +She laid stress on his youth, his great position, his brilliant +attainments, the much he had already achieved, the splendid +possibilities of his future. Though of course she spoke in undertones, +not to be overheard by the throng on the barge, it was almost as though +his health were being floridly proposed at some public banquet--say, +at a Tenants’ Dinner. Insomuch that, when she ceased, the Duke half +expected Jellings, his steward, to bob up uttering, with lifted hands, a +stentorian “For-or,” and all the company to take up the chant: “he’s--a +jolly good fellow.” His brief reply, on those occasions, seemed always +to indicate that, whatever else he might be, a jolly good fellow he was +not. But by Zuleika’s eulogy he really was touched. “Thank you--thank +you,” he gasped; and there were tears in his eyes. Dear the thought that +she so revered him, so wished him not to die. But this was no more than +a rush-light in the austere radiance of his joy in dying for her. + +And the time was come. Now for the sacrament of his immersion in +infinity. + +“Good-bye,” he said simply, and was about to swing himself on to the +ledge of the balustrade. Zuleika, divining his intention, made way for +him. Her bosom heaved quickly, quickly. All colour had left her face; +but her eyes shone as never before. + +Already his foot was on the ledge, when hark! the sound of a distant +gun. To Zuleika, with all the chords of her soul strung to the utmost +tensity, the effect was as if she herself had been shot; and she +clutched at the Duke’s arm, like a frightened child. He laughed. “It was +the signal for the race,” he said, and laughed again, rather bitterly, +at the crude and trivial interruption of high matters. + +“The race?” She laughed hysterically. + +“Yes. ‘They’re off’.” He mingled his laughter with hers, gently seeking +to disengage his arm. “And perhaps,” he said, “I, clinging to the weeds +of the river’s bed, shall see dimly the boats and the oars pass over me, +and shall be able to gurgle a cheer for Judas.” + +“Don’t!” she shuddered, with a woman’s notion that a jest means levity. +A tumult of thoughts surged in her, all confused. She only knew that +he must not die--not yet! A moment ago, his death would have been +beautiful. Not now! Her grip of his arm tightened. Only by breaking her +wrist could he have freed himself. A moment ago, she had been in the +seventh-heaven... Men were supposed to have died for love of her. It +had never been proved. There had always been something--card-debts, +ill-health, what not--to account for the tragedy. No man, to the best +of her recollection, had ever hinted that he was going to die for her. +Never, assuredly, had she seen the deed done. And then came he, the +first man she had loved, going to die here, before her eyes, because she +no longer loved him. But she knew now that he must not die--not yet! + +All around her was the hush that falls on Oxford when the signal for the +race has sounded. In the distance could be heard faintly the noise of +cheering--a little sing-song sound, drawing nearer. + +Ah, how could she have thought of letting him die so soon? She gazed +into his face--the face she might never have seen again. Even now, but +for that gun-shot, the waters would have closed over him, and his soul, +maybe, have passed away. She had saved him, thank heaven! She had him +still with her. + +Gently, vainly, he still sought to unclasp her fingers from his arm. + +“Not now!” she whispered. “Not yet!” + +And the noise of the cheering, and of the trumpeting and rattling, as +it drew near, was an accompaniment to her joy in having saved her lover. +She would keep him with her--for a while! Let all be done in order. She +would savour the full sweetness of his sacrifice. Tomorrow--to-morrow, +yes, let him have his heart’s desire of death. Not now! Not yet! + +“To-morrow,” she whispered, “to-morrow, if you will. Not yet!” + +The first boat came jerking past in mid-stream; and the towing-path, +with its serried throng of runners, was like a live thing, keeping pace. +As in a dream, Zuleika saw it. And the din was in her ears. No heroine +of Wagner had ever a louder accompaniment than had ours to the surging +soul within her bosom. + +And the Duke, tightly held by her, vibrated as to a powerful electric +current. He let her cling to him, and her magnetism range through him. +Ah, it was good not to have died! Fool, he had meant to drain off-hand, +at one coarse draught, the delicate wine of death. He would let his lips +caress the brim of the august goblet. He would dally with the aroma that +was there. + +“So be it!” he cried into Zuleika’s ear--cried loudly, for it seemed as +though all the Wagnerian orchestras of Europe, with the Straussian ones +thrown in, were here to clash in unison the full volume of right music +for the glory of the reprieve. + +The fact was that the Judas boat had just bumped Univ., exactly opposite +the Judas barge. The oarsmen in either boat sat humped, panting, some of +them rocking and writhing, after their wholesome exercise. But there +was not one of them whose eyes were not upcast at Zuleika. And the +vocalisation and instrumentation of the dancers and stampers on the +towing-path had by this time ceased to mean aught of joy in the victors +or of comfort for the vanquished, and had resolved itself into a wild +wordless hymn to the glory of Miss Dobson. Behind her and all around her +on the roof of the barge, young Judasians were venting in like manner +their hearts through their lungs. She paid no heed. It was as if she +stood alone with her lover on some silent pinnacle of the world. It was +as if she were a little girl with a brand-new and very expensive doll +which had banished all the little other old toys from her mind. + +She simply could not, in her naive rapture, take her eyes off her +companion. To the dancers and stampers of the towing-path, many of whom +were now being ferried back across the river, and to the other youths +on the roof of the barge, Zuleika’s air of absorption must have seemed +a little strange. For already the news that the Duke loved Zuleika, and +that she loved him not, and would stoop to no man who loved her, had +spread like wild-fire among the undergraduates. The two youths in whom +the Duke had deigned to confide had not held their peace. And the effect +that Zuleika had made as she came down to the river was intensified by +the knowledge that not the great paragon himself did she deem worthy of +her. The mere sight of her had captured young Oxford. The news of her +supernal haughtiness had riveted the chains. + +“Come!” said the Duke at length, staring around him with the eyes of one +awakened from a dream. “Come! I must take you back to Judas.” + +“But you won’t leave me there?” pleaded Zuleika. “You will stay to +dinner? I am sure my grandfather would be delighted.” + +“I am sure he would,” said the Duke, as he piloted her down the steps of +the barge. “But alas, I have to dine at the Junta to-night.” + +“The Junta? What is that?” + +“A little dining-club. It meets every Tuesday.” + +“But--you don’t mean you are going to refuse me for that?” + +“To do so is misery. But I have no choice. I have asked a guest.” + +“Then ask another: ask me!” Zuleika’s notions of Oxford life were rather +hazy. It was with difficulty that the Duke made her realise that he +could not--not even if, as she suggested, she dressed herself up as a +man--invite her to the Junta. She then fell back on the impossibility +that he would not dine with her to-night, his last night in this world. +She could not understand that admirable fidelity to social engagements +which is one of the virtues implanted in the members of our aristocracy. +Bohemian by training and by career, she construed the Duke’s refusal as +either a cruel slight to herself or an act of imbecility. The thought of +being parted from her for one moment was torture to him; but “noblesse +oblige,” and it was quite impossible for him to break an engagement +merely because a more charming one offered itself: he would as soon have +cheated at cards. + +And so, as they went side by side up the avenue, in the mellow light +of the westering sun, preceded in their course, and pursued, and +surrounded, by the mob of hoarse infatuate youths, Zuleika’s face was +as that of a little girl sulking. Vainly the Duke reasoned with her. She +could NOT see the point of view. + +With that sudden softening that comes to the face of an angry woman who +has hit on a good argument, she turned to him and asked “How if I hadn’t +saved your life just now? Much you thought about your guest when you +were going to dive and die!” + +“I did not forget him,” answered the Duke, smiling at her casuistry. +“Nor had I any scruple in disappointing him. Death cancels all +engagements.” + +And Zuleika, worsted, resumed her sulking. But presently, as they neared +Judas, she relented. It was paltry to be cross with him who had resolved +to die for her and was going to die so on the morrow. And after all, she +would see him at the concert to-night. They would sit together. And all +to-morrow they would be together, till the time came for parting. Hers +was a naturally sunny disposition. And the evening was such a lovely +one, all bathed in gold. She was ashamed of her ill-humour. + +“Forgive me,” she said, touching his arm. “Forgive me for being horrid.” + And forgiven she promptly was. “And promise you will spend all to-morrow +with me.” And of course he promised. + +As they stood together on the steps of the Warden’s front-door, exalted +above the level of the flushed and swaying crowd that filled the whole +length and breadth of Judas Street, she implored him not to be late for +the concert. + +“I am never late,” he smiled. + +“Ah, you’re so beautifully brought up!” + +The door was opened. + +“And--oh, you’re beautiful besides!” she whispered; and waved her hand +to him as she vanished into the hall. + + + + +VIII + +A few minutes before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner, +passed leisurely up the High. The arresting feature of his costume was +a mulberry-coloured coat, with brass buttons. This, to any one versed in +Oxford lore, betokened him a member of the Junta. It is awful to think +that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It does +not do to think of such things. + +The tradesmen, at the doors of their shops, bowed low as he passed, +rubbing their hands and smiling, hoping inwardly that they took no +liberty in sharing the cool rosy air of the evening with his Grace. They +noted that he wore in his shirt-front a black pearl and a pink. “Daring, +but becoming,” they opined. + +The rooms of the Junta were over a stationer’s shop, next door but one +to the Mitre. They were small rooms; but as the Junta had now, besides +the Duke, only two members, and as no member might introduce more than +one guest, there was ample space. + +The Duke had been elected in his second term. At that time there were +four members; but these were all leaving Oxford at the end of the summer +term, and there seemed to be in the ranks of the Bullingdon and the +Loder no one quite eligible for the Junta, that holy of holies. Thus it +was that the Duke inaugurated in solitude his second year of membership. +From time to time, he proposed and seconded a few candidates, after +“sounding” them as to whether they were willing to join. But always, +when election evening--the last Tuesday of term--drew near, he began to +have his doubts about these fellows. This one was “rowdy”; that one +was over-dressed; another did not ride quite straight to hounds; in the +pedigree of another a bar-sinister was more than suspected. Election +evening was always a rather melancholy time. After dinner, when the two +club servants had placed on the mahogany the time-worn Candidates’ Book +and the ballot-box, and had noiselessly withdrawn, the Duke, clearing +his throat, read aloud to himself “Mr. So-and-So, of Such-and-Such +College, proposed by the Duke of Dorset, seconded by the Duke of +Dorset,” and, in every case, when he drew out the drawer of the +ballot-box, found it was a black-ball that he had dropped into the urn. +Thus it was that at the end of the summer term the annual photographic +“group” taken by Messrs. Hills and Saunders was a presentment of the +Duke alone. + +In the course of his third year he had become less exclusive. Not +because there seemed to be any one really worthy of the Junta; but +because the Junta, having thriven since the eighteenth century, must +not die. Suppose--one never knew--he were struck by lightning, the Junta +would be no more. So, not without reluctance, but unanimously, he had +elected The MacQuern, of Balliol, and Sir John Marraby, of Brasenose. + +To-night, as he, a doomed man, went up into the familiar rooms, he was +wholly glad that he had thus relented. As yet, he was spared the tragic +knowledge that it would make no difference.* + + * The Junta has been reconstituted. But the apostolic line was + broken, the thread was snapped; the old magic is fled. + +The MacQuern and two other young men were already there. + +“Mr. President,” said The MacQuern, “I present Mr. Trent-Garby, of +Christ Church.” + +“The Junta is honoured,” said the Duke, bowing. + +Such was the ritual of the club. + +The other young man, because his host, Sir John Marraby, was not yet on +the scene, had no locus standi, and, though a friend of The MacQuern, +and well known to the Duke, had to be ignored. + +A moment later, Sir John arrived. “Mr. President,” he said, “I present +Lord Sayes, of Magdalen.” + +“The Junta is honoured,” said the Duke, bowing. + +Both hosts and both guests, having been prominent in the throng that +vociferated around Zuleika an hour earlier, were slightly abashed in +the Duke’s presence. He, however, had not noticed any one in particular, +and, even if he had, that fine tradition of the club--“A member of the +Junta can do no wrong; a guest of the Junta cannot err”--would have +prevented him from showing his displeasure. + +A Herculean figure filled the doorway. + +“The Junta is honoured,” said the Duke, bowing to his guest. + +“Duke,” said the newcomer quietly, “the honour is as much mine as +that of the interesting and ancient institution which I am this night +privileged to inspect.” + +Turning to Sir John and The MacQuern, the Duke said “I present Mr. +Abimelech V. Oover, of Trinity.” + +“The Junta,” they replied, “is honoured.” + +“Gentlemen,” said the Rhodes Scholar, “your good courtesy is just such +as I would have anticipated from members of the ancient Junta. Like most +of my countrymen, I am a man of few words. We are habituated out there +to act rather than talk. Judged from the view-point of your beautiful +old civilisation, I am aware my curtness must seem crude. But, +gentlemen, believe me, right here--” + +“Dinner is served, your Grace.” + +Thus interrupted, Mr. Oover, with the resourcefulness of a practised +orator, brought his thanks to a quick but not abrupt conclusion. The +little company passed into the front room. + +Through the window, from the High, fading daylight mingled with the +candle-light. The mulberry coats of the hosts, interspersed by the black +ones of the guests, made a fine pattern around the oval table a-gleam +with the many curious pieces of gold and silver plate that had accrued +to the Junta in course of years. + +The President showed much deference to his guest. He seemed to listen +with close attention to the humorous anecdote with which, in the +American fashion, Mr. Oover inaugurated dinner. + +To all Rhodes Scholars, indeed, his courtesy was invariable. He went out +of his way to cultivate them. And this he did more as a favour to Lord +Milner than of his own caprice. He found these Scholars, good fellows +though they were, rather oppressive. They had not--how could they +have?--the undergraduate’s virtue of taking Oxford as a matter of +course. The Germans loved it too little, the Colonials too much. The +Americans were, to a sensitive observer, the most troublesome--as being +the most troubled--of the whole lot. The Duke was not one of those +Englishmen who fling, or care to hear flung, cheap sneers at America. +Whenever any one in his presence said that America was not large +in area, he would firmly maintain that it was. He held, too, in his +enlightened way, that Americans have a perfect right to exist. But +he did often find himself wishing Mr. Rhodes had not enabled them to +exercise that right in Oxford. They were so awfully afraid of having +their strenuous native characters undermined by their delight in the +place. They held that the future was theirs, a glorious asset, far more +glorious than the past. But a theory, as the Duke saw, is one thing, an +emotion another. It is so much easier to covet what one hasn’t than to +revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic +about what exists than about what doesn’t. The future doesn’t exist. The +past does. For, whereas all men can learn, the gift of prophecy has died +out. A man cannot work up in his breast any real excitement about what +possibly won’t happen. He cannot very well help being sentimentally +interested in what he knows has happened. On the other hand, he owes a +duty to his country. And, if his country be America, he ought to try to +feel a vivid respect for the future, and a cold contempt for the past. +Also, if he be selected by his country as a specimen of the best moral, +physical, and intellectual type that she can produce for the astounding +of the effete foreigner, and incidentally for the purpose of raising +that foreigner’s tone, he must--mustn’t he?--do his best to astound, +to exalt. But then comes in this difficulty. Young men don’t like to +astound and exalt their fellows. And Americans, individually, are of +all people the most anxious to please. That they talk overmuch is often +taken as a sign of self-satisfaction. It is merely a mannerism. Rhetoric +is a thing inbred in them. They are quite unconscious of it. It is as +natural to them as breathing. And, while they talk on, they really do +believe that they are a quick, businesslike people, by whom things are +“put through” with an almost brutal abruptness. This notion of theirs is +rather confusing to the patient English auditor. + +Altogether, the American Rhodes Scholars, with their splendid native +gift of oratory, and their modest desire to please, and their not less +evident feeling that they ought merely to edify, and their constant +delight in all that of Oxford their English brethren don’t notice, and +their constant fear that they are being corrupted, are a noble, rather +than a comfortable, element in the social life of the University. So, at +least, they seemed to the Duke. + +And to-night, but that he had invited Oover to dine with him, he could +have been dining with Zuleika. And this was his last dinner on earth. +Such thoughts made him the less able to take pleasure in his guest. +Perfect, however, the amenity of his manner. + +This was the more commendable because Oover’s “aura” was even more +disturbing than that of the average Rhodes Scholar. To-night, besides +the usual conflicts in this young man’s bosom, raged a special one +between his desire to behave well and his jealousy of the man who had +to-day been Miss Dobson’s escort. In theory he denied the Duke’s right +to that honour. In sentiment he admitted it. Another conflict, you see. +And another. He longed to orate about the woman who had his heart; yet +she was the one topic that must be shirked. + +The MacQuern and Mr. Trent-Garby, Sir John Marraby and Lord Sayes, they +too--though they were no orators--would fain have unpacked their hearts +in words about Zuleika. They spoke of this and that, automatically, none +listening to another--each man listening, wide-eyed, to his own heart’s +solo on the Zuleika theme, and drinking rather more champagne than was +good for him. Maybe, these youths sowed in themselves, on this night, +the seeds of lifelong intemperance. We cannot tell. They did not live +long enough for us to know. + +While the six dined, a seventh, invisible to them, leaned moodily +against the mantel-piece, watching them. He was not of their time. His +long brown hair was knotted in a black riband behind. He wore a pale +brocaded coat and lace ruffles, silken stockings, a sword. Privy to +their doom, he watched them. He was loth that his Junta must die. Yes, +his. Could the diners have seen him, they would have known him by his +resemblance to the mezzotint portrait that hung on the wall above him. +They would have risen to their feet in presence of Humphrey Greddon, +founder and first president of the club. + +His face was not so oval, nor were his eyes so big, nor his lips so +full, nor his hands so delicate, as they appeared in the mezzotint. Yet +(bating the conventions of eighteenth-century portraiture) the likeness +was a good one. Humphrey Greddon was not less well-knit and graceful +than the painter had made him, and, hard though the lines of the face +were, there was about him a certain air of high romance that could not +be explained away by the fact that he was of a period not our own. You +could understand the great love that Nellie O’Mora had borne him. + +Under the mezzotint hung Hoppner’s miniature of that lovely and +ill-starred girl, with her soft dark eyes, and her curls all astray from +beneath her little blue turban. And the Duke was telling Mr. Oover her +story--how she had left her home for Humphrey Greddon when she was but +sixteen, and he an undergraduate at Christ Church; and had lived for him +in a cottage at Littlemore, whither he would ride, most days, to be with +her; and how he tired of her, broke his oath that he would marry her, +thereby broke her heart; and how she drowned herself in a mill-pond; and +how Greddon was killed in Venice, two years later, duelling on the Riva +Schiavoni with a Senator whose daughter he had seduced. + +And he, Greddon, was not listening very attentively to the tale. He +had heard it told so often in this room, and he did not understand +the sentiments of the modern world. Nellie had been a monstrous pretty +creature. He had adored her, and had done with her. It was right that +she should always be toasted after dinner by the Junta, as in the days +when first he loved her--“Here’s to Nellie O’Mora, the fairest witch +that ever was or will be!” He would have resented the omission of that +toast. But he was sick of the pitying, melting looks that were always +cast towards her miniature. Nellie had been beautiful, but, by God! she +was always a dunce and a simpleton. How could he have spent his life +with her? She was a fool, by God! not to marry that fool Trailby, of +Merton, whom he took to see her. + +Mr. Oover’s moral tone, and his sense of chivalry, were of the American +kind: far higher than ours, even, and far better expressed. Whereas the +English guests of the Junta, when they heard the tale of Nellie O’Mora, +would merely murmur “Poor girl!” or “What a shame!” Mr. Oover said in a +tone of quiet authority that compelled Greddon’s ear “Duke, I hope I am +not incognisant of the laws that govern the relations of guest and host. +But, Duke, I aver deliberately that the founder of this fine old +club; at which you are so splendidly entertaining me to-night, was an +unmitigated scoundrel. I say he was not a white man.” + +At the word “scoundrel,” Humphrey Greddon had sprung forward, drawing +his sword, and loudly, in a voice audible to himself alone, challenged +the American to make good his words. Then, as this gentleman took no +notice, with one clean straight thrust Greddon ran him through the +heart, shouting “Die, you damned psalm-singer and traducer! And so die +all rebels against King George!”* Withdrawing the blade, he wiped it +daintily on his cambric handkerchief. There was no blood. Mr. Oover, +with unpunctured shirt-front, was repeating “I say he was not a white +man.” And Greddon remembered himself--remembered he was only a ghost, +impalpable, impotent, of no account. “But I shall meet you in Hell +to-morrow,” he hissed in Oover’s face. And there he was wrong. It is +quite certain that Oover went to Heaven. + + * As Edward VII. was at this time on the throne, it must have been + to George III. that Mr. Greddon was referring. + +Unable to avenge himself, Greddon had looked to the Duke to act for him. +When he saw that this young man did but smile at Oover and make a vague +deprecatory gesture, he again, in his wrath, forgot his disabilities. +Drawing himself to his full height, he took with great deliberation a +pinch of snuff, and, bowing low to the Duke, said “I am vastly obleeged +to your Grace for the fine high Courage you have exhibited in the behalf +of your most Admiring, most Humble Servant.” Then, having brushed away +a speck of snuff from his jabot, he turned on his heel; and only in the +doorway, where one of the club servants, carrying a decanter in each +hand, walked straight through him, did he realise that he had not +spoilt the Duke’s evening. With a volley of the most appalling +eighteenth-century oaths, he passed back into the nether world. + +To the Duke, Nellie O’Mora had never been a very vital figure. He had +often repeated the legend of her. But, having never known what love was, +he could not imagine her rapture or her anguish. Himself the quarry of +all Mayfair’s wise virgins, he had always--so far as he thought of +the matter at all--suspected that Nellie’s death was due to thwarted +ambition. But to-night, while he told Oover about her, he could see +into her soul. Nor did he pity her. She had loved. She had known the +one thing worth living for--and dying for. She, as she went down to the +mill-pond, had felt just that ecstasy of self-sacrifice which he himself +had felt to-day and would feel to-morrow. And for a while, too--for a +full year--she had known the joy of being loved, had been for Greddon +“the fairest witch that ever was or will be.” He could not agree with +Oover’s long disquisition on her sufferings. And, glancing at her +well-remembered miniature, he wondered just what it was in her that had +captivated Greddon. He was in that blest state when a man cannot believe +the earth has been trodden by any really beautiful or desirable lady +save the lady of his own heart. + +The moment had come for the removal of the table-cloth. The mahogany of +the Junta was laid bare--a clear dark lake, anon to reflect in its still +and ruddy depths the candelabras and the fruit-cradles, the slender +glasses and the stout old decanters, the forfeit-box and the snuff-box, +and other paraphernalia of the dignity of dessert. Lucidly, and +unwaveringly inverted in the depths these good things stood; and, so +soon as the wine had made its circuit, the Duke rose and with uplifted +glass proposed the first of the two toasts traditional to the Junta. +“Gentlemen, I give you Church and State.” + +The toast having been honoured by all--and by none with a richer +reverence than by Oover, despite his passionate mental reservation in +favour of Pittsburg-Anabaptism and the Republican Ideal--the snuff-box +was handed round, and fruit was eaten. + +Presently, when the wine had gone round again, the Duke rose and with +uplifted glass said “Gentlemen, I give you--” and there halted. +Silent, frowning, flushed, he stood for a few moments, and then, with +a deliberate gesture, tilted his glass and let fall the wine to the +carpet. “No,” he said, looking round the table, “I cannot give you +Nellie O’Mora.” + +“Why not?” gasped Sir John Marraby. + +“You have a right to ask that,” said the Duke, still standing. “I can +only say that my conscience is stronger than my sense of what is due to +the customs of the club. Nellie O’Mora,” he said, passing his hand over +his brow, “may have been in her day the fairest witch that ever was--so +fair that our founder had good reason to suppose her the fairest witch +that ever would be. But his prediction was a false one. So at least it +seems to me. Of course I cannot both hold this view and remain President +of this club. MacQuern--Marraby--which of you is Vice-President?” + +“He is,” said Marraby. + +“Then, MacQuern, you are hereby President, vice myself resigned. Take +the chair and propose the toast.” + +“I would rather not,” said The MacQuern after a pause. + +“Then, Marraby, YOU must.” + +“Not I!” said Marraby. + +“Why is this?” asked the Duke, looking from one to the other. + +The MacQuern, with Scotch caution, was silent. But the impulsive +Marraby--Madcap Marraby, as they called him in B.N.C.--said “It’s +because I won’t lie!” and, leaping up, raised his glass aloft and cried +“I give you Zuleika Dobson, the fairest witch that ever was or will be!” + +Mr. Oover, Lord Sayes, Mr. Trent-Garby, sprang to their feet; The +MacQuern rose to his. “Zuleika Dobson!” they cried, and drained their +glasses. + +Then, when they had resumed their seats, came an awkward pause. The +Duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave +and pale. Marraby had taken an outrageous liberty. But “a member of the +Junta can do no wrong,” and the liberty could not be resented. The Duke +felt that the blame was on himself, who had elected Marraby to the club. + +Mr. Oover, too, looked grave. All the antiquarian in him deplored +the sudden rupture of a fine old Oxford tradition. All the chivalrous +American in him resented the slight on that fair victim of the feudal +system, Miss O’Mora. And, at the same time, all the Abimelech V. in him +rejoiced at having honoured by word and act the one woman in the world. + +Gazing around at the flushed faces and heaving shirt-fronts of the +diners, the Duke forgot Marraby’s misdemeanour. What mattered far more +to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of +Zuleika. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his +influence was in the University. He knew also how strong was Zuleika’s. +He had not much hope of the issue. But his new-born sense of duty to his +fellows spurred him on. “Is there,” he asked with a bitter smile, “any +one of you who doesn’t with his whole heart love Miss Dobson?” + +Nobody held up a hand. + +“As I feared,” said the Duke, knowing not that if a hand had been held +up he would have taken it as a personal insult. No man really in love +can forgive another for not sharing his ardour. His jealousy for himself +when his beloved prefers another man is hardly a stronger passion than +his jealousy for her when she is not preferred to all other women. + +“You know her only by sight--by repute?” asked the Duke. They signified +that this was so. “I wish you would introduce me to her,” said Marraby. + +“You are all coming to the Judas concert tonight?” the Duke asked, +ignoring Marraby. “You have all secured tickets?” They nodded. “To hear +me play, or to see Miss Dobson?” There was a murmur of “Both--both.” + “And you would all of you, like Marraby, wish to be presented to this +lady?” Their eyes dilated. “That way happiness lies, think you?” + +“Oh, happiness be hanged!” said Marraby. + +To the Duke this seemed a profoundly sane remark--an epitome of his own +sentiments. But what was right for himself was not right for all. He +believed in convention as the best way for average mankind. And so, +slowly, calmly, he told to his fellow-diners just what he had told a few +hours earlier to those two young men in Salt Cellar. Not knowing that +his words had already been spread throughout Oxford, he was rather +surprised that they seemed to make no sensation. Quite flat, too, fell +his appeal that the syren be shunned by all. + +Mr. Oover, during his year of residence, had been sorely tried by the +quaint old English custom of not making public speeches after private +dinners. It was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that he now rose to his +feet. + +“Duke,” he said in a low voice, which yet penetrated to every corner +of the room, “I guess I am voicing these gentlemen when I say that your +words show up your good heart, all the time. Your mentality, too, is +bully, as we all predicate. One may say without exaggeration that your +scholarly and social attainments are a by-word throughout the solar +system, and be-yond. We rightly venerate you as our boss. Sir, we +worship the ground you walk on. But we owe a duty to our own free and +independent manhood. Sir, we worship the ground Miss Z. Dobson treads +on. We have pegged out a claim right there. And from that location +we aren’t to be budged--not for bob-nuts. We asseverate we +squat--where--we--squat, come--what--will. You say we have no chance to +win Miss Z. Dobson. That--we--know. We aren’t worthy. We lie prone. Let +her walk over us. You say her heart is cold. We don’t pro-fess we +can take the chill off. But, Sir, we can’t be diverted out of loving +her--not even by you, Sir. No, Sir! We love her, and--shall, and--will, +Sir, with--our--latest breath.” + +This peroration evoked loud applause. “I love her, and shall, and will,” + shouted each man. And again they honoured in wine her image. Sir John +Marraby uttered a cry familiar in the hunting-field. The MacQuern +contributed a few bars of a sentimental ballad in the dialect of his +country. “Hurrah, hurrah!” shouted Mr. Trent-Garby. Lord Sayes hummed +the latest waltz, waving his arms to its rhythm, while the wine he had +just spilt on his shirt-front trickled unheeded to his waistcoat. Mr. +Oover gave the Yale cheer. + +The genial din was wafted down through the open window to the +passers-by. The wine-merchant across the way heard it, and smiled +pensively. “Youth, youth!” he murmured. + +The genial din grew louder. + +At any other time, the Duke would have been jarred by the disgrace to +the Junta. But now, as he stood with bent head, covering his face with +his hands, he thought only of the need to rid these young men, here +and now, of the influence that had befallen them. To-morrow his tragic +example might be too late, the mischief have sunk too deep, the agony be +life-long. His good breeding forbade him to cast over a dinner-table the +shadow of his death. His conscience insisted that he must. He uncovered +his face, and held up one hand for silence. + +“We are all of us,” he said, “old enough to remember vividly the +demonstrations made in the streets of London when war was declared +between us and the Transvaal Republic. You, Mr. Oover, doubtless heard +in America the echoes of those ebullitions. The general idea was that +the war was going to be a very brief and simple affair--what was called +‘a walk-over.’ To me, though I was only a small boy, it seemed that all +this delirious pride in the prospect of crushing a trumpery foe argued +a defect in our sense of proportion. Still, I was able to understand the +demonstrators’ point of view. To ‘the giddy vulgar’ any sort of victory +is pleasant. But defeat? If, when that war was declared, every one had +been sure that not only should we fail to conquer the Transvaal, but +that IT would conquer US--that not only would it make good its freedom +and independence, but that we should forfeit ours--how would the +cits have felt then? Would they not have pulled long faces, spoken in +whispers, wept? You must forgive me for saying that the noise you have +just made around this table was very like to the noise made on the verge +of the Boer War. And your procedure seems to me as unaccountable as +would have seemed the antics of those mobs if England had been plainly +doomed to disaster and to vassalage. My guest here to-night, in the +course of his very eloquent and racy speech, spoke of the need that he +and you should preserve your ‘free and independent manhood.’ That seemed +to me an irreproachable ideal. But I confess I was somewhat taken aback +by my friend’s scheme for realising it. He declared his intention of +lying prone and letting Miss Dobson ‘walk over’ him; and he advised you +to follow his example; and to this counsel you gave evident approval. +Gentlemen, suppose that on the verge of the aforesaid war, some orator +had said to the British people ‘It is going to be a walk-over for our +enemy in the field. Mr. Kruger holds us in the hollow of his hand. +In subjection to him we shall find our long-lost freedom and +independence’--what would have been Britannia’s answer? What, on +reflection, is yours to Mr. Oover? What are Mr. Oover’s own second +thoughts?” The Duke paused, with a smile to his guest. + +“Go right ahead, Duke,” said Mr. Oover. “I’ll re-ply when my turn +comes.” + +“And not utterly demolish me, I hope,” said the Duke. His was the Oxford +manner. “Gentlemen,” he continued, “is it possible that Britannia would +have thrown her helmet in the air, shrieking ‘Slavery for ever’? You, +gentlemen, seem to think slavery a pleasant and an honourable state. You +have less experience of it than I. I have been enslaved to Miss Dobson +since yesterday evening; you, only since this afternoon; I, at close +quarters; you, at a respectful distance. Your fetters have not galled +you yet. MY wrists, MY ankles, are excoriated. The iron has entered into +my soul. I droop. I stumble. Blood flows from me. I quiver and curse. I +writhe. The sun mocks me. The moon titters in my face. I can stand it no +longer. I will no more of it. Tomorrow I die.” + +The flushed faces of the diners grew gradually pale. Their eyes lost +lustre. Their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths. + +At length, almost inaudibly, The MacQuern asked “Do you mean you are +going to commit suicide?” + +“Yes,” said the Duke, “if you choose to put it in that way. Yes. And it +is only by a chance that I did not commit suicide this afternoon.” + +“You--don’t--say,” gasped Mr. Oover. + +“I do indeed,” said the Duke. “And I ask you all to weigh well my +message.” + +“But--but does Miss Dobson know?” asked Sir John. + +“Oh yes,” was the reply. “Indeed, it was she who persuaded me not to die +till to-morrow.” + +“But--but,” faltered Lord Sayes, “I saw her saying good-bye to you in +Judas Street. And--and she looked quite--as if nothing had happened.” + +“Nothing HAD happened,” said the Duke. “And she was very much pleased +to have me still with her. But she isn’t so cruel as to hinder me from +dying for her to-morrow. I don’t think she exactly fixed the hour. It +shall be just after the Eights have been rowed. An earlier death would +mark in me a lack of courtesy to that contest... It seems strange to +you that I should do this thing? Take warning by me. Muster all your +will-power, and forget Miss Dobson. Tear up your tickets for the +concert. Stay here and play cards. Play high. Or rather, go back to your +various Colleges, and speed the news I have told you. Put all Oxford on +its guard against this woman who can love no lover. Let all Oxford +know that I, Dorset, who had so much reason to love life--I, the +nonpareil--am going to die for the love I bear this woman. And let no +man think I go unwilling. I am no lamb led to the slaughter. I am priest +as well as victim. I offer myself up with a pious joy. But enough +of this cold Hebraism! It is ill-attuned to my soul’s mood. +Self-sacrifice--bah! Regard me as a voluptuary. I am that. All my +baffled ardour speeds me to the bosom of Death. She is gentle and +wanton. She knows I could never have loved her for her own sake. She +has no illusions about me. She knows well I come to her because not +otherwise may I quench my passion.” + +There was a long silence. The Duke, looking around at the bent heads and +drawn mouths of his auditors, saw that his words had gone home. It was +Marraby who revealed how powerfully home they had gone. + +“Dorset,” he said huskily, “I shall die too.” + +The Duke flung up his hands, staring wildly. + +“I stand in with that,” said Mr. Oover. + +“So do I!” said Lord Sayes. “And I!” said Mr. Trent-Garby; “And I!” The +MacQuern. + +The Duke found voice. “Are you mad?” he asked, clutching at his throat. +“Are you all mad?” + +“No, Duke,” said Mr. Oover. “Or, if we are, you have no right to be at +large. You have shown us the way. We--take it.” + +“Just so,” said The MacQuern, stolidly. + +“Listen, you fools,” cried the Duke. But through the open window came +the vibrant stroke of some clock. He wheeled round, plucked out his +watch--nine!--the concert!--his promise not to be late!--Zuleika! + +All other thoughts vanished. In an instant he dodged beneath the sash +of the window. From the flower-box he sprang to the road beneath. (The +facade of the house is called, to this day, Dorset’s Leap.) Alighting +with the legerity of a cat, he swerved leftward in the recoil, and was +off, like a streak of mulberry-coloured lightning, down the High. + +The other men had rushed to the window, fearing the worst. “No,” cried +Oover. “That’s all right. Saves time!” and he raised himself on to the +window-box. It splintered under his weight. He leapt heavily but well, +followed by some uprooted geraniums. Squaring his shoulders, he threw +back his head, and doubled down the slope. + +There was a violent jostle between the remaining men. The MacQuern +cannily got out of it, and rushed downstairs. He emerged at the +front-door just after Marraby touched ground. The Baronet’s left ankle +had twisted under him. His face was drawn with pain as he hopped down +the High on his right foot, fingering his ticket for the concert. Next +leapt Lord Sayes. And last of all leapt Mr. Trent-Garby, who, catching +his foot in the ruined flower-box, fell headlong, and was, I regret to +say, killed. Lord Sayes passed Sir John in a few paces. The MacQuern +overtook Mr. Oover at St. Mary’s and outstripped him in Radcliffe +Square. The Duke came in an easy first. + +Youth, youth! + + + + +IX + +Across the Front Quadrangle, heedless of the great crowd to right and +left, Dorset rushed. Up the stone steps to the Hall he bounded, and +only on the Hall’s threshold was he brought to a pause. The doorway +was blocked by the backs of youths who had by hook and crook secured +standing-room. The whole scene was surprisingly unlike that of the +average College concert. + +“Let me pass,” said the Duke, rather breathlessly. “Thank you. Make way +please. Thanks.” And with quick-pulsing heart he made his way down the +aisle to the front row. There awaited him a surprise that was like a +douche of cold water full in his face. Zuleika was not there! It had +never occurred to him that she herself might not be punctual. + +The Warden was there, reading his programme with an air of great +solemnity. “Where,” asked the Duke, “is your grand-daughter?” His tone +was as of a man saying “If she is dead, don’t break it gently to me.” + +“My grand-daughter?” said the Warden. “Ah, Duke, good evening.” + +“She’s not ill?” + +“Oh no, I think not. She said something about changing the dress she +wore at dinner. She will come.” And the Warden thanked his young friend +for the great kindness he had shown to Zuleika. He hoped the Duke had +not let her worry him with her artless prattle. “She seems to be a good, +amiable girl,” he added, in his detached way. + +Sitting beside him, the Duke looked curiously at the venerable profile, +as at a mummy’s. To think that this had once been a man! To think that +his blood flowed in the veins of Zuleika! Hitherto the Duke had seen +nothing grotesque in him--had regarded him always as a dignified +specimen of priest and scholar. Such a life as the Warden’s, year +following year in ornamental seclusion from the follies and fusses of +the world, had to the Duke seemed rather admirable and enviable. Often +he himself had (for a minute or so) meditated taking a fellowship at All +Souls and spending here in Oxford the greater part of his life. He had +never been young, and it never had occurred to him that the Warden had +been young once. To-night he saw the old man in a new light--saw that +he was mad. Here was a man who--for had he not married and begotten a +child?--must have known, in some degree, the emotion of love. How, after +that, could he have gone on thus, year by year, rusting among his +books, asking no favour of life, waiting for death without a sign of +impatience? Why had he not killed himself long ago? Why cumbered he the +earth? + +On the dais an undergraduate was singing a song entitled “She Loves Not +Me.” Such plaints are apt to leave us unharrowed. Across the footlights +of an opera-house, the despair of some Italian tenor in red tights and +a yellow wig may be convincing enough. Not so, at a concert, the despair +of a shy British amateur in evening dress. The undergraduate on the +dais, fumbling with his sheet of music while he predicted that only when +he were “laid within the church-yard cold and grey” would his lady +begin to pity him, seemed to the Duke rather ridiculous; but not half so +ridiculous as the Warden. This fictitious love-affair was less nugatory +than the actual humdrum for which Dr. Dobson had sold his soul to the +devil. Also, little as one might suspect it, the warbler was perhaps +expressing a genuine sentiment. Zuleika herself, belike, was in his +thoughts. + +As he began the second stanza, predicting that when his lady died too +the angels of heaven would bear her straight to him, the audience heard +a loud murmur, or subdued roar, outside the Hall. And after a few bars +the warbler suddenly ceased, staring straight in front of him as though +he saw a vision. Automatically, all heads veered in the direction of his +gaze. From the entrance, slowly along the aisle, came Zuleika, brilliant +in black. + +To the Duke, who had rapturously risen, she nodded and smiled as +she swerved down on the chair beside him. She looked to him somehow +different. He had quite forgiven her for being late: her mere presence +was a perfect excuse. And the very change in her, though he could not +define it, was somehow pleasing to him. He was about to question +her, but she shook her head and held up to her lips a black-gloved +forefinger, enjoining silence for the singer, who, with dogged British +pluck, had harked back to the beginning of the second stanza. When his +task was done and he shuffled down from the dais, he received a great +ovation. Zuleika, in the way peculiar to persons who are in the habit of +appearing before the public, held her hands well above the level of +her brow, and clapped them with a vigour demonstrative not less of her +presence than of her delight. + +“And now,” she asked, turning to the Duke, “do you see? do you see?” + +“Something, yes. But what?” + +“Isn’t it plain?” Lightly she touched the lobe of her left ear. “Aren’t +you flattered?” + +He knew now what made the difference. It was that her little face was +flanked by two black pearls. + +“Think,” said she, “how deeply I must have been brooding over you since +we parted!” + +“Is this really,” he asked, pointing to the left ear-ring, “the pearl +you wore to-day?” + +“Yes. Isn’t it strange? A man ought to be pleased when a woman goes +quite unconsciously into mourning for him--goes just because she really +does mourn him.” + +“I am more than pleased. I am touched. When did the change come?” + +“I don’t know. I only noticed it after dinner, when I saw myself in the +mirror. All through dinner I had been thinking of you and of--well, of +to-morrow. And this dear sensitive pink pearl had again expressed my +soul. And there was I, in a yellow gown with green embroideries, gay +as a jacamar, jarring hideously on myself. I covered my eyes and rushed +upstairs, rang the bell and tore my things off. My maid was very cross.” + +Cross! The Duke was shot through with envy of one who was in a position +to be unkind to Zuleika. “Happy maid!” he murmured. Zuleika replied that +he was stealing her thunder: hadn’t she envied the girl at his lodgings? +“But I,” she said, “wanted only to serve you in meekness. The idea of +ever being pert to you didn’t enter into my head. You show a side of +your character as unpleasing as it was unforeseen.” + +“Perhaps then,” said the Duke, “it is as well that I am going to die.” + She acknowledged his rebuke with a pretty gesture of penitence. “You +may have been faultless in love,” he added; “but you would not have laid +down your life for me.” + +“Oh,” she answered, “wouldn’t I though? You don’t know me. That is just +the sort of thing I should have loved to do. I am much more romantic +than you are, really. I wonder,” she said, glancing at his breast, “if +YOUR pink pearl would have turned black? And I wonder if YOU would have +taken the trouble to change that extraordinary coat you are wearing?” + +In sooth, no costume could have been more beautifully Cimmerian than +Zuleika’s. And yet, thought the Duke, watching her as the concert +proceeded, the effect of her was not lugubrious. Her darkness shone. +The black satin gown she wore was a stream of shifting high-lights. +Big black diamonds were around her throat and wrists, and tiny black +diamonds starred the fan she wielded. In her hair gleamed a great +raven’s wing. And brighter, brighter than all these were her eyes. +Assuredly no, there was nothing morbid about her. Would one even +(wondered the Duke, for a disloyal instant) go so far as to say she was +heartless? Ah no, she was merely strong. She was one who could tread the +tragic plane without stumbling, and be resilient in the valley of the +shadow. What she had just said was no more than the truth: she would +have loved to die for him, had he not forfeited her heart. She would +have asked no tears. That she had none to shed for him now, that she did +but share his exhilaration, was the measure of her worthiness to have +the homage of his self-slaughter. + +“By the way,” she whispered, “I want to ask one little favour of you. +Will you, please, at the last moment to-morrow, call out my name in a +loud voice, so that every one around can hear?” + +“Of course I will.” + +“So that no one shall ever be able to say it wasn’t for me that you +died, you know.” + +“May I use simply your Christian name?” + +“Yes, I really don’t see why you shouldn’t--at such a moment.” + +“Thank you.” His face glowed. + +Thus did they commune, these two, radiant without and within. And behind +them, throughout the Hall, the undergraduates craned their necks for +a glimpse. The Duke’s piano solo, which was the last item in the first +half of the programme, was eagerly awaited. Already, whispered first +from the lips of Oover and the others who had come on from the Junta, +the news of his resolve had gone from ear to ear among the men. He, for +his part, had forgotten the scene at the Junta, the baleful effect of +his example. For him the Hall was a cave of solitude--no one there but +Zuleika and himself. Yet almost, like the late Mr. John Bright, he heard +in the air the beating of the wings of the Angel of Death. Not awful +wings; little wings that sprouted from the shoulders of a rosy and +blindfold child. Love and Death--for him they were exquisitely one. And +it seemed to him, when his turn came to play, that he floated, rather +than walked, to the dais. + +He had not considered what he would play tonight. Nor, maybe, was he +conscious now of choosing. His fingers caressed the keyboard vaguely; +and anon this ivory had voice and language; and for its master, and for +some of his hearers, arose a vision. And it was as though in delicate +procession, very slowly, listless with weeping, certain figures passed +by, hooded, and drooping forasmuch as by the loss of him whom they were +following to his grave their own hold on life had been loosened. He +had been so beautiful and young. Lo, he was but a burden to be carried +hence, dust to be hidden out of sight. Very slowly, very wretchedly they +went by. But, as they went, another feeling, faint at first, an all but +imperceptible current, seemed to flow through the procession; and now +one, now another of the mourners would look wanly up, with cast-back +hood, as though listening; and anon all were listening on their way, +first in wonder, then in rapture; for the soul of their friend was +singing to them: they heard his voice, but clearer and more blithe than +they had ever known it--a voice etherealised by a triumph of joy that +was not yet for them to share. But presently the voice receded, its +echoes dying away into the sphere whence it came. It ceased; and the +mourners were left alone again with their sorrow, and passed on all +unsolaced, and drooping, weeping. + +Soon after the Duke had begun to play, an invisible figure came and +stood by and listened; a frail man, dressed in the fashion of 1840; the +shade of none other than Frederic Chopin. Behind whom, a moment later, +came a woman of somewhat masculine aspect and dominant demeanour, +mounting guard over him, and, as it were, ready to catch him if he fell. +He bowed his head lower and lower, he looked up with an ecstasy more +and more intense, according to the procedure of his Marche Funebre. And +among the audience, too, there was a bowing and uplifting of heads, just +as among the figures of the mourners evoked. Yet the head of the player +himself was all the while erect, and his face glad and serene. Nobly +sensitive as was his playing of the mournful passages, he smiled +brilliantly through them. + +And Zuleika returned his gaze with a smile not less gay. She was not +sure what he was playing. But she assumed that it was for her, and that +the music had some reference to his impending death. She was one of the +people who say “I don’t know anything about music really, but I know +what I like.” And she liked this; and she beat time to it with her fan. +She thought her Duke looked very handsome. She was proud of him. Strange +that this time yesterday she had been wildly in love with him! Strange, +too, that this time to-morrow he would be dead! She was immensely glad +she had saved him this afternoon. To-morrow! There came back to her what +he had told her about the omen at Tankerton, that stately home: “On the +eve of the death of a Duke of Dorset, two black owls come always and +perch on the battlements. They remain there through the night, hooting. +At dawn they fly away, none knows whither.” Perhaps, thought she, at +this very moment these two birds were on the battlements. + +The music ceased. In the hush that followed it, her applause rang sharp +and notable. Not so Chopin’s. Of him and his intense excitement none but +his companion was aware. “Plus fin que Pachmann!” he reiterated, waving +his arms wildly, and dancing. + +“Tu auras une migraine affreuse. Rentrons, petit coeur!” said George +Sand, gently but firmly. + +“Laisse-moi le saluer,” cried the composer, struggling in her grasp. + +“Demain soir, oui. Il sera parmi nous,” said the novelist, as she +hurried him away. “Moi aussi,” she added to herself, “je me promets un +beau plaisir en faisant la connaissance de ce jeune homme.” + +Zuleika was the first to rise as “ce jeune homme” came down from the +dais. Now was the interval between the two parts of the programme. +There was a general creaking and scraping of pushed-back chairs as the +audience rose and went forth into the night. The noise aroused from +sleep the good Warden, who, having peered at his programme, complimented +the Duke with old-world courtesy and went to sleep again. Zuleika, +thrusting her fan under one arm, shook the player by both hands. Also, +she told him that she knew nothing about music really, but that she +knew what she liked. As she passed with him up the aisle, she said this +again. People who say it are never tired of saying it. + +Outside, the crowd was greater than ever. All the undergraduates from +all the Colleges seemed now to be concentrated in the great Front +Quadrangle of Judas. Even in the glow of the Japanese lanterns that hung +around in honour of the concert, the faces of the lads looked a little +pale. For it was known by all now that the Duke was to die. Even while +the concert was in progress, the news had spread out from the Hall, +through the thronged doorway, down the thronged steps, to the confines +of the crowd. Nor had Oover and the other men from the Junta made any +secret of their own determination. And now, as the rest saw Zuleika +yet again at close quarters, and verified their remembrance of her, the +half-formed desire in them to die too was hardened to a vow. + +You cannot make a man by standing a sheep on its hind-legs. But by +standing a flock of sheep in that position you can make a crowd of men. +If man were not a gregarious animal, the world might have achieved, by +this time, some real progress towards civilisation. Segregate him, and +he is no fool. But let him loose among his fellows, and he is lost--he +becomes just an unit in unreason. If any one of the undergraduates had +met Miss Dobson in the desert of Sahara, he would have fallen in love +with her; but not one in a thousand of them would have wished to die +because she did not love him. The Duke’s was a peculiar case. For him to +fall in love was itself a violent peripety, bound to produce a violent +upheaval; and such was his pride that for his love to be unrequited +would naturally enamour him of death. These other, these quite ordinary, +young men were the victims less of Zuleika than of the Duke’s example, +and of one another. A crowd, proportionately to its size, magnifies all +that in its units pertains to the emotions, and diminishes all that in +them pertains to thought. It was because these undergraduates were a +crowd that their passion for Zuleika was so intense; and it was because +they were a crowd that they followed so blindly the lead given to them. +To die for Miss Dobson was “the thing to do.” The Duke was going to do +it. The Junta was going to do it. It is a hateful fact, but we must face +the fact, that snobbishness was one of the springs to the tragedy here +chronicled. + +We may set to this crowd’s credit that it refrained now from following +Zuleika. Not one of the ladies present was deserted by her escort. All +the men recognised the Duke’s right to be alone with Zuleika now. We may +set also to their credit that they carefully guarded the ladies from all +knowledge of what was afoot. + +Side by side, the great lover and his beloved wandered away, beyond the +light of the Japanese lanterns, and came to Salt Cellar. + +The moon, like a gardenia in the night’s button-hole--but no! why should +a writer never be able to mention the moon without likening her to +something else--usually something to which she bears not the faintest +resemblance?... The moon, looking like nothing whatsoever but herself, +was engaged in her old and futile endeavour to mark the hours correctly +on the sun-dial at the centre of the lawn. Never, except once, late one +night in the eighteenth century, when the toper who was Sub-Warden had +spent an hour in trying to set his watch here, had she received the +slightest encouragement. Still she wanly persisted. And this was the +more absurd in her because Salt Cellar offered very good scope for those +legitimate effects of hers which we one and all admire. Was it nothing +to her to have cut those black shadows across the cloisters? Was +it nothing to her that she so magically mingled her rays with the +candle-light shed forth from Zuleika’s bedroom? Nothing, that she +had cleansed the lawn of all its colour, and made of it a platform of +silver-grey, fit for fairies to dance on? + +If Zuleika, as she paced the gravel path, had seen how transfigured--how +nobly like the Tragic Muse--she was just now, she could not have gone on +bothering the Duke for a keepsake of the tragedy that was to be. + +She was still set on having his two studs. He was still firm in his +refusal to misappropriate those heirlooms. In vain she pointed out to +him that the pearls he meant, the white ones, no longer existed; that +the pearls he was wearing were no more “entailed” than if he had got +them yesterday. “And you actually DID get them yesterday,” she said. +“And from me. And I want them back.” + +“You are ingenious,” he admitted. “I, in my simple way, am but head of +the Tanville-Tankerton family. Had you accepted my offer of marriage, +you would have had the right to wear these two pearls during your +life-time. I am very happy to die for you. But tamper with the property +of my successor I cannot and will not. I am sorry,” he added. + +“Sorry!” echoed Zuleika. “Yes, and you were ‘sorry’ you couldn’t dine +with me to-night. But any little niggling scruple is more to you than I +am. What old maids men are!” And viciously with her fan she struck one +of the cloister pillars. + +Her outburst was lost on the Duke. At her taunt about his not dining +with her, he had stood still, clapping one hand to his brow. The events +of the early evening swept back to him--his speech, its unforeseen and +horrible reception. He saw again the preternaturally solemn face of +Oover, and the flushed faces of the rest. He had thought, as he pointed +down to the abyss over which he stood, these fellows would recoil, +and pull themselves together. They had recoiled, and pulled themselves +together, only in the manner of athletes about to spring. He was +responsible for them. His own life was his to lose: others he must +not squander. Besides, he had reckoned to die alone, unique; aloft and +apart... “There is something--something I had forgotten,” he said to +Zuleika, “something that will be a great shock to you”; and he gave her +an outline of what had passed at the Junta. + +“And you are sure they really MEANT it?” she asked in a voice that +trembled. + +“I fear so. But they were over-excited. They will recant their folly. I +shall force them to.” + +“They are not children. You yourself have just been calling them ‘men.’ +Why should they obey you?” + +She turned at sound of a footstep, and saw a young man approaching. He +wore a coat like the Duke’s, and in his hand he dangled a handkerchief. +He bowed awkwardly, and, holding out the handkerchief, said to her “I +beg your pardon, but I think you dropped this. I have just picked it +up.” + +Zuleika looked at the handkerchief, which was obviously a man’s, and +smilingly shook her head. + +“I don’t think you know The MacQuern,” said the Duke, with sulky grace. +“This,” he said to the intruder, “is Miss Dobson.” + +“And is it really true,” asked Zuleika, retaining The MacQuern’s hand, +“that you want to die for me?” + +Well, the Scots are a self-seeking and a resolute, but a shy, race; +swift to act, when swiftness is needed, but seldom knowing quite what to +say. The MacQuern, with native reluctance to give something for nothing, +had determined to have the pleasure of knowing the young lady for whom +he was to lay down his life; and this purpose he had, by the simple +stratagem of his own handkerchief, achieved. Nevertheless, in answer to +Zuleika’s question, and with the pressure of her hand to inspire him, +the only word that rose to his lips was “Ay” (which may be roughly +translated as “Yes”). + +“You will do nothing of the sort,” interposed the Duke. + +“There,” said Zuleika, still retaining The MacQuern’s hand, “you see, it +is forbidden. You must not defy our dear little Duke. He is not used to +it. It is not done.” + +“I don’t know,” said The MacQuern, with a stony glance at the Duke, +“that he has anything to do with the matter.” + +“He is older and wiser than you. More a man of the world. Regard him as +your tutor.” + +“Do YOU want me not to die for you?” asked the young man. + +“Ah, _I_ should not dare to impose my wishes on you,” said she, dropping +his hand. “Even,” she added, “if I knew what my wishes were. And I +don’t. I know only that I think it is very, very beautiful of you to +think of dying for me.” + +“Then that settles it,” said The MacQuern. + +“No, no! You must not let yourself be influenced by ME. Besides, I am +not in a mood to influence anybody. I am overwhelmed. Tell me,” she +said, heedless of the Duke, who stood tapping his heel on the ground, +with every manifestation of disapproval and impatience, “tell me, is it +true that some of the other men love me too, and--feel as you do?” + +The MacQuern said cautiously that he could answer for no one but +himself. “But,” he allowed, “I saw a good many men whom I know, outside +the Hall here, just now, and they seemed to have made up their minds.” + +“To die for me? To-morrow?” + +“To-morrow. After the Eights, I suppose; at the same time as the Duke. +It wouldn’t do to leave the races undecided.” + +“Of COURSE not. But the poor dears! It is too touching! I have done +nothing, nothing to deserve it.” + +“Nothing whatsoever,” said the Duke drily. + +“Oh HE,” said Zuleika, “thinks me an unredeemed brute; just because I +don’t love him. YOU, dear Mr. MacQuern--does one call you ‘Mr.’? ‘The’ +would sound so odd in the vocative. And I can’t very well call you +‘MacQuern’--YOU don’t think me unkind, do you? I simply can’t bear to +think of all these young lives cut short without my having done a thing +to brighten them. What can I do?--what can I do to show my gratitude?” + +An idea struck her. She looked up to the lit window of her room. +“Melisande!” she called. + +A figure appeared at the window. “Mademoiselle desire?” + +“My tricks, Melisande! Bring down the box, quick!” She turned excitedly +to the two young men. “It is all I can do in return, you see. If I could +dance for them, I would. If I could sing, I would sing to them. I do +what I can. You,” she said to the Duke, “must go on to the platform and +announce it.” + +“Announce what?” + +“Why, that I am going to do my tricks! All you need say is ‘Ladies and +gentlemen, I have the pleasure to--’ What is the matter now?” + +“You make me feel slightly unwell,” said the Duke. + +“And YOU are the most d-dis-disobliging and the unkindest and the +b-beastliest person I ever met,” Zuleika sobbed at him through her +hands. The MacQuern glared reproaches at him. So did Melisande, who had +just appeared through the postern, holding in her arms the great casket +of malachite. A painful scene; and the Duke gave in. He said he would do +anything--anything. Peace was restored. + +The MacQuern had relieved Melisande of her burden; and to him was the +privilege of bearing it, in procession with his adored and her quelled +mentor, towards the Hall. + +Zuleika babbled like a child going to a juvenile party. This was the +great night, as yet, in her life. Illustrious enough already it had +seemed to her, as eve of that ultimate flattery vowed her by the Duke. +So fine a thing had his doom seemed to her--his doom alone--that it had +sufficed to flood her pink pearl with the right hue. And now not on him +alone need she ponder. Now he was but the centre of a group--a group +that might grow and grow--a group that might with a little encouragement +be a multitude... With such hopes dimly whirling in the recesses of her +soul, her beautiful red lips babbled. + + + + +X + +Sounds of a violin, drifting out through the open windows of the +Hall, suggested that the second part of the concert had begun. All the +undergraduates, however, except the few who figured in the programme, +had waited outside till their mistress should re-appear. The sisters +and cousins of the Judas men had been escorted back to their places and +hurriedly left there. + +It was a hushed, tense crowd. + +“The poor darlings!” murmured Zuleika, pausing to survey them. “And oh,” + she exclaimed, “there won’t be room for all of them in there!” + +“You might give an ‘overflow’ performance out here afterwards,” + suggested the Duke, grimly. + +This idea flashed on her a better. Why not give her performance here and +now?--now, so eager was she for contact, as it were, with this crowd; +here, by moonlight, in the pretty glow of these paper lanterns. Yes, +she said, let it be here and now; and she bade the Duke make the +announcement. + +“What shall I say?” he asked. “‘Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to +announce that Miss Zuleika Dobson, the world-renowned She-Wizard, will +now oblige’? Or shall I call them ‘Gents,’ tout court?” + +She could afford to laugh at his ill-humour. She had his promise of +obedience. She told him to say something graceful and simple. + +The noise of the violin had ceased. There was not a breath of wind. The +crowd in the quadrangle was as still and as silent as the night itself. +Nowhere a tremour. And it was borne in on Zuleika that this crowd had +one mind as well as one heart--a common resolve, calm and clear, as well +as a common passion. No need for her to strengthen the spell now. No +waverers here. And thus it came true that gratitude was the sole motive +for her display. + +She stood with eyes downcast and hands folded behind her, moonlit in +the glow of lanterns, modest to the point of pathos, while the Duke +gracefully and simply introduced her to the multitude. He was, he said, +empowered by the lady who stood beside him to say that she would be +pleased to give them an exhibition of her skill in the art to which +she had devoted her life--an art which, more potently perhaps than any +other, touched in mankind the sense of mystery and stirred the faculty +of wonder; the most truly romantic of all the arts: he referred to the +art of conjuring. It was not too much to say that by her mastery of this +art, in which hitherto, it must be confessed, women had made no very +great mark, Miss Zuleika Dobson (for such was the name of the lady who +stood beside him) had earned the esteem of the whole civilised world. +And here in Oxford, and in this College especially, she had a peculiar +claim to--might he say?--their affectionate regard, inasmuch as she was +the grand-daughter of their venerable and venerated Warden. + +As the Duke ceased, there came from his hearers a sound like the +rustling of leaves. In return for it, Zuleika performed that graceful +act of subsidence to the verge of collapse which is usually kept for the +delectation of some royal person. And indeed, in the presence of this +doomed congress, she did experience humility; for she was not altogether +without imagination. But, as she arose from her “bob,” she was her own +bold self again, bright mistress of the situation. + +It was impossible for her to give her entertainment in full. Some of her +tricks (notably the Secret Aquarium, and the Blazing Ball of Worsted) +needed special preparation, and a table fitted with a “servante” or +secret tray. The table for to-night’s performance was an ordinary one, +brought out from the porter’s lodge. The MacQuern deposited on it the +great casket. Zuleika, retaining him as her assistant, picked nimbly +out from their places and put in array the curious appurtenances of her +art--the Magic Canister, the Demon Egg-Cup, and the sundry other vessels +which, lost property of young Edward Gibbs, had been by a Romanoff +transmuted from wood to gold, and were now by the moon reduced +temporarily to silver. + +In a great dense semicircle the young men disposed themselves around +her. Those who were in front squatted down on the gravel; those who were +behind knelt; the rest stood. Young Oxford! Here, in this mass of boyish +faces, all fused and obliterated, was the realisation of that phrase. +Two or three thousands of human bodies, human souls? Yet the effect of +them in the moonlight was as of one great passive monster. + +So was it seen by the Duke, as he stood leaning against the wall, +behind Zuleika’s table. He saw it as a monster couchant and enchanted, +a monster that was to die; and its death was in part his own doing. +But remorse in him gave place to hostility. Zuleika had begun her +performance. She was producing the Barber’s Pole from her mouth. And +it was to her that the Duke’s heart went suddenly out in tenderness +and pity. He forgot her levity and vanity--her wickedness, as he had +inwardly called it. He thrilled with that intense anxiety which comes to +a man when he sees his beloved offering to the public an exhibition of +her skill, be it in singing, acting, dancing, or any other art. Would +she acquit herself well? The lover’s trepidation is painful enough when +the beloved has genius--how should these clods appreciate her? and who +set them in judgment over her? It must be worse when the beloved has +mediocrity. And Zuleika, in conjuring, had rather less than that. Though +indeed she took herself quite seriously as a conjurer, she brought to +her art neither conscience nor ambition, in any true sense of those +words. Since her debut, she had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. +The stale and narrow repertory which she had acquired from Edward Gibbs +was all she had to offer; and this, and her marked lack of skill, she +eked out with the self-same “patter” that had sufficed that impossible +young man. It was especially her jokes that now sent shudders up the +spine of her lover, and brought tears to his eyes, and kept him in +a state of terror as to what she would say next. “You see,” she had +exclaimed lightly after the production of the Barber’s Pole, “how easy +it is to set up business as a hairdresser.” Over the Demon Egg-Cup she +said that the egg was “as good as fresh.” And her constantly reiterated +catch-phrase--“Well, this is rather queer!”--was the most distressing +thing of all. + +The Duke blushed to think what these men thought of her. Would love +were blind! These her lovers were doubtless judging her. They forgave +her--confound their impudence!--because of her beauty. The banality of +her performance was an added grace. It made her piteous. Damn them, they +were sorry for her. Little Noaks was squatting in the front row, peering +up at her through his spectacles. Noaks was as sorry for her as the rest +of them. Why didn’t the earth yawn and swallow them all up? + +Our hero’s unreasoning rage was fed by a not unreasonable jealousy. It +was clear to him that Zuleika had forgotten his existence. To-day, as +soon as he had killed her love, she had shown him how much less to her +was his love than the crowd’s. And now again it was only the crowd she +cared for. He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as she +threaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously, confidingly, +producing a penny from one lad’s elbow, a threepenny-bit from between +another’s neck and collar, half a crown from another’s hair, and always +repeating in that flute-like voice of hers “Well, this is rather queer!” + Hither and thither she fared, her neck and arms gleaming white from the +luminous blackness of her dress, in the luminous blueness of the night. +At a distance, she might have been a wraith; or a breeze made visible; a +vagrom breeze, warm and delicate, and in league with death. + +Yes, that is how she might have seemed to a casual observer. But to the +Duke there was nothing weird about her: she was radiantly a woman; a +goddess; and his first and last love. Bitter his heart was, but only +against the mob she wooed, not against her for wooing it. She was cruel? +All goddesses are that. She was demeaning herself? His soul welled up +anew in pity, in passion. + +Yonder, in the Hall, the concert ran its course, making a feeble +incidental music to the dark emotions of the quadrangle. It ended +somewhat before the close of Zuleika’s rival show; and then the steps +from the Hall were thronged by ladies, who, with a sprinkling of dons, +stood in attitudes of refined displeasure and vulgar curiosity. The +Warden was just awake enough to notice the sea of undergraduates. +Suspecting some breach of College discipline, he retired hastily to his +own quarters, for fear his dignity might be somehow compromised. + +Was there ever, I wonder, an historian so pure as not to have wished +just once to fob off on his readers just one bright fable for effect? +I find myself sorely tempted to tell you that on Zuleika, as her +entertainment drew to a close, the spirit of the higher thaumaturgy +descended like a flame and found in her a worthy agent. Specious +Apollyon whispers to me “Where would be the harm? Tell your readers +that she cast a seed on the ground, and that therefrom presently arose +a tamarind-tree which blossomed and bore fruit and, withering, vanished. +Or say she conjured from an empty basket of osier a hissing and bridling +snake. Why not? Your readers would be excited, gratified. And you would +never be found out.” But the grave eyes of Clio are bent on me, her +servant. Oh pardon, madam: I did but waver for an instant. It is not too +late to tell my readers that the climax of Zuleika’s entertainment was +only that dismal affair, the Magic Canister. + +It she took from the table, and, holding it aloft, cried “Now, before I +say good night, I want to see if I have your confidence. But you mustn’t +think this is the confidence trick!” She handed the vessel to The +MacQuern, who, looking like an overgrown acolyte, bore it after her as +she went again among the audience. Pausing before a man in the front +row, she asked him if he would trust her with his watch. He held it +out to her. “Thank you,” she said, letting her fingers touch his for a +moment before she dropped it into the Magic Canister. From another man +she borrowed a cigarette-case, from another a neck-tie, from another a +pair of sleeve-links, from Noaks a ring--one of those iron rings which +are supposed, rightly or wrongly, to alleviate rheumatism. And when she +had made an ample selection, she began her return-journey to the table. + +On her way she saw in the shadow of the wall the figure of her forgotten +Duke. She saw him, the one man she had ever loved, also the first +man who had wished definitely to die for her; and she was touched by +remorse. She had said she would remember him to her dying day; and +already... But had he not refused her the wherewithal to remember +him--the pearls she needed as the clou of her dear collection, the great +relic among relics? + +“Would you trust me with your studs?” she asked him, in a voice that +could be heard throughout the quadrangle, with a smile that was for him +alone. + +There was no help for it. He quickly extricated from his shirt-front the +black pearl and the pink. Her thanks had a special emphasis. + +The MacQuern placed the Magic Canister before her on the table. She +pressed the outer sheath down on it. Then she inverted it so that the +contents fell into the false lid; then she opened it, looked into it, +and, exclaiming “Well, this is rather queer!” held it up so that the +audience whose intelligence she was insulting might see there was +nothing in it. + +“Accidents,” she said, “will happen in the best-regulated canisters! +But I think there is just a chance that I shall be able to restore your +property. Excuse me for a moment.” She then shut the canister, released +the false lid, made several passes over it, opened it, looked into it +and said with a flourish “Now I can clear my character!” Again she went +among the crowd, attended by The MacQuern; and the loans--priceless now +because she had touched them--were in due course severally restored. +When she took the canister from her acolyte, only the two studs remained +in it. + +Not since the night of her flitting from the Gibbs’ humble home had +Zuleika thieved. Was she a back-slider? Would she rob the Duke, and his +heir-presumptive, and Tanville-Tankertons yet unborn? Alas, yes. But +what she now did was proof that she had qualms. And her way of doing it +showed that for legerdemain she had after all a natural aptitude which, +properly trained, might have won for her an honourable place in at least +the second rank of contemporary prestidigitators. With a gesture of her +disengaged hand, so swift as to be scarcely visible, she unhooked her +ear-rings and “passed” them into the canister. This she did as she +turned away from the crowd, on her way to the Duke. At the same moment, +in a manner technically not less good, though morally deplorable, she +withdrew the studs and “vanished” them into her bosom. + +Was it triumph, or shame, or of both a little that so flushed her cheeks +as she stood before the man she had robbed? Or was it the excitement +of giving a present to the man she had loved? Certain it is that the +nakedness of her ears gave a new look to her face--a primitive look, +open and sweetly wild. The Duke saw the difference, without noticing +the cause. She was more adorable than ever. He blenched and swayed as in +proximity to a loveliness beyond endurance. His heart cried out within +him. A sudden mist came over his eyes. + +In the canister that she held out to him, the two pearls rattled like +dice. + +“Keep them!” he whispered. + +“I shall,” she whispered back, almost shyly. “But these, these are for +you.” And she took one of his hands, and, holding it open, tilted the +canister over it, and let drop into it the two ear-rings, and went +quickly away. + +As she re-appeared at the table, the crowd gave her a long ovation +of gratitude for her performance--an ovation all the more impressive +because it was solemn and subdued. She curtseyed again and again, not +indeed with the timid simplicity of her first obeisance (so familiar +already was she with the thought of the crowd’s doom), but rather in the +manner of a prima donna--chin up, eyelids down, all teeth manifest, and +hands from the bosom flung ecstatically wide asunder. + +You know how, at a concert, a prima donna who has just sung insists on +shaking hands with the accompanist, and dragging him forward, to show +how beautiful her nature is, into the applause that is for herself +alone. And your heart, like mine, has gone out to the wretched victim. +Even so would you have felt for The MacQuern when Zuleika, on the +implied assumption that half the credit was his, grasped him by the +wrist, and, continuing to curtsey, would not release him till the last +echoes of the clapping had died away. + +The ladies on the steps of the Hall moved down into the quadrangle, +spreading their resentment like a miasma. The tragic passion of the +crowd was merged in mere awkwardness. There was a general movement +towards the College gate. + +Zuleika was putting her tricks back into the great casket, The MacQuern +assisting her. The Scots, as I have said, are a shy race, but a resolute +and a self-seeking. This young chieftain had not yet recovered from what +his heroine had let him in for. But he did not lose the opportunity of +asking her to lunch with him to-morrow. + +“Delighted,” she said, fitting the Demon Egg-Cup into its groove. +Then, looking up at him, “Are you popular?” she asked. “Have you many +friends?” He nodded. She said he must invite them all. + +This was a blow to the young man, who, at once thrifty and infatuate, +had planned a luncheon a deux. “I had hoped--” he began. + +“Vainly,” she cut him short. + +There was a pause. “Whom shall I invite, then?” + +“I don’t know any of them. How should I have preferences?” She +remembered the Duke. She looked round and saw him still standing in the +shadow of the wall. He came towards her. “Of course,” she said hastily +to her host, “you must ask HIM.” + +The MacQuern complied. He turned to the Duke and told him that Miss +Dobson had very kindly promised to lunch with him to-morrow. “And,” said +Zuleika, “I simply WON’T unless you will.” + +The Duke looked at her. Had it not been arranged that he and she should +spend his last day together? Did it mean nothing that she had given him +her ear-rings? Quickly drawing about him some remnants of his tattered +pride, he hid his wound, and accepted the invitation. + +“It seems a shame,” said Zuleika to The MacQuern, “to ask you to bring +this great heavy box all the way back again. But--” + +Those last poor rags of pride fell away now. The Duke threw a prehensile +hand on the casket, and, coldly glaring at The MacQuern, pointed with +his other hand towards the College gate. He, and he alone, was going to +see Zuleika home. It was his last night on earth, and he was not to be +trifled with. Such was the message of his eyes. The Scotsman’s flashed +back a precisely similar message. + +Men had fought for Zuleika, but never in her presence. Her eyes dilated. +She had not the slightest impulse to throw herself between the two +antagonists. Indeed, she stepped back, so as not to be in the way. A +short sharp fight--how much better that is than bad blood! She hoped the +better man would win; and (do not misjudge her) she rather hoped this +man was the Duke. It occurred to her--a vague memory of some play or +picture--that she ought to be holding aloft a candelabra of lit tapers; +no, that was only done indoors, and in the eighteenth century. Ought +she to hold a sponge? Idle, these speculations of hers, and based on +complete ignorance of the manners and customs of undergraduates. The +Duke and The MacQuern would never have come to blows in the presence of +a lady. Their conflict was necessarily spiritual. + +And it was the Scotsman, Scots though he was, who had to yield. Cowed +by something demoniac in the will-power pitted against his, he found +himself retreating in the direction indicated by the Duke’s forefinger. + +As he disappeared into the porch, Zuleika turned to the Duke. “You were +splendid,” she said softly. He knew that very well. Does the stag in his +hour of victory need a diploma from the hind? Holding in his hands the +malachite casket that was the symbol of his triumph, the Duke smiled +dictatorially at his darling. He came near to thinking of her as a +chattel. Then with a pang he remembered his abject devotion to her. +Abject no longer though! The victory he had just won restored his +manhood, his sense of supremacy among his fellows. He loved this woman +on equal terms. She was transcendent? So was he, Dorset. To-night +the world had on its moonlit surface two great ornaments--Zuleika and +himself. Neither of the pair could be replaced. Was one of them to be +shattered? Life and love were good. He had been mad to think of dying. + +No word was spoken as they went together to Salt Cellar. She expected +him to talk about her conjuring tricks. Could he have been disappointed? +She dared not inquire; for she had the sensitiveness, though no other +quality whatsoever, of the true artist. She felt herself aggrieved. She +had half a mind to ask him to give her back her ear-rings. And by the +way, he hadn’t yet thanked her for them! Well, she would make allowances +for a condemned man. And again she remembered the omen of which he had +told her. She looked at him, and then up into the sky. “This same moon,” + she said to herself, “sees the battlements of Tankerton. Does she see +two black owls there? Does she hear them hooting?” + +They were in Salt Cellar now. “Melisande!” she called up to her window. + +“Hush!” said the Duke, “I have something to say to you.” + +“Well, you can say it all the better without that great box in your +hands. I want my maid to carry it up to my room for me.” And again she +called out for Melisande, and received no answer. “I suppose she’s in +the house-keeper’s room or somewhere. You had better put the box down +inside the door. She can bring it up later.” + +She pushed open the postern; and the Duke, as he stepped across the +threshold, thrilled with a romantic awe. Re-emerging a moment later into +the moonlight, he felt that she had been right about the box: it was +fatal to self-expression; and he was glad he had not tried to speak +on the way from the Front Quad: the soul needs gesture; and the Duke’s +first gesture now was to seize Zuleika’s hands in his. + +She was too startled to move. “Zuleika!” he whispered. She was too angry +to speak, but with a sudden twist she freed her wrists and darted back. + +He laughed. “You are afraid of me. You are afraid to let me kiss you, +because you are afraid of loving me. This afternoon--here--I all but +kissed you. I mistook you for Death. I was enamoured of Death. I was a +fool. That is what YOU are, you incomparable darling: you are a fool. +You are afraid of life. I am not. I love life. I am going to live for +you, do you hear?” + +She stood with her back to the postern. Anger in her eyes had given +place to scorn. “You mean,” she said, “that you go back on your +promise?” + +“You will release me from it.” + +“You mean you are afraid to die?” + +“You will not be guilty of my death. You love me.” + +“Good night, you miserable coward.” She stepped back through the +postern. + +“Don’t, Zuleika! Miss Dobson, don’t! Pull yourself together! Reflect! I +implore you... You will repent...” + +Slowly she closed the postern on him. + +“You will repent. I shall wait here, under your window...” + +He heard a bolt rasped into its socket. He heard the retreat of a light +tread on the paven hall. + +And he hadn’t even kissed her! That was his first thought. He ground his +heel in the gravel. + +And he had hurt her wrists! This was Zuleika’s first thought, as she +came into her bedroom. Yes, there were two red marks where he had +held her. No man had ever dared to lay hands on her. With a sense of +contamination, she proceeded to wash her hands thoroughly with soap and +water. From time to time such words as “cad” and “beast” came through +her teeth. + +She dried her hands and flung herself into a chair, arose and went +pacing the room. So this was the end of her great night! What had she +done to deserve it? How had he dared? + +There was a sound as of rain against the window. She was glad. The night +needed cleansing. + +He had told her she was afraid of life. Life!--to have herself caressed +by HIM; humbly to devote herself to being humbly doted on; to be the +slave of a slave; to swim in a private pond of treacle--ugh! If the +thought weren’t so cloying and degrading, it would be laughable. + +For a moment her hands hovered over those two golden and gemmed volumes +encasing Bradshaw and the A.B.C. Guide. To leave Oxford by an early +train, leave him to drown unthanked, unlooked at... But this could +not be done without slighting all those hundreds of other men ... And +besides... + +Again that sound on the window-pane. This time it startled her. There +seemed to be no rain. Could it have been--little bits of gravel? She +darted noiselessly to the window, pushed it open, and looked down. She +saw the upturned face of the Duke. She stepped back, trembling with +fury, staring around her. Inspiration came. + +She thrust her head out again. “Are you there?” she whispered. + +“Yes, yes. I knew you would come.” + +“Wait a moment, wait!” + +The water-jug stood where she had left it, on the floor by the +wash-stand. It was almost full, rather heavy. She bore it steadily to +the window, and looked out. + +“Come a little nearer!” she whispered. + +The upturned and moonlit face obeyed her. She saw its lips forming the +word “Zuleika.” She took careful aim. + +Full on the face crashed the cascade of moonlit water, shooting out on +all sides like the petals of some great silver anemone. + +She laughed shrilly as she leapt back, letting the empty jug roll over +on the carpet. Then she stood tense, crouching, her hands to her mouth, +her eyes askance, as much as to say “Now I’ve done it!” She listened +hard, holding her breath. In the stillness of the night was a faint +sound of dripping water, and presently of footsteps going away. Then +stillness unbroken. + + + + +XI + +I said that I was Clio’s servant. And I felt, when I said it, that you +looked at me dubiously, and murmured among yourselves. + +Not that you doubted I was somewhat connected with Clio’s household. The +lady after whom I have named this book is alive, and well known to some +of you personally, to all of you by repute. Nor had you finished my +first page before you guessed my theme to be that episode in her life +which caused so great a sensation among the newspaper-reading public a +few years ago. (It all seems but yesterday, does it not? They are still +vivid to us, those head-lines. We have hardly yet ceased to be edified +by the morals pointed in those leading articles.) And yet very soon you +found me behaving just like any novelist--reporting the exact words +that passed between the protagonists at private interviews--aye, and the +exact thoughts and emotions that were in their breasts. Little wonder +that you wondered! Let me make things clear to you. + +I have my mistress’ leave to do this. At first (for reasons which you +will presently understand) she demurred. But I pointed out to her that I +had been placed in a false position, and that until this were rectified +neither she nor I could reap the credit due to us. + +Know, then, that for a long time Clio had been thoroughly discontented. +She was happy enough, she says, when first she left the home of Pierus, +her father, to become a Muse. On those humble beginnings she looks +back with affection. She kept only one servant, Herodotus. The romantic +element in him appealed to her. He died, and she had about her a large +staff of able and faithful servants, whose way of doing their work +irritated and depressed her. To them, apparently, life consisted of +nothing but politics and military operations--things to which she, being +a woman, was somewhat indifferent. She was jealous of Melpomene. It +seemed to her that her own servants worked from without at a mass of dry +details which might as well be forgotten. Melpomene’s worked on material +that was eternally interesting--the souls of men and women; and not +from without, either; but rather casting themselves into those souls +and showing to us the essence of them. She was particularly struck by a +remark of Aristotle’s, that tragedy was “more philosophic” than history, +inasmuch as it concerned itself with what might be, while history was +concerned with merely what had been. This summed up for her what she +had often felt, but could not have exactly formulated. She saw that the +department over which she presided was at best an inferior one. She saw +that just what she had liked--and rightly liked--in poor dear Herodotus +was just what prevented him from being a good historian. It was wrong to +mix up facts and fancies. But why should her present servants deal with +only one little special set of the variegated facts of life? It was not +in her power to interfere. The Nine, by the terms of the charter +that Zeus had granted to them, were bound to leave their servants an +absolutely free hand. But Clio could at least refrain from reading the +works which, by a legal fiction, she was supposed to inspire. Once or +twice in the course of a century, she would glance into this or that new +history book, only to lay it down with a shrug of her shoulders. Some +of the mediaeval chronicles she rather liked. But when, one day, Pallas +asked her what she thought of “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” + her only answer was “ostis toia echei en edone echei en edone toia” + (For people who like that kind of thing, that is the kind of thing they +like). This she did let slip. Generally, throughout all the centuries, +she kept up a pretence of thinking history the greatest of all the arts. +She always held her head high among her Sisters. It was only on the +sly that she was an omnivorous reader of dramatic and lyric poetry. +She watched with keen interest the earliest developments of the prose +romance in southern Europe; and after the publication of “Clarissa +Harlowe” she spent practically all her time in reading novels. It was +not until the Spring of the year 1863 that an entirely new element +forced itself into her peaceful life. Zeus fell in love with her. + +To us, for whom so quickly “time doth transfix the flourish set on +youth,” there is something strange, even a trifle ludicrous, in the +thought that Zeus, after all these years, is still at the beck and call +of his passions. And it seems anyhow lamentable that he has not yet +gained self-confidence enough to appear in his own person to the lady +of his choice, and is still at pains to transform himself into whatever +object he deems likeliest to please her. To Clio, suddenly from Olympus, +he flashed down in the semblance of Kinglake’s “Invasion of the Crimea” + (four vols., large 8vo, half-calf). She saw through his disguise +immediately, and, with great courage and independence, bade him begone. +Rebuffed, he was not deflected. Indeed it would seem that Clio’s high +spirit did but sharpen his desire. Hardly a day passed but he appeared +in what he hoped would be the irresistible form--a recently discovered +fragment of Polybius, an advance copy of the forthcoming issue of “The +Historical Review,” the note-book of Professor Carl Voertschlaffen... +One day, all-prying Hermes told him of Clio’s secret addiction to +novel-reading. Thenceforth, year in, year out, it was in the form of +fiction that Zeus wooed her. The sole result was that she grew sick of +the sight of novels, and found a perverse pleasure in reading history. +These dry details of what had actually happened were a relief, she told +herself, from all that make-believe. + +One Sunday afternoon--the day before that very Monday on which this +narrative opens--it occurred to her how fine a thing history might be if +the historian had the novelist’s privileges. Suppose he could be present +at every scene which he was going to describe, a presence invisible and +inevitable, and equipped with power to see into the breasts of all the +persons whose actions he set himself to watch... + +While the Muse was thus musing, Zeus (disguised as Miss Annie S. Swan’s +latest work) paid his usual visit. She let her eyes rest on him. Hither +and thither she divided her swift mind, and addressed him in winged +words. “Zeus, father of gods and men, cloud-compeller, what wouldst thou +of me? But first will I say what I would of thee”; and she besought him +to extend to the writers of history such privileges as are granted to +novelists. His whole manner had changed. He listened to her with the +massive gravity of a ruler who never yet has allowed private influence +to obscure his judgment. He was silent for some time after her appeal. +Then, in a voice of thunder, which made quake the slopes of Parnassus, +he gave his answer. He admitted the disabilities under which historians +laboured. But the novelists--were they not equally handicapped? They had +to treat of persons who never existed, events which never were. Only +by the privilege of being in the thick of those events, and in the very +bowels of those persons, could they hope to hold the reader’s attention. +If similar privileges were granted to the historian, the demand for +novels would cease forthwith, and many thousand of hard-working, +deserving men and women would be thrown out of employment. In fact, Clio +had asked him an impossible favour. But he might--he said he conceivably +might--be induced to let her have her way just once. In that event, all +she would have to do was to keep her eye on the world’s surface, and +then, so soon as she had reason to think that somewhere was impending +something of great import, to choose an historian. On him, straightway, +Zeus would confer invisibility, inevitability, and psychic penetration, +with a flawless memory thrown in. + +On the following afternoon, Clio’s roving eye saw Zuleika stepping from +the Paddington platform into the Oxford train. A few moments later I +found myself suddenly on Parnassus. In hurried words Clio told me how I +came there, and what I had to do. She said she had selected me because +she knew me to be honest, sober, and capable, and no stranger to Oxford. +Another moment, and I was at the throne of Zeus. With a majesty of +gesture which I shall never forget, he stretched his hand over me, and I +was indued with the promised gifts. And then, lo! I was on the platform +of Oxford station. The train was not due for another hour. But the time +passed pleasantly enough. + +It was fun to float all unseen, to float all unhampered by any corporeal +nonsense, up and down the platform. It was fun to watch the inmost +thoughts of the station-master, of the porters, of the young person at +the buffet. But of course I did not let the holiday-mood master me. I +realised the seriousness of my mission. I must concentrate myself on +the matter in hand: Miss Dobson’s visit. What was going to happen? +Prescience was no part of my outfit. From what I knew about Miss Dobson, +I deduced that she would be a great success. That was all. Had I had the +instinct that was given to those Emperors in stone, and even to the +dog Corker, I should have begged Clio to send in my stead some man of +stronger nerve. She had charged me to be calmly vigilant, scrupulously +fair. I could have been neither, had I from the outset foreseen all. +Only because the immediate future was broken to me by degrees, first as +a set of possibilities, then as a set of probabilities that yet might +not come off, was I able to fulfil the trust imposed in me. Even so, it +was hard. I had always accepted the doctrine that to understand all is +to forgive all. Thanks to Zeus, I understood all about Miss Dobson, and +yet there were moments when she repelled me--moments when I wished to +see her neither from without nor from within. So soon as the Duke of +Dorset met her on the Monday night, I felt I was in duty bound to keep +him under constant surveillance. Yet there were moments when I was so +sorry for him that I deemed myself a brute for shadowing him. + +Ever since I can remember, I have been beset by a recurring doubt as +to whether I be or be not quite a gentleman. I have never attempted to +define that term: I have but feverishly wondered whether in its usual +acceptation (whatever that is) it be strictly applicable to myself. Many +people hold that the qualities connoted by it are primarily moral--a +kind heart, honourable conduct, and so forth. On Clio’s mission, I found +honour and kindness tugging me in precisely opposite directions. In so +far as honour tugged the harder, was I the more or the less gentlemanly? +But the test is not a fair one. Curiosity tugged on the side of honour. +This goes to prove me a cad? Oh, set against it the fact that I did +at one point betray Clio’s trust. When Miss Dobson had done the deed +recorded at the close of the foregoing chapter, I gave the Duke of +Dorset an hour’s grace. + +I could have done no less. In the lives of most of us is some one thing +that we would not after the lapse of how many years soever confess to +our most understanding friend; the thing that does not bear thinking +of; the one thing to be forgotten; the unforgettable thing. Not +the commission of some great crime: this can be atoned for by great +penances; and the very enormity of it has a dark grandeur. Maybe, some +little deadly act of meanness, some hole-and-corner treachery? But +what a man has once willed to do, his will helps him to forget. The +unforgettable thing in his life is usually not a thing he has done or +left undone, but a thing done to him--some insolence or cruelty for +which he could not, or did not, avenge himself. This it is that often +comes back to him, years after, in his dreams, and thrusts itself +suddenly into his waking thoughts, so that he clenches his hands, and +shakes his head, and hums a tune loudly--anything to beat it off. In the +very hour when first befell him that odious humiliation, would you have +spied on him? I gave the Duke of Dorset an hour’s grace. + +What were his thoughts in that interval, what words, if any, he uttered +to the night, never will be known. For this, Clio has abused me in +language less befitting a Muse than a fishwife. I do not care. I would +rather be chidden by Clio than by my own sense of delicacy, any day. + + + + +XII + +Not less averse than from dogging the Duke was I from remaining another +instant in the presence of Miss Dobson. There seemed to be no possible +excuse for her. This time she had gone too far. She was outrageous. As +soon as the Duke had had time to get clear away, I floated out into the +night. + +I may have consciously reasoned that the best way to forget the present +was in the revival of memories. Or I may have been driven by a mere +homing instinct. Anyhow, it was in the direction of my old College that +I went. Midnight was tolling as I floated in through the shut grim gate +at which I had so often stood knocking for admission. + +The man who now occupied my room had sported his oak--my oak. I read the +name on the visiting-card attached thereto--E. J. Craddock--and went in. + +E. J. Craddock, interloper, was sitting at my table, with elbows squared +and head on one side, in the act of literary composition. The oars and +caps on my walls betokened him a rowing-man. Indeed, I recognised his +somewhat heavy face as that of the man whom, from the Judas barge this +afternoon, I had seen rowing “stroke” in my College Eight. + +He ought, therefore, to have been in bed and asleep two hours ago. And +the offence of his vigil was aggravated by a large tumbler that stood +in front of him, containing whisky and soda. From this he took a deep +draught. Then he read over what he had written. I did not care to peer +over his shoulder at MS. which, though written in my room, was not +intended for my eyes. But the writer’s brain was open to me; and he had +written “I, the undersigned Edward Joseph Craddock, do hereby leave and +bequeath all my personal and other property to Zuleika Dobson, spinster. +This is my last will and testament.” + +He gnawed his pen, and presently altered the “hereby leave” to “hereby +and herewith leave.” Fool! + +I thereby and therewith left him. As I emerged through the floor of the +room above--through the very carpet that had so often been steeped in +wine, and encrusted with smithereens of glass, in the brave old days +of a well-remembered occupant--I found two men, both of them evidently +reading-men. One of them was pacing round the room. “Do you know,” he +was saying, “what she reminded me of, all the time? Those words--aren’t +they in the Song of Solomon?--‘fair as the moon, clear as the sun, +and... and...’” + +“‘Terrible as an army with banners,’” supplied his host--rather testily, +for he was writing a letter. It began “My dear Father. By the time you +receive this I shall have taken a step which...” + +Clearly it was vain to seek distraction in my old College. I floated out +into the untenanted meadows. Over them was the usual coverlet of white +vapour, trailed from the Isis right up to Merton Wall. The scent of +these meadows’ moisture is the scent of Oxford. Even in hottest noon, +one feels that the sun has not dried THEM. Always there is moisture +drifting across them, drifting into the Colleges. It, one suspects, +must have had much to do with the evocation of what is called the Oxford +spirit--that gentlest spirit, so lingering and searching, so dear to +them who as youths were brought into ken of it, so exasperating to them +who were not. Yes, certainly, it is this mild, miasmal air, not less +than the grey beauty and gravity of the buildings, that has helped +Oxford to produce, and foster eternally, her peculiar race of +artist-scholars, scholar-artists. The undergraduate, in his brief +periods of residence, is too buoyant to be mastered by the spirit of +the place. He does but salute it, and catch the manner. It is on him +who stays to spend his maturity here that the spirit will in its fulness +gradually descend. The buildings and their traditions keep astir in his +mind whatsoever is gracious; the climate, enfolding and enfeebling him, +lulling him, keeps him careless of the sharp, harsh, exigent realities +of the outer world. Careless? Not utterly. These realities may be seen +by him. He may study them, be amused or touched by them. But they cannot +fire him. Oxford is too damp for that. The “movements” made there have +been no more than protests against the mobility of others. They have +been without the dynamic quality implied in their name. They have been +no more than the sighs of men gazing at what other men had left behind +them; faint, impossible appeals to the god of retrogression, uttered for +their own sake and ritual, rather than with any intent that they should +be heard. Oxford, that lotus-land, saps the will-power, the power +of action. But, in doing so, it clarifies the mind, makes larger the +vision, gives, above all, that playful and caressing suavity of manner +which comes of a conviction that nothing matters, except ideas, and that +not even ideas are worth dying for, inasmuch as the ghosts of them slain +seem worthy of yet more piously elaborate homage than can be given to +them in their heyday. If the Colleges could be transferred to the dry +and bracing top of some hill, doubtless they would be more evidently +useful to the nation. But let us be glad there is no engineer or +enchanter to compass that task. Egomet, I would liefer have the rest of +England subside into the sea than have Oxford set on a salubrious level. +For there is nothing in England to be matched with what lurks in the +vapours of these meadows, and in the shadows of these spires--that +mysterious, inenubilable spirit, spirit of Oxford. Oxford! The very +sight of the word printed, or sound of it spoken, is fraught for me with +most actual magic. + +And on that moonlit night when I floated among the vapours of these +meadows, myself less than a vapour, I knew and loved Oxford as never +before, as never since. Yonder, in the Colleges, was the fume and fret +of tragedy--Love as Death’s decoy, and Youth following her. What then? +Not Oxford was menaced. Come what might, not a stone of Oxford’s walls +would be loosened, nor a wreath of her vapours be undone, nor lost a +breath of her sacred spirit. + +I floated up into the higher, drier air, that I might, for once, see the +total body of that spirit. + +There lay Oxford far beneath me, like a map in grey and black and +silver. All that I had known only as great single things I saw now +outspread in apposition, and tiny; tiny symbols, as it were, of +themselves, greatly symbolising their oneness. There they lay, these +multitudinous and disparate quadrangles, all their rivalries merged in +the making of a great catholic pattern. And the roofs of the buildings +around them seemed level with their lawns. No higher the roofs of the +very towers. Up from their tiny segment of the earth’s spinning surface +they stood negligible beneath infinity. And new, too, quite new, in +eternity; transient upstarts. I saw Oxford as a place that had no more +past and no more future than a mining-camp. I smiled down. O hoary and +unassailable mushroom!... But if a man carry his sense of proportion far +enough, lo! he is back at the point from which he started. He knows +that eternity, as conceived by him, is but an instant in eternity, and +infinity but a speck in infinity. How should they belittle the things +near to him?... Oxford was venerable and magical, after all, and +enduring. Aye, and not because she would endure was it the less +lamentable that the young lives within her walls were like to be taken. +My equanimity was gone; and a tear fell on Oxford. + +And then, as though Oxford herself were speaking up to me, the air +vibrated with a sweet noise of music. It was the hour of one; the end +of the Duke’s hour of grace. Through the silvery tangle of sounds from +other clocks I floated quickly down to the Broad. + + + + +XIII + +I had on the way a horrible apprehension. What if the Duke, in his +agony, had taken the one means to forgetfulness? His room, I could see, +was lit up; but a man does not necessarily choose to die in the dark. I +hovered, afraid, over the dome of the Sheldonian. I saw that the window +of the room above the Duke’s was also lit up. And there was no reason +at all to doubt the survival of Noaks. Perhaps the sight of him would +hearten me. + +I was wrong. The sight of Noaks in his room was as dismal a thing as +could be. With his chin sunk on his breast, he sat there, on a rickety +chair, staring up at the mantel-piece. This he had decked out as a sort +of shrine. In the centre, aloft on an inverted tin that had contained +Abernethy biscuits, stood a blue plush frame, with an inner rim of +brass, several sizes too big for the picture-postcard installed in it. +Zuleika’s image gazed forth with a smile that was obviously not intended +for the humble worshipper at this execrable shrine. On either side +of her stood a small vase, one holding some geraniums, the other some +mignonette. And just beneath her was placed that iron ring which, +rightly or wrongly, Noaks supposed to alleviate rheumatism--that same +iron ring which, by her touch to-night, had been charged for him with a +yet deeper magic, insomuch that he dared no longer wear it, and had set +it before her as an oblation. + +Yet, for all his humility, he was possessed by a spirit of egoism that +repelled me. While he sat peering over his spectacles at the beauteous +image, he said again and again to himself, in a hollow voice, “I am so +young to die.” Every time he said this, two large, pear-shaped +tears emerged from behind his spectacles, and found their way to +his waistcoat. It did not seem to strike him that quite half of +the undergraduates who contemplated death--and contemplated it in a +fearless, wholesome, manly fashion--were his juniors. It seemed to seem +to him that his own death, even though all those other far brighter +and more promising lives than his were to be sacrificed, was a thing to +bother about. Well, if he did not want to die, why could he not have, +at least, the courage of his cowardice? The world would not cease to +revolve because Noaks still clung to its surface. For me the whole +tragedy was cheapened by his participation in it. I was fain to +leave him. His squint, his short legs dangling towards the floor, his +tear-sodden waistcoat, and his refrain “I am so young to die,” were +beyond measure exasperating. Yet I hesitated to pass into the room +beneath, for fear of what I might see there. + +How long I might have paltered, had no sound come from that room, I +know not. But a sound came, sharp and sudden in the night, instantly +reassuring. I swept down into the presence of the Duke. + +He stood with his head flung back and his arms folded, gorgeous in a +dressing-gown of crimson brocade. In animation of pride and pomp, +he looked less like a mortal man than like a figure from some great +biblical group by Paul Veronese. + +And this was he whom I had presumed to pity! And this was he whom I had +half expected to find dead. + +His face, usually pale, was now red; and his hair, which no eye had ever +yet seen disordered, stood up in a glistening shock. These two changes +in him intensified the effect of vitality. One of them, however, +vanished as I watched it. The Duke’s face resumed its pallor. I realised +then that he had but blushed; and I realised, simultaneously, that what +had called that blush to his cheek was what had also been the signal to +me that he was alive. His blush had been a pendant to his sneeze. And +his sneeze had been a pendant to that outrage which he had been striving +to forget. He had caught cold. + +He had caught cold. In the hour of his soul’s bitter need, his body had +been suborned against him. Base! Had he not stripped his body of its +wet vesture? Had he not vigorously dried his hair, and robed himself in +crimson, and struck in solitude such attitudes as were most congruous +with his high spirit and high rank? He had set himself to crush +remembrance of that by which through his body his soul had been +assailed. And well had he known that in this conflict a giant demon was +his antagonist. But that his own body would play traitor--no, this he +had not foreseen. This was too base a thing to be foreseen. + +He stood quite still, a figure orgulous and splendent. And it seemed as +though the hot night, too, stood still, to watch him, in awe, through +the open lattices of his window, breathlessly. But to me, equipped +to see beneath the surface, he was piteous, piteous in ratio to the +pretension of his aspect. Had he crouched down and sobbed, I should have +been as much relieved as he. But he stood seignorial and aquiline. + +Painless, by comparison with this conflict in him, seemed the conflict +that had raged in him yesternight. Then, it had been his dandihood +against his passion for Zuleika. What mattered the issue? Whichever +won, the victory were sweet. And of this he had all the while been +subconscious, gallantly though he fought for his pride of dandihood. +To-night in the battle between pride and memory, he knew from the outset +that pride’s was but a forlorn hope, and that memory would be barbarous +in her triumph. Not winning to oblivion, he must hate with a fathomless +hatred. Of all the emotions, hatred is the most excruciating. Of all +the objects of hatred, a woman once loved is the most hateful. Of all +deaths, the bitterest that can befall a man is that he lay down his life +to flatter the woman he deems vilest of her sex. + +Such was the death that the Duke of Dorset saw confronting him. Most +men, when they are at war with the past, have the future as ally. +Looking steadfastly forward, they can forget. The Duke’s future was +openly in league with his past. For him, prospect was memory. All +that there was for him of future was the death to which his honour was +pledged. To envisage that was to... no, he would NOT envisage it! With a +passionate effort he hypnotised himself to think of nothing at all. His +brain, into which, by the power Zeus gave me, I was gazing, became a +perfect vacuum, insulated by the will. It was the kind of experiment +which scientists call “beautiful.” And yes, beautiful it was. + +But not in the eyes of Nature. She abhors a vacuum. Seeing the enormous +odds against which the Duke was fighting, she might well have stood +aside. But she has no sense of sport whatsoever. She stepped in. + +At first I did not realise what was happening. I saw the Duke’s eyes +contract, and the muscles of his mouth drawn down, and, at the same +time, a tense upward movement of his whole body. Then, suddenly, the +strain undone: a downward dart of the head, a loud percussion. Thrice +the Duke sneezed, with a sound that was as the bursting of the dams of +body and soul together; then sneezed again. + +Now was his will broken. He capitulated. In rushed shame and horror and +hatred, pell-mell, to ravage him. + +What care now, what use, for deportment? He walked coweringly round and +round his room, with frantic gestures, with head bowed. He shuffled and +slunk. His dressing-gown had the look of a gabardine. + +Shame and horror and hatred went slashing and hewing throughout the +fallen citadel. At length, exhausted, he flung himself down on the +window-seat and leaned out into the night, panting. The air was full of +thunder. He clutched at his throat. From the depths of the black caverns +beneath their brows the eyes of the unsleeping Emperors watched him. + +He had gone through much in the day that was past. He had loved and +lost. He had striven to recapture, and had failed. In a strange resolve +he had found serenity and joy. He had been at the point of death, and +had been saved. He had seen that his beloved was worthless, and he had +not cared. He had fought for her, and conquered; and had pled with her, +and--all these memories were loathsome by reason of that final thing +which had all the while lain in wait for him. + +He looked back and saw himself as he had been at a score of crucial +moments in the day--always in the shadow of that final thing. He saw +himself as he had been on the playing-fields of Eton; aye! and in the +arms of his nurse, to and fro on the terrace of Tankerton--always in the +shadow of that final thing, always piteous and ludicrous, doomed. Thank +heaven the future was unknowable? It wasn’t, now. To-morrow--to-day--he +must die for that accursed fiend of a woman--the woman with the hyena +laugh. + +What to do meanwhile? Impossible to sleep. He felt in his body the +strain of his quick sequence of spiritual adventures. He was dog-tired. +But his brain was furiously out of hand: no stopping it. And the night +was stifling. And all the while, in the dead silence, as though his soul +had ears, there was a sound. It was a very faint, unearthly sound, and +seemed to come from nowhere, yet to have a meaning. He feared he was +rather over-wrought. + +He must express himself. That would soothe him. Ever since childhood +he had had, from time to time, the impulse to set down in writing +his thoughts or his moods. In such exercises he had found for his +self-consciousness the vent which natures less reserved than his find in +casual talk with Tom, Dick and Harry, with Jane, Susan, and Liz. Aloof +from either of these triads, he had in his first term at Eton taken to +himself as confidant, and retained ever since, a great quarto volume, +bound in red morocco and stamped with his coronet and cypher. It was +herein, year by year, that his soul spread itself. + +He wrote mostly in English prose; but other modes were not infrequent. +Whenever he was abroad, it was his courteous habit to write in the +language of the country where he was residing--French, when he was in +his house on the Champs Elysees; Italian, when he was in his villa at +Baiae; and so on. When he was in his own country he felt himself free to +deviate sometimes from the vernacular into whatever language were aptest +to his frame of mind. In his sterner moods he gravitated to Latin, +and wrought the noble iron of that language to effects that were, if +anything, a trifle over-impressive. He found for his highest flights of +contemplation a handy vehicle in Sanscrit. In hours of mere joy it was +Greek poetry that flowed likeliest from his pen; and he had a special +fondness for the metre of Alcaeus. + +And now, too, in his darkest hour, it was Greek that surged in +him--iambics of thunderous wrath such as those which are volleyed by +Prometheus. But as he sat down to his writing-table, and unlocked the +dear old album, and dipped his pen in the ink, a great calm fell on him. +The iambics in him began to breathe such sweetness as is on the lips of +Alcestis going to her doom. But, just as he set pen to paper, his hand +faltered, and he sprang up, victim of another and yet more violent fit +of sneezing. + +Disbuskined, dangerous. The spirit of Juvenal woke in him. He would +flay. He would make Woman (as he called Zuleika) writhe. Latin +hexameters, of course. An epistle to his heir presumptive... “Vae tibi,” + he began, + + “Vae tibi, vae misero, nisi circumspexeris artes + Femineas, nam nulla salus quin femina possit + Tradere, nulla fides quin”-- + +“Quin,” he repeated. In writing soliloquies, his trouble was to +curb inspiration. The thought that he was addressing his +heir-presumptive--now heir-only-too-apparent--gave him pause. Nor, he +reflected, was he addressing this brute only, but a huge posthumous +audience. These hexameters would be sure to appear in the “authorised” + biography. “A melancholy interest attaches to the following lines, +written, it would seem, on the very eve of”... He winced. Was it really +possible, and no dream, that he was to die to-morrow--to-day? + +Even you, unassuming reader, go about with a vague notion that in your +case, somehow, the ultimate demand of nature will be waived. The +Duke, until he conceived his sudden desire to die, had deemed himself +certainly exempt. And now, as he sat staring at his window, he saw in +the paling of the night the presage of the dawn of his own last day. +Sometimes (orphaned though he was in early childhood) he had even found +it hard to believe there was no exemption for those to whom he stood in +any personal relation. He remembered how, soon after he went to Eton, +he had received almost with incredulity the news of the death of his +god-father, Lord Stackley, an octogenarian.... He took from the table +his album, knowing that on one of the earliest pages was inscribed his +boyish sense of that bereavement. Yes, here the passage was, written in +a large round hand: + +“Death knocks, as we know, at the door of the cottage and of the castle. +He stalks up the front-garden and the steep steps of the semi-detached +villa, and plies the ornamental knocker so imperiously that the panels +of imitation stained glass quiver in the thin front-door. Even the +family that occupies the topmost story of a building without a lift is +on his ghastly visiting-list. He rattles his fleshless knuckles against +the door of the gypsy’s caravan. Into the savage’s tent, wigwam, or +wattled hut, he darts unbidden. Even on the hermit in the cave he forces +his obnoxious presence. His is an universal beat, and he walks it with +a grin. But be sure it is at the sombre portal of the nobleman that he +knocks with the greatest gusto. It is there, where haply his visit will +be commemorated with a hatchment; it is then, when the muffled thunder +of the Dead March in ‘Saul’ will soon be rolling in cathedrals; it +is then, it is there, that the pride of his unquestioned power comes +grimliest home to him. Is there no withstanding him? Why should he be +admitted always with awe, a cravenly-honoured guest? When next he calls, +let the butler send him about his business, or tell him to step round to +the servants’ entrance. If it be made plain to him that his visits are +an impertinence, he will soon be disemboldened. Once the aristocracy +make a stand against him, there need be no more trouble about the +exorbitant Duties named after him. And for the hereditary system--that +system which both offends the common sense of the Radical, and wounds +the Tory by its implied admission that noblemen are mortal--a seemly +substitute will have been found.” + +Artless and crude in expression, very boyish, it seemed now to its +author. Yet, in its simple wistfulness, it had quality: it rang true. +The Duke wondered whether, with all that he had since mastered in the +great art of English prose, he had not lost something, too. + +“Is there no withstanding him?” To think that the boy who uttered that +cry, and gave back so brave an answer, was within nine years to go +seek death of his own accord! How the gods must be laughing! Yes, +the exquisite point of the joke, for them, was that he CHOSE to die. +But--and, as the thought flashed through him, he started like a man +shot--what if he chose not to? Stay, surely there was some reason why +he MUST die. Else, why throughout the night had he taken his doom for +granted?... Honour: yes, he had pledged himself. Better death than +dishonour. Was it, though? was it? Ah, he, who had come so near to +death, saw dishonour as a tiny trifle. Where was the sting of it? Not +he would be ridiculous to-morrow--to-day. Every one would acclaim his +splendid act of moral courage. She, she, the hyena woman, would be the +fool. No one would have thought of dying for her, had he not set the +example. Every one would follow his new example. Yes, he would +save Oxford yet. That was his duty. Duty and darling vengeance! And +life--life! + +It was full dawn now. Gone was that faint, monotonous sound which had +punctuated in his soul the horrors of his vigil. But, in reminder of +those hours, his lamp was still burning. He extinguished it; and the +going-out of that tarnished light made perfect his sense of release. + +He threw wide his arms in welcome of the great adorable day, and of all +the great adorable days that were to be his. + +He leaned out from his window, drinking the dawn in. The gods had +made merry over him, had they? And the cry of the hyena had made night +hideous. Well, it was his turn now. He would laugh last and loudest. + +And already, for what was to be, he laughed outright into the morning; +insomuch that the birds in the trees of Trinity, and still more the +Emperors over the way, marvelled greatly. + + + + +XIV + +They had awaited thousands and innumerable thousands of daybreaks in the +Broad, these Emperors, counting the long slow hours till the night were +over. It is in the night especially that their fallen greatness haunts +them. Day brings some distraction. They are not incurious of the lives +around them--these little lives that succeed one another so quickly. To +them, in their immemorial old age, youth is a constant wonder. And so +is death, which to them comes not. Youth or death--which, they had often +asked themselves, was the goodlier? But it was ill that these two things +should be mated. It was ill-come, this day of days. + +Long after the Duke was in bed and asleep, his peal of laughter echoed +in the ears of the Emperors. Why had he laughed? + +And they said to themselves “We are very old men, and broken, and in a +land not our own. There are things that we do not understand.” + +Brief was the freshness of the dawn. From all points of the compass, +dark grey clouds mounted into the sky. There, taking their places +as though in accordance to a strategic plan laid down for them, they +ponderously massed themselves, and presently, as at a given signal, +drew nearer to earth, and halted, an irresistible great army, awaiting +orders. + +Somewhere under cover of them the sun went his way, transmitting a +sulphurous heat. The very birds in the trees of Trinity were oppressed +and did not twitter. The very leaves did not whisper. + +Out through the railings, and across the road, prowled a skimpy and +dingy cat, trying to look like a tiger. + +It was all very sinister and dismal. + +The hours passed. The Broad put forth, one by one, its signs of waking. + +Soon after eight o’clock, as usual, the front-door of the Duke’s +lodgings was opened from within. The Emperors watched for the faint +cloud of dust that presently emerged, and for her whom it preceded. To +them, this first outcoming of the landlady’s daughter was a moment of +daily interest. Katie!--they had known her as a toddling child; and +later as a little girl scampering off to school, all legs and pinafore +and streaming golden hair. And now she was sixteen years old. Her hair, +tied back at the nape of her neck, would very soon be “up.” Her big +blue eyes were as they had always been; but she had long passed out of +pinafores into aprons, had taken on a sedateness befitting her years and +her duties, and was anxious to be regarded rather as an aunt than as +a sister by her brother Clarence, aged twelve. The Emperors had always +predicted that she would be pretty. And very pretty she was. + +As she came slowly out, with eyes downcast to her broom, sweeping the +dust so seriously over the doorstep and then across the pavement, and +anon when she reappeared with pail and scrubbing-brush, and abased +herself before the doorstep, and wrought so vehemently there, what +filled her little soul was not the dignity of manual labour. The duties +that Zuleika had envied her were dear to her exactly as they would have +been, yesterday morning, to Zuleika. The Emperors had often noticed that +during vacations their little favourite’s treatment of the doorstep was +languid and perfunctory. They knew well her secret, and always (for who +can be long in England without becoming sentimental?) they cherished the +hope of a romantic union between her and “a certain young gentleman,” as +they archly called the Duke. His continued indifference to her they took +almost as an affront to themselves. Where in all England was a prettier, +sweeter girl than their Katie? The sudden irruption of Zuleika into +Oxford was especially grievous to them because they could no longer +hope against hope that Katie would be led by the Duke to the altar, and +thence into the highest social circles, and live happily ever after. +Luckily it was for Katie, however, that they had no power to fill her +head with their foolish notions. It was well for her to have never +doubted she loved in vain. She had soon grown used to her lot. Not until +yesterday had there been any bitterness. Jealousy surged in Katie at the +very moment when she beheld Zuleika on the threshold. A glance at the +Duke’s face when she showed the visitor up was enough to acquaint +her with the state of his heart. And she did not, for confirming her +intuition, need the two or three opportunities she took of listening at +the keyhole. What in the course of those informal audiences did surprise +her--so much indeed that she could hardly believe her ear--was that it +was possible for a woman not to love the Duke. Her jealousy of “that +Miss Dobson” was for a while swallowed up in her pity for him. What she +had borne so cheerfully for herself she could not bear for her hero. She +wished she had not happened to listen. + +And this morning, while she knelt swaying and spreading over “his” + doorstep, her blue eyes added certain tears to be scrubbed away in the +general moisture of the stone. Rising, she dried her hands in her apron, +and dried her eyes with her hands. Lest her mother should see that she +had been crying, she loitered outside the door. Suddenly, her roving +glance changed to a stare of acute hostility. She knew well that the +person wandering towards her was--no, not “that Miss Dobson,” as she had +for the fraction of an instant supposed, but the next worst thing. + +It has been said that Melisande indoors was an evidently French maid. +Out of doors she was not less evidently Zuleika’s. Not that she aped her +mistress. The resemblance had come by force of propinquity and devotion. +Nature had laid no basis for it. Not one point of form or colour had +the two women in common. It has been said that Zuleika was not strictly +beautiful. Melisande, like most Frenchwomen, was strictly plain. But +in expression and port, in her whole tournure, she had become, as +every good maid does, her mistress’ replica. The poise of her head, the +boldness of her regard and brilliance of her smile, the leisurely and +swinging way in which she walked, with a hand on the hip--all these +things of hers were Zuleika’s too. She was no conqueror. None but the +man to whom she was betrothed--a waiter at the Cafe Tourtel, named +Pelleas--had ever paid court to her; nor was she covetous of other +hearts. Yet she looked victorious, and insatiable of victories, and +“terrible as an army with banners.” + +In the hand that was not on her hip she carried a letter. And on her +shoulders she had to bear the full burden of the hatred that Zuleika had +inspired in Katie. But this she did not know. She came glancing boldly, +leisurely, at the numbers on the front-doors. + +Katie stepped back on to the doorstep, lest the inferiority of her +stature should mar the effect of her disdain. + +“Good-day. Is it here that Duke D’Orsay lives?” asked Melisande, as +nearly accurate as a Gaul may be in such matters. + +“The Duke of Dorset,” said Katie with a cold and insular emphasis, +“lives here.” And “You,” she tried to convey with her eyes, “you, for +all your smart black silk, are a hireling. I am Miss Batch. I happen to +have a hobby for housework. I have not been crying.” + +“Then please mount this to him at once,” said Melisande, holding out the +letter. “It is from Miss Dobson’s part. Very express. I wait response.” + +“You are very ugly,” Katie signalled with her eyes. “I am very pretty. +I have the Oxfordshire complexion. And I play the piano.” With her lips +she said merely, “His Grace is not called before nine o’clock.” + +“But to-day you go wake him now--quick--is it not?” + +“Quite out of the question,” said Katie. “If you care to leave +that letter here, I will see that it is placed on his Grace’s +breakfast-table, with the morning’s post.” “For the rest,” added her +eyes, “Down with France!” + +“I find you droll, but droll, my little one!” cried Melisande. + +Katie stepped back and shut the door in her face. “Like a little +Empress,” the Emperors commented. + +The Frenchwoman threw up her hands and apostrophised heaven. To this day +she believes that all the bonnes of Oxford are mad, but mad, and of a +madness. + +She stared at the door, at the pail and scrubbing-brush that had been +shut out with her, at the letter in her hand. She decided that she had +better drop the letter into the slit in the door and make report to Miss +Dobson. + +As the envelope fell through the slit to the door-mat, Katie made at +Melisande a grimace which, had not the panels been opaque, would have +astonished the Emperors. Resuming her dignity, she picked the thing up, +and, at arm’s length, examined it. It was inscribed in pencil. Katie’s +lips curled at sight of the large, audacious handwriting. But it is +probable that whatever kind of handwriting Zuleika might have had would +have been just the kind that Katie would have expected. + +Fingering the envelope, she wondered what the wretched woman had to +say. It occurred to her that the kettle was simmering on the hob in the +kitchen, and that she might easily steam open the envelope and master +its contents. However, her doing this would have in no way affected +the course of the tragedy. And so the gods (being to-day in a strictly +artistic mood) prompted her to mind her own business. + +Laying the Duke’s table for breakfast, she made as usual a neat +rectangular pile of the letters that had come for him by post. Zuleika’s +letter she threw down askew. That luxury she allowed herself. + +And he, when he saw the letter, allowed himself the luxury of leaving it +unopened awhile. Whatever its purport, he knew it could but minister to +his happy malice. A few hours ago, with what shame and dread it would +have stricken him! Now it was a dainty to be dallied with. + +His eyes rested on the black tin boxes that contained his robes of the +Garter. Hateful had been the sight of them in the watches of the night, +when he thought he had worn those robes for the last time. But now--! + +He opened Zuleika’s letter. It did not disappoint him. + + +“DEAR DUKE,--DO, DO forgive me. I am beyond words ashamed of the silly +tomboyish thing I did last night. Of course it was no worse than that, +but an awful fear haunts me that you MAY have thought I acted in anger +at the idea of your breaking your promise to me. Well, it is quite true +I had been hurt and angry when you hinted at doing that, but the moment +I left you I saw that you had been only in fun, and I enjoyed the joke +against myself, though I thought it was rather too bad of you. And +then, as a sort of revenge, but almost before I knew what I was doing, +I played that IDIOTIC practical joke on you. I have been MISERABLE ever +since. DO come round as early as possible and tell me I am forgiven. But +before you tell me that, please lecture me till I cry--though indeed I +have been crying half through the night. And then if you want to be VERY +horrid you may tease me for being so slow to see a joke. And then you +might take me to see some of the Colleges and things before we go on to +lunch at The MacQuern’s? Forgive pencil and scrawl. Am sitting up in bed +to write.--Your sincere friend, + +“Z. D. + +“P.S.--Please burn this.” + + +At that final injunction, the Duke abandoned himself to his mirth. +“Please burn this.” Poor dear young woman, how modest she was in the +glare of her diplomacy! Why there was nothing, not one phrase, to +compromise her in the eyes of a coroner’s jury!... Seriously, she +had good reason to be proud of her letter. For the purpose in view it +couldn’t have been better done. That was what made it so touchingly +absurd. He put himself in her position. He pictured himself as her, +“sitting up in bed,” pencil in hand, to explain away, to soothe, to +clinch and bind... Yes, if he had happened to be some other man--one +whom her insult might have angered without giving love its death-blow, +and one who could be frightened out of not keeping his word--this letter +would have been capital. + +He helped himself to some more marmalade, and poured out another cup of +coffee. Nothing is more thrilling, thought he, than to be treated as a +cully by the person you hold in the hollow of your hand. + +But within this great irony lay (to be glided over) another irony. He +knew well in what mood Zuleika had done what she had done to him last +night; yet he preferred to accept her explanation of it. + +Officially, then, he acquitted her of anything worse than tomboyishness. +But this verdict for his own convenience implied no mercy to the +culprit. The sole point for him was how to administer her punishment the +most poignantly. Just how should he word his letter? + +He rose from his chair, and “Dear Miss Dobson--no, MY dear Miss Dobson,” + he murmured, pacing the room, “I am so very sorry I cannot come to see +you: I have to attend two lectures this morning. By contrast with this +weariness, it will be the more delightful to meet you at The MacQuern’s. +I want to see as much as I can of you to-day, because to-night there is +the Bump Supper, and to-morrow morning, alas! I must motor to Windsor +for this wretched Investiture. Meanwhile, how can you ask to be forgiven +when there is nothing whatever to forgive? It seems to me that mine, not +yours, is the form of humour that needs explanation. My proposal to die +for you was made in as playful a spirit as my proposal to marry you. And +it is really for me to ask forgiveness of you. One thing especially,” he +murmured, fingering in his waistcoat-pocket the ear-rings she had given +him, “pricks my conscience. I do feel that I ought not to have let +you give me these two pearls--at any rate, not the one which went into +premature mourning for me. As I have no means of deciding which of the +two this one is, I enclose them both, with the hope that the pretty +difference between them will in time reappear”... Or words to that +effect... Stay! why not add to the joy of contriving that effect the +greater joy of watching it? Why send Zuleika a letter? He would obey her +summons. He would speed to her side. He snatched up a hat. + +In this haste, however, he detected a certain lack of dignity. He +steadied himself, and went slowly to the mirror. There he adjusted his +hat with care, and regarded himself very seriously, very sternly, from +various angles, like a man invited to paint his own portrait for the +Uffizi. He must be worthy of himself. It was well that Zuleika should +be chastened. Great was her sin. Out of life and death she had fashioned +toys for her vanity. But his joy must be in vindication of what was +noble, not in making suffer what was vile. Yesterday he had been her +puppet, her Jumping-Jack; to-day it was as avenging angel that he would +appear before her. The gods had mocked him who was now their minister. +Their minister? Their master, as being once more master of himself. It +was they who had plotted his undoing. Because they loved him they were +fain that he should die young. The Dobson woman was but their agent, +their cat’s-paw. By her they had all but got him. Not quite! And now, to +teach them, through her, a lesson they would not soon forget, he would +go forth. + +Shaking with laughter, the gods leaned over the thunder-clouds to watch +him. + +He went forth. + +On the well-whitened doorstep he was confronted by a small boy in +uniform bearing a telegram. + +“Duke of Dorset?” asked the small boy. + +Opening the envelope, the Duke saw that the message, with which was a +prepaid form for reply, had been handed in at the Tankerton post-office. +It ran thus: + + + Deeply regret inform your grace last night + two black owls came and perched on battlements + remained there through night hooting + at dawn flew away none knows whither + awaiting instructions Jellings + + +The Duke’s face, though it grew white, moved not one muscle. + +Somewhat shamed now, the gods ceased from laughing. + +The Duke looked from the telegram to the boy. “Have you a pencil?” he +asked. + +“Yes, my Lord,” said the boy, producing a stump of pencil. + +Holding the prepaid form against the door, the Duke wrote: + + + Jellings Tankerton Hall + Prepare vault for funeral Monday + + Dorset + + +His handwriting was as firmly and minutely beautiful as ever. Only in +that he forgot there was nothing to pay did he belie his calm. “Here,” + he said to the boy, “is a shilling; and you may keep the change.” + +“Thank you, my Lord,” said the boy, and went his way, as happy as a +postman. + + + + +XV + +Humphrey Greddon, in the Duke’s place, would have taken a pinch of +snuff. But he could not have made that gesture with a finer air than the +Duke gave to its modern equivalent. In the art of taking and lighting +a cigarette, there was one man who had no rival in Europe. This time he +outdid even himself. + +“Ah,” you say, “but ‘pluck’ is one thing, endurance another. A man who +doesn’t reel on receipt of his death-warrant may yet break down when he +has had time to think it over. How did the Duke acquit himself when he +came to the end of his cigarette? And by the way, how was it that after +he had read the telegram you didn’t give him again an hour’s grace?” + +In a way, you have a perfect right to ask both those questions. But +their very pertinence shows that you think I might omit things that +matter. Please don’t interrupt me again. Am _I_ writing this history, or +are you? + +Though the news that he must die was a yet sharper douche, as you have +suggested, than the douche inflicted by Zuleika, it did at least leave +unscathed the Duke’s pride. The gods can make a man ridiculous through +a woman, but they cannot make him ridiculous when they deal him a blow +direct. The very greatness of their power makes them, in that respect, +impotent. They had decreed that the Duke should die, and they had told +him so. There was nothing to demean him in that. True, he had just +measured himself against them. But there was no shame in being +gravelled. The peripety was according to the best rules of tragic art. +The whole thing was in the grand manner. + +Thus I felt that there were no indelicacy, this time, in watching +him. Just as “pluck” comes of breeding, so is endurance especially an +attribute of the artist. Because he can stand outside himself, and (if +there be nothing ignoble in them) take a pleasure in his own sufferings, +the artist has a huge advantage over you and me. The Duke, so soon +as Zuleika’s spell was broken, had become himself again--a highly +self-conscious artist in life. And now, standing pensive on the +doorstep, he was almost enviable in his great affliction. + +Through the wreaths of smoke which, as they came from his lips, hung in +the sultry air as they would have hung in a closed room, he gazed up at +the steadfast thunder-clouds. How nobly they had been massed for him! +One of them, a particularly large and dark one, might with advantage, +he thought, have been placed a little further to the left. He made a +gesture to that effect. Instantly the cloud rolled into position. +The gods were painfully anxious, now, to humour him in trifles. His +behaviour in the great emergency had so impressed them at a distance +that they rather dreaded meeting him anon at close quarters. They rather +wished they had not uncaged, last night, the two black owls. Too late. +What they had done they had done. + +That faint monotonous sound in the stillness of the night--the Duke +remembered it now. What he had thought to be only his fancy had been +his death-knell, wafted to him along uncharted waves of ether, from the +battlements of Tankerton. It had ceased at daybreak. He wondered now +that he had not guessed its meaning. And he was glad that he had not. +He was thankful for the peace that had been granted to him, the joyous +arrogance in which he had gone to bed and got up for breakfast. He +valued these mercies the more for the great tragic irony that came of +them. Aye, and he was inclined to blame the gods for not having kept him +still longer in the dark and so made the irony still more awful. Why had +they not caused the telegram to be delayed in transmission? They +ought to have let him go and riddle Zuleika with his scorn and his +indifference. They ought to have let him hurl through her his defiance +of them. Art aside, they need not have grudged him that excursion. + +He could not, he told himself, face Zuleika now. As artist, he saw that +there was irony enough left over to make the meeting a fine one. As +theologian, he did not hold her responsible for his destiny. But as a +man, after what she had done to him last night, and before what he had +to do for her to-day, he would not go out of his way to meet her. Of +course, he would not actually avoid her. To seem to run away from her +were beneath his dignity. But, if he did meet her, what in heaven’s +name should he say to her? He remembered his promise to lunch with The +MacQuern, and shuddered. She would be there. Death, as he had said, +cancelled all engagements. A very simple way out of the difficulty would +be to go straight to the river. No, that would be like running away. It +couldn’t be done. + +Hardly had he rejected the notion when he had a glimpse of a female +figure coming quickly round the corner--a glimpse that sent him walking +quickly away, across the road, towards Turl Street, blushing violently. +Had she seen him? he asked himself. And had she seen that he saw her? +He heard her running after him. He did not look round, he quickened his +pace. She was gaining on him. Involuntarily, he ran--ran like a hare, +and, at the corner of Turl Street, rose like a trout, saw the pavement +rise at him, and fell, with a bang, prone. + +Let it be said at once that in this matter the gods were absolutely +blameless. It is true they had decreed that a piece of orange-peel +should be thrown down this morning at the corner of Turl Street. But +the Master of Balliol, not the Duke, was the person they had destined +to slip on it. You must not imagine that they think out and appoint +everything that is to befall us, down to the smallest detail. Generally, +they just draw a sort of broad outline, and leave us to fill it in +according to our taste. Thus, in the matters of which this book is +record, it was they who made the Warden invite his grand-daughter to +Oxford, and invite the Duke to meet her on the evening of her arrival. +And it was they who prompted the Duke to die for her on the following +(Tuesday) afternoon. They had intended that he should execute his +resolve after, or before, the boat-race of that evening. But an +oversight upset this plan. They had forgotten on Monday night to uncage +the two black owls; and so it was necessary that the Duke’s death should +be postponed. They accordingly prompted Zuleika to save him. For the +rest, they let the tragedy run its own course--merely putting in a +felicitous touch here and there, or vetoing a superfluity, such as that +Katie should open Zuleika’s letter. It was no part of their scheme that +the Duke should mistake Melisande for her mistress, or that he should +run away from her, and they were genuinely sorry when he, instead of the +Master of Balliol, came to grief over the orange-peel. + +Them, however, the Duke cursed as he fell; them again as he raised +himself on one elbow, giddy and sore; and when he found that the woman +bending over him was not she whom he dreaded, but her innocent maid, it +was against them that he almost foamed at the mouth. + +“Monsieur le Duc has done himself harm--no?” panted Melisande. “Here is +a letter from Miss Dobson’s part. She say to me ‘Give it him with your +own hand.’” + +The Duke received the letter and, sitting upright, tore it to shreds, +thus confirming a suspicion which Melisande had conceived at the moment +when he took to his heels, that all English noblemen are mad, but mad, +and of a madness. + +“Nom de Dieu,” she cried, wringing her hands, “what shall I tell to +Mademoiselle?” + +“Tell her--” the Duke choked back a phrase of which the memory would +have shamed his last hours. “Tell her,” he substituted, “that you have +seen Marius sitting among the ruins of Carthage,” and limped quickly +away down the Turl. + +Both his hands had been abraded by the fall. He tended them angrily +with his handkerchief. Mr. Druce, the chemist, had anon the privilege of +bathing and plastering them, also of balming and binding the right knee +and the left shin. “Might have been a very nasty accident, your Grace,” + he said. “It was,” said the Duke. Mr. Druce concurred. + +Nevertheless, Mr. Druce’s remark sank deep. The Duke thought it quite +likely that the gods had intended the accident to be fatal, and that +only by his own skill and lightness in falling had he escaped the +ignominy of dying in full flight from a lady’s-maid. He had not, you +see, lost all sense of free-will. While Mr. Druce put the finishing +touches to his shin, “I am utterly purposed,” he said to himself, “that +for this death of mine I will choose my own manner and my own--well, not +‘time’ exactly, but whatever moment within my brief span of life shall +seem aptest to me. Unberufen,” he added, lightly tapping Mr. Druce’s +counter. + +The sight of some bottles of Cold Mixture on that hospitable board +reminded him of a painful fact. In the clash of the morning’s +excitements, he had hardly felt the gross ailment that was on him. +He became fully conscious of it now, and there leapt in him a hideous +doubt: had he escaped a violent death only to succumb to “natural +causes”? He had never hitherto had anything the matter with him, and +thus he belonged to the worst, the most apprehensive, class of patients. +He knew that a cold, were it neglected, might turn malignant; and he +had a vision of himself gripped suddenly in the street by internal +agonies--a sympathetic crowd, an ambulance, his darkened bedroom; local +doctor making hopelessly wrong diagnosis; eminent specialists served up +hot by special train, commending local doctor’s treatment, but shaking +their heads and refusing to say more than “He has youth on his side”; a +slight rally at sunset; the end. All this flashed through his mind. He +quailed. There was not a moment to lose. He frankly confessed to Mr. +Druce that he had a cold. + +Mr. Druce, trying to insinuate by his manner that this fact had not been +obvious, suggested the Mixture--a teaspoonful every two hours. “Give me +some now, please, at once,” said the Duke. + +He felt magically better for the draught. He handled the little glass +lovingly, and eyed the bottle. “Why not two teaspoonfuls every hour?” + he suggested, with an eagerness almost dipsomaniacal. But Mr. Druce was +respectfully firm against that. The Duke yielded. He fancied, indeed, +that the gods had meant him to die of an overdose. + +Still, he had a craving for more. Few though his hours were, he hoped +the next two would pass quickly. And, though he knew Mr. Druce could be +trusted to send the bottle round to his rooms immediately, he preferred +to carry it away with him. He slipped it into the breast-pocket of his +coat, almost heedless of the slight extrusion it made there. + +Just as he was about to cross the High again, on his way home, a +butcher’s cart dashed down the slope, recklessly driven. He stepped well +back on the pavement, and smiled a sardonic smile. He looked to right +and to left, carefully gauging the traffic. Some time elapsed before he +deemed the road clear enough for transit. + +Safely across, he encountered a figure that seemed to loom up out of the +dim past. Oover! Was it but yesternight that Oover dined with him? With +the sensation of a man groping among archives, he began to apologise to +the Rhodes Scholar for having left him so abruptly at the Junta. Then, +presto!--as though those musty archives were changed to a crisp morning +paper agog with terrific head-lines--he remembered the awful resolve of +Oover, and of all young Oxford. + +“Of course,” he asked, with a lightness that hardly hid his dread of the +answer, “you have dismissed the notion you were toying with when I left +you?” + +Oover’s face, like his nature, was as sensitive as it was massive, +and it instantly expressed his pain at the doubt cast on his high +seriousness. “Duke,” he asked, “d’you take me for a skunk?” + +“Without pretending to be quite sure what a skunk is,” said the Duke, +“I take you to be all that it isn’t. And the high esteem in which I +hold you is the measure for me of the loss that your death would be to +America and to Oxford.” + +Oover blushed. “Duke” he said “that’s a bully testimonial. But don’t +worry. America can turn out millions just like me, and Oxford can have +as many of them as she can hold. On the other hand, how many of YOU +can be turned out, as per sample, in England? Yet you choose to destroy +yourself. You avail yourself of the Unwritten Law. And you’re right, +Sir. Love transcends all.” + +“But does it? What if I told you I had changed my mind?” + +“Then, Duke,” said Oover, slowly, “I should believe that all those yarns +I used to hear about the British aristocracy were true, after all. I +should aver that you were not a white man. Leading us on like that, and +then--Say, Duke! Are you going to die to-day, or not?” + +“As a matter of fact, I am, but--” + +“Shake!” + +“But--” + +Oover wrung the Duke’s hand, and was passing on. “Stay!” he was adjured. + +“Sorry, unable. It’s just turning eleven o’clock, and I’ve a lecture. +While life lasts, I’m bound to respect Rhodes’ intentions.” The +conscientious Scholar hurried away. + +The Duke wandered down the High, taking counsel with himself. He was +ashamed of having so utterly forgotten the mischief he had wrought at +large. At dawn he had vowed to undo it. Undo it he must. But the task +was not a simple one now. If he could say “Behold, I take back my word. +I spurn Miss Dobson, and embrace life,” it was possible that his example +would suffice. But now that he could only say “Behold, I spurn Miss +Dobson, and will not die for her, but I am going to commit suicide, all +the same,” it was clear that his words would carry very little force. +Also, he saw with pain that they placed him in a somewhat ludicrous +position. His end, as designed yesterday, had a large and simple +grandeur. So had his recantation of it. But this new compromise between +the two things had a fumbled, a feeble, an ignoble look. It seemed to +combine all the disadvantages of both courses. It stained his honour +without prolonging his life. Surely, this was a high price to pay for +snubbing Zuleika... Yes, he must revert without more ado to his first +scheme. He must die in the manner that he had blazoned forth. And he +must do it with a good grace, none knowing he was not glad; else the +action lost all dignity. True, this was no way to be a saviour. But only +by not dying at all could he have set a really potent example.... He +remembered the look that had come into Oover’s eyes just now at the +notion of his unfaith. Perhaps he would have been the mock, not the +saviour, of Oxford. Better dishonour than death, maybe. But, since +die he must, he must die not belittling or tarnishing the name of +Tanville-Tankerton. + +Within these bounds, however, he must put forth his full might to avert +the general catastrophe--and to punish Zuleika nearly well enough, after +all, by intercepting that vast nosegay from her outstretched hands +and her distended nostrils. There was no time to be lost, then. But he +wondered, as he paced the grand curve between St. Mary’s and Magdalen +Bridge, just how was he to begin? + +Down the flight of steps from Queen’s came lounging an average +undergraduate. + +“Mr. Smith,” said the Duke, “a word with you.” + +“But my name is not Smith,” said the young man. + +“Generically it is,” replied the Duke. “You are Smith to all intents +and purposes. That, indeed, is why I address you. In making your +acquaintance, I make a thousand acquaintances. You are a short cut to +knowledge. Tell me, do you seriously think of drowning yourself this +afternoon?” + +“Rather,” said the undergraduate. + +“A meiosis in common use, equivalent to ‘Yes, assuredly,’” murmured the +Duke. “And why,” he then asked, “do you mean to do this?” + +“Why? How can you ask? Why are YOU going to do it?” + +“The Socratic manner is not a game at which two can play. Please answer +my question, to the best of your ability.” + +“Well, because I can’t live without her. Because I want to prove my love +for her. Because--” + +“One reason at a time please,” said the Duke, holding up his hand. “You +can’t live without her? Then I am to assume that you look forward to +dying?” + +“Rather.” + +“You are truly happy in that prospect?” + +“Yes. Rather.” + +“Now, suppose I showed you two pieces of equally fine amber--a big one +and a little one. Which of these would you rather possess?” + +“The big one, I suppose.” + +“And this because it is better to have more than to have less of a good +thing?” + +“Just so.” + +“Do you consider happiness a good thing or a bad one?” + +“A good one.” + +“So that a man would rather have more than less of happiness?” + +“Undoubtedly.” + +“Then does it not seem to you that you would do well to postpone your +suicide indefinitely?” + +“But I have just said I can’t live without her.” + +“You have still more recently declared yourself truly happy.” + +“Yes, but--” + +“Now, be careful, Mr. Smith. Remember, this is a matter of life and +death. Try to do yourself justice. I have asked you--” + +But the undergraduate was walking away, not without a certain dignity. + +The Duke felt that he had not handled his man skilfully. He remembered +that even Socrates, for all the popular charm of his mock-modesty and +his true geniality, had ceased after a while to be tolerable. Without +such a manner to grace his method, Socrates would have had a very brief +time indeed. The Duke recoiled from what he took to be another pitfall. +He almost smelt hemlock. + +A party of four undergraduates abreast was approaching. How should he +address them? His choice wavered between the evangelic wistfulness of +“Are you saved?” and the breeziness of the recruiting sergeant’s “Come, +you’re fine upstanding young fellows. Isn’t it a pity,” etc. Meanwhile, +the quartet had passed by. + +Two other undergraduates approached. The Duke asked them simply as a +personal favour to himself not to throw away their lives. They said +they were very sorry, but in this particular matter they must please +themselves. In vain he pled. They admitted that but for his example they +would never have thought of dying. They wished they could show him their +gratitude in any way but the one which would rob them of it. + +The Duke drifted further down the High, bespeaking every undergraduate +he met, leaving untried no argument, no inducement. For one man, whose +name he happened to know, he invented an urgent personal message from +Miss Dobson imploring him not to die on her account. On another man he +offered to settle by hasty codicil a sum of money sufficient to yield +an annual income of two thousand pounds--three thousand--any sum within +reason. With another he offered to walk, arm in arm, to Carfax and back +again. All to no avail. + +He found himself in the precincts of Magdalen, preaching from the little +open-air pulpit there an impassioned sermon on the sacredness of human +life, and referring to Zuleika in terms which John Knox would have +hesitated to utter. As he piled up the invective, he noticed an ominous +restiveness in the congregation--murmurs, clenching of hands, dark +looks. He saw the pulpit as yet another trap laid for him by the gods. +He had walked straight into it: another moment, and he might be dragged +down, overwhelmed by numbers, torn limb from limb. All that was in +him of quelling power he put hastily into his eyes, and manoeuvred his +tongue to gentler discourse, deprecating his right to judge “this lady,” + and merely pointing the marvel, the awful though noble folly, of his +resolve. He ended on a note of quiet pathos. “To-night I shall be among +the shades. There be not you, my brothers.” + +Good though the sermon was in style and sentiment, the flaw in its +reasoning was too patent for any converts to be made. As he walked out +of the quadrangle, the Duke felt the hopelessness of his cause. Still +he battled bravely for it up the High, waylaying, cajoling, commanding, +offering vast bribes. He carried his crusade into the Loder, and +thence into Vincent’s, and out into the street again, eager, untiring, +unavailing: everywhere he found his precept checkmated by his example. + +The sight of The MacQuern coming out top-speed from the Market, with +a large but inexpensive bunch of flowers, reminded him of the luncheon +that was to be. Never to throw over an engagement was for him, as we +have seen, a point of honour. But this particular engagement--hateful, +when he accepted it, by reason of his love--was now impossible for +the reason which had made him take so ignominiously to his heels this +morning. He curtly told the Scot not to expect him. + +“Is SHE not coming?” gasped the Scot, with quick suspicion. + +“Oh,” said the Duke, turning on his heel, “she doesn’t know that I +shan’t be there. You may count on her.” This he took to be the very +truth, and he was glad to have made of it a thrust at the man who had +so uncouthly asserted himself last night. He could not help smiling, +though, at this little resentment erect after the cataclysm that had +swept away all else. Then he smiled to think how uneasy Zuleika would +be at his absence. What agonies of suspense she must have had all this +morning! He imagined her silent at the luncheon, with a vacant gaze at +the door, eating nothing at all. And he became aware that he was rather +hungry. He had done all he could to save young Oxford. Now for some +sandwiches! He went into the Junta. + +As he rang the dining-room bell, his eyes rested on the miniature of +Nellie O’Mora. And the eyes of Nellie O’Mora seemed to meet his in +reproach. Just as she may have gazed at Greddon when he cast her off, +so now did she gaze at him who a few hours ago had refused to honour her +memory. + +Yes, and many other eyes than hers rebuked him. It was around the walls +of this room that hung those presentments of the Junta as focussed, +year after year, in a certain corner of Tom Quad, by Messrs. Hills and +Saunders. All around, the members of the little hierarchy, a hierarchy +ever changing in all but youth and a certain sternness of aspect that +comes at the moment of being immortalised, were gazing forth now with a +sternness beyond their wont. Not one of them but had in his day handed +on loyally the praise of Nellie O’Mora, in the form their Founder had +ordained. And the Duke’s revolt last night had so incensed them that +they would, if they could, have come down from their frames and walked +straight out of the club, in chronological order--first, the men of +the ‘sixties, almost as near in time to Greddon as to the Duke, all +so gloriously be-whiskered and cravated, but how faded now, alas, by +exposure; and last of all in the procession and angrier perhaps than any +of them, the Duke himself--the Duke of a year ago, President and sole +Member. + +But, as he gazed into the eyes of Nellie O’Mora now, Dorset needed not +for penitence the reproaches of his past self or of his forerunners. +“Sweet girl,” he murmured, “forgive me. I was mad. I was under the +sway of a deplorable infatuation. It is past. See,” he murmured with a +delicacy of feeling that justified the untruth, “I am come here for the +express purpose of undoing my impiety.” And, turning to the club-waiter +who at this moment answered the bell, he said “Bring me a glass of port, +please, Barrett.” Of sandwiches he said nothing. + +At the word “See” he had stretched one hand towards Nellie; the other +he had laid on his heart, where it seemed to encounter some sort of hard +obstruction. This he vaguely fingered, wondering what it might be, while +he gave his order to Barrett. With a sudden cry he dipped his hand into +his breast-pocket and drew forth the bottle he had borne away from +Mr. Druce’s. He snatched out his watch: one o’clock!--fifteen minutes +overdue. Wildly he called the waiter back. “A tea-spoon, quick! No +port. A wine-glass and a tea-spoon. And--for I don’t mind telling you, +Barrett, that your mission is of an urgency beyond conjecture--take +lightning for your model. Go!” + +Agitation mastered him. He tried vainly to feel his pulse, well knowing +that if he found it he could deduce nothing from its action. He saw +himself haggard in the looking-glass. Would Barrett never come? “Every +two hours”--the directions were explicit. Had he delivered himself into +the gods’ hands? The eyes of Nellie O’Mora were on him compassionately; +and all the eyes of his forerunners were on him in austere scorn: “See,” + they seemed to be saying, “the chastisement of last night’s blasphemy.” + Violently, insistently, he rang the bell. + +In rushed Barrett at last. From the tea-spoon into the wine-glass the +Duke poured the draught of salvation, and then, raising it aloft, he +looked around at his fore-runners and in a firm voice cried “Gentlemen, +I give you Nellie O’Mora, the fairest witch that ever was or will be.” + He drained his glass, heaved the deep sigh of a double satisfaction, +dismissed with a glance the wondering Barrett, and sat down. + +He was glad to be able to face Nellie with a clear conscience. Her eyes +were not less sad now, but it seemed to him that their sadness came of a +knowledge that she would never see him again. She seemed to be saying +to him “Had you lived in my day, it is you that I would have loved, not +Greddon.” And he made silent answer, “Had you lived in my day, I should +have been Dobson-proof.” He realised, however, that to Zuleika he owed +the tenderness he now felt for Miss O’Mora. It was Zuleika that had +cured him of his aseity. She it was that had made his heart a warm and +negotiable thing. Yes, and that was the final cruelty. To love and be +loved--this, he had come to know, was all that mattered. Yesterday, to +love and die had seemed felicity enough. Now he knew that the secret, +the open secret, of happiness was in mutual love--a state that needed +not the fillip of death. And he had to die without having ever lived. +Admiration, homage, fear, he had sown broadcast. The one woman who had +loved him had turned to stone because he loved her. Death would lose +much of its sting for him if there were somewhere in the world just one +woman, however lowly, whose heart would be broken by his dying. What a +pity Nellie O’Mora was not really extant! + +Suddenly he recalled certain words lightly spoken yesterday by Zuleika. +She had told him he was loved by the girl who waited on him--the +daughter of his landlady. Was this so? He had seen no sign of it, had +received no token of it. But, after all, how should he have seen a sign +of anything in one whom he had never consciously visualised? That she +had never thrust herself on his notice might mean merely that she had +been well brought-up. What likelier than that the daughter of Mrs. +Batch, that worthy soul, had been well brought up? + +Here, at any rate, was the chance of a new element in his life, or +rather in his death. Here, possibly, was a maiden to mourn him. He would +lunch in his rooms. + +With a farewell look at Nellie’s miniature, he took the medicine-bottle +from the table, and went quickly out. The heavens had grown steadily +darker and darker, the air more sulphurous and baleful. And the High had +a strangely woebegone look, being all forsaken by youth, in this hour of +luncheon. Even so would its look be all to-morrow, thought the Duke, +and for many morrows. Well he had done what he could. He was free now to +brighten a little his own last hours. He hastened on, eager to see the +landlady’s daughter. He wondered what she was like, and whether she +really loved him. + +As he threw open the door of his sitting-room, he was aware of a rustle, +a rush, a cry. In another instant, he was aware of Zuleika Dobson at his +feet, at his knees, clasping him to her, sobbing, laughing, sobbing. + + + + +XVI + +For what happened a few moments later you must not blame him. Some +measure of force was the only way out of an impossible situation. It was +in vain that he commanded the young lady to let go: she did but cling +the closer. It was in vain that he tried to disentangle himself of her +by standing first on one foot, then on the other, and veering sharply on +his heel: she did but sway as though hinged to him. He had no choice but +to grasp her by the wrists, cast her aside, and step clear of her into +the room. + +Her hat, gauzily basking with a pair of long white gloves on one of his +arm-chairs, proclaimed that she had come to stay. + +Nor did she rise. Propped on one elbow, with heaving bosom and parted +lips, she seemed to be trying to realise what had been done to her. +Through her undried tears her eyes shone up to him. + +He asked: “To what am I indebted for this visit?” + +“Ah, say that again!” she murmured. “Your voice is music.” + +He repeated his question. + +“Music!” she said dreamily; and such is the force of habit that “I +don’t,” she added, “know anything about music, really. But I know what I +like.” + +“Had you not better get up from the floor?” he said. “The door is open, +and any one who passed might see you.” + +Softly she stroked the carpet with the palms of her hands. “Happy +carpet!” she crooned. “Aye, happy the very women that wove the threads +that are trod by the feet of my beloved master. But hark! he bids his +slave rise and stand before him!” + +Just after she had risen, a figure appeared in the doorway. + +“I beg pardon, your Grace; Mother wants to know, will you be lunching +in?” + +“Yes,” said the Duke. “I will ring when I am ready.” And it dawned on +him that this girl, who perhaps loved him, was, according to all known +standards, extraordinarily pretty. + +“Will--” she hesitated, “will Miss Dobson be--” + +“No,” he said. “I shall be alone.” And there was in the girl’s parting +half-glance at Zuleika that which told him he was truly loved, and made +him the more impatient of his offensive and accursed visitor. + +“You want to be rid of me?” asked Zuleika, when the girl was gone. + +“I have no wish to be rude; but--since you force me to say it--yes.” + +“Then take me,” she cried, throwing back her arms, “and throw me out of +the window.” + +He smiled coldly. + +“You think I don’t mean it? You think I would struggle? Try me.” She let +herself droop sideways, in an attitude limp and portable. “Try me,” she +repeated. + +“All this is very well conceived, no doubt,” said he, “and well +executed. But it happens to be otiose.” + +“What do you mean?” + +“I mean you may set your mind at rest. I am not going to back out of my +promise.” + +Zuleika flushed. “You are cruel. I would give the world and all not to +have written you that hateful letter. Forget it, forget it, for pity’s +sake!” + +The Duke looked searchingly at her. “You mean that you now wish to +release me from my promise?” + +“Release you? As if you were ever bound! Don’t torture me!” + +He wondered what deep game she was playing. Very real, though, her +anguish seemed; and, if real it was, then--he stared, he gasped--there +could be but one explanation. He put it to her. “You love me?” + +“With all my soul.” + +His heart leapt. If she spoke truth, then indeed vengeance was his! But +“What proof have I?” he asked her. + +“Proof? Have men absolutely NO intuition? If you need proof, produce it. +Where are my ear-rings?” + +“Your ear-rings? Why?” + +Impatiently she pointed to two white pearls that fastened the front +of her blouse. “These are your studs. It was from them I had the great +first hint this morning.” + +“Black and pink, were they not, when you took them?” + +“Of course. And then I forgot that I had them. When I undressed, they +must have rolled on to the carpet. Melisande found them this morning +when she was making the room ready for me to dress. That was just after +she came back from bringing you my first letter. I was bewildered. I +doubted. Might not the pearls have gone back to their natural state +simply through being yours no more? That is why I wrote again to you, my +own darling--a frantic little questioning letter. When I heard how you +had torn it up, I knew, I knew that the pearls had not mocked me. I +telescoped my toilet and came rushing round to you. How many hours have +I been waiting for you?” + +The Duke had drawn her ear-rings from his waistcoat pocket, and was +contemplating them in the palm of his hand. Blanched, both of them, yes. +He laid them on the table. “Take them,” he said. + +“No,” she shuddered. “I could never forget that once they were both +black.” She flung them into the fender. “Oh John,” she cried, turning to +him and falling again to her knees, “I do so want to forget what I have +been. I want to atone. You think you can drive me out of your life. You +cannot, darling--since you won’t kill me. Always I shall follow you on +my knees, thus.” + +He looked down at her over his folded arms, + +“I am not going to back out of my promise,” he repeated. + +She stopped her ears. + +With a stern joy he unfolded his arms, took some papers from his +breast-pocket, and, selecting one of them, handed it to her. It was the +telegram sent by his steward. + +She read it. With a stern joy he watched her reading it. + +Wild-eyed, she looked up from it to him, tried to speak, and swerved +down senseless. + +He had not foreseen this. “Help!” he vaguely cried--was she not a +fellow-creature?--and rushed blindly out to his bedroom, whence he +returned, a moment later, with the water-jug. He dipped his hand, and +sprinkled the upturned face (Dew-drops on a white rose? But some +other, sharper analogy hovered to him). He dipped and sprinkled. The +water-beads broke, mingled--rivulets now. He dipped and flung, then +caught the horrible analogy and rebounded. + +It was at this moment that Zuleika opened her eyes. “Where am I?” She +weakly raised herself on one elbow; and the suspension of the Duke’s +hatred would have been repealed simultaneously with that of her +consciousness, had it not already been repealed by the analogy. She put +a hand to her face, then looked at the wet palm wonderingly, looked at +the Duke, saw the water-jug beside him. She, too, it seemed, had caught +the analogy; for with a wan smile she said “We are quits now, John, +aren’t we?” + +Her poor little jest drew to the Duke’s face no answering smile, did +but make hotter the blush there. The wave of her returning memory swept +on--swept up to her with a roar the instant past. “Oh,” she cried, +staggering to her feet, “the owls, the owls!” + +Vengeance was his, and “Yes, there,” he said, “is the ineluctable hard +fact you wake to. The owls have hooted. The gods have spoken. This day +your wish is to be fulfilled.” + +“The owls have hooted. The gods have spoken. This day--oh, it must not +be, John! Heaven have mercy on me!” + +“The unerring owls have hooted. The dispiteous and humorous gods have +spoken. Miss Dobson, it has to be. And let me remind you,” he added, +with a glance at his watch, “that you ought not to keep The MacQuern +waiting for luncheon.” + +“That is unworthy of you,” she said. There was in her eyes a look that +made the words sound as if they had been spoken by a dumb animal. + +“You have sent him an excuse?” + +“No, I have forgotten him.” + +“That is unworthy of you. After all, he is going to die for you, like +the rest of us. I am but one of a number, you know. Use your sense of +proportion.” + +“If I do that,” she said after a pause, “you may not be pleased by the +issue. I may find that whereas yesterday I was great in my sinfulness, +and to-day am great in my love, you, in your hate of me, are small. I +may find that what I had taken to be a great indifference is nothing but +a very small hate... Ah, I have wounded you? Forgive me, a weak woman, +talking at random in her wretchedness. Oh John, John, if I thought you +small, my love would but take on the crown of pity. Don’t forbid me to +call you John. I looked you up in Debrett while I was waiting for you. +That seemed to bring you nearer to me. So many other names you have, +too. I remember you told me them all yesterday, here in this room--not +twenty-four hours ago. Hours? Years!” She laughed hysterically. “John, +don’t you see why I won’t stop talking? It’s because I dare not think.” + +“Yonder in Balliol,” he suavely said, “you will find the matter of my +death easier to forget than here.” He took her hat and gloves from the +arm-chair, and held them carefully out to her; but she did not take +them. + +“I give you three minutes,” he told her. “Two minutes, that is, in +which to make yourself tidy before the mirror. A third in which to say +good-bye and be outside the front-door.” + +“If I refuse?” + +“You will not.” + +“If I do?” + +“I shall send for a policeman.” + +She looked well at him. “Yes,” she slowly said, “I think you would do +that.” + +She took her things from him, and laid them by the mirror. With a high +hand she quelled the excesses of her hair--some of the curls still +agleam with water--and knowingly poised and pinned her hat. Then, after +a few swift touches and passes at neck and waist, she took her gloves +and, wheeling round to him, “There!” she said, “I have been quick.” + +“Admirably,” he allowed. + +“Quick in more than meets the eye, John. Spiritually quick. You saw me +putting on my hat; you did not see love taking on the crown of pity, and +me bonneting her with it, tripping her up and trampling the life out of +her. Oh, a most cold-blooded business, John! Had to be done, though. No +other way out. So I just used my sense of proportion, as you rashly +bade me, and then hardened my heart at sight of you as you are. One of +a number? Yes, and a quite unlovable unit. So I am all right again. And +now, where is Balliol? Far from here?” + +“No,” he answered, choking a little, as might a card-player who, having +been dealt a splendid hand, and having played it with flawless skill, +has yet--damn it!--lost the odd trick. “Balliol is quite near. At the +end of this street in fact. I can show it to you from the front-door.” + +Yes, he had controlled himself. But this, he furiously felt, did not +make him look the less a fool. What ought he to have SAID? He prayed, +as he followed the victorious young woman downstairs, that l’esprit de +l’escalier might befall him. Alas, it did not. + +“By the way,” she said, when he had shown her where Balliol lay, “have +you told anybody that you aren’t dying just for me?” + +“No,” he answered, “I have preferred not to.” + +“Then officially, as it were, and in the eyes of the world, you die for +me? Then all’s well that ends well. Shall we say good-bye here? I +shall be on the Judas Barge; but I suppose there will be a crush, as +yesterday?” + +“Sure to be. There always is on the last night of the Eights, you know. +Good-bye.” + +“Good-bye, little John--small John,” she cried across her shoulder, +having the last word. + + + + +XVII + +He might not have grudged her the last word, had she properly needed +it. Its utter superfluity--the perfection of her victory without it--was +what galled him. Yes, she had outflanked him, taken him unawares, and he +had fired not one shot. Esprit de l’escalier--it was as he went upstairs +that he saw how he might yet have snatched from her, if not the victory, +the palm. Of course he ought to have laughed aloud--“Capital, capital! +You really do deserve to fool me. But ah, yours is a love that can’t be +dissembled. Never was man by maiden loved more ardently than I by you, +my poor girl, at this moment.” + +And stay!--what if she really HAD been but pretending to have killed her +love? He paused on the threshold of his room. The sudden doubt made his +lost chance the more sickening. Yet was the doubt dear to him ... What +likelier, after all, than that she had been pretending? She had already +twitted him with his lack of intuition. He had not seen that she +loved him when she certainly did love him. He had needed the pearls’ +demonstration of that.--The pearls! THEY would betray her. He darted to +the fender, and one of them he espied there instantly--white? A rather +flushed white, certainly. For the other he had to peer down. There it +lay, not very distinct on the hearth’s black-leading. + +He turned away. He blamed himself for not dismissing from his mind the +hussy he had dismissed from his room. Oh for an ounce of civet and a +few poppies! The water-jug stood as a reminder of the hateful visit +and of... He took it hastily away into his bedroom. There he washed +his hands. The fact that he had touched Zuleika gave to this ablution a +symbolism that made it the more refreshing. + +Civet, poppies? Was there not, at his call, a sweeter perfume, a +stronger anodyne? He rang the bell, almost caressingly. + +His heart beat at sound of the clinking and rattling of the tray borne +up the stairs. She was coming, the girl who loved him, the girl whose +heart would be broken when he died. Yet, when the tray appeared in the +doorway, and she behind it, the tray took precedence of her in his soul +not less than in his sight. Twice, after an arduous morning, had his +luncheon been postponed, and the coming of it now made intolerable the +pangs of his hunger. + +Also, while the girl laid the table-cloth, it occurred to him how +flimsy, after all, was the evidence that she loved him. Suppose she +did nothing of the kind! At the Junta, he had foreseen no difficulty in +asking her. Now he found himself a prey to embarrassment. He wondered +why. He had not failed in flow of gracious words to Nellie O’Mora. Well, +a miniature by Hoppner was one thing, a landlady’s live daughter was +another. At any rate, he must prime himself with food. He wished Mrs. +Batch had sent up something more calorific than cold salmon. He asked +her daughter what was to follow. + +“There’s a pigeon-pie, your Grace.” + +“Cold? Then please ask your mother to heat it in the oven--quickly. +Anything after that?” + +“A custard pudding, your Grace.” + +“Cold? Let this, too, be heated. And bring up a bottle of champagne, +please; and--and a bottle of port.” + +His was a head that had always hitherto defied the grape. But he thought +that to-day, by all he had gone through, by all the shocks he had +suffered, and the strains he had steeled himself to bear, as well as by +the actual malady that gripped him, he might perchance have been sapped +enough to experience by reaction that cordial glow of which he had now +and again seen symptoms in his fellows. + +Nor was he altogether disappointed of this hope. As the meal progressed, +and the last of the champagne sparkled in his glass, certain things +said to him by Zuleika--certain implied criticisms that had rankled, +yes--lost their power to discommode him. He was able to smile at the +impertinences of an angry woman, the tantrums of a tenth-rate conjurer +told to go away. He felt he had perhaps acted harshly. With all her +faults, she had adored him. Yes, he had been arbitrary. There seemed to +be a strain of brutality in his nature. Poor Zuleika! He was glad for +her that she had contrived to master her infatuation... Enough for him +that he was loved by this exquisite meek girl who had served him at the +feast. Anon, when he summoned her to clear the things away, he would bid +her tell him the tale of her lowly passion. He poured a second glass +of port, sipped it, quaffed it, poured a third. The grey gloom of the +weather did but, as he eyed the bottle, heighten his sense of the rich +sunshine so long ago imprisoned by the vintner and now released to make +glad his soul. Even so to be released was the love pent for him in the +heart of this sweet girl. Would that he loved her in return!... Why not? + + + “Prius insolentem + Serva Briseis niveo colore + Movit Achillem.” + + +Nor were it gracious to invite an avowal of love and offer none in +return. Yet, yet, expansive though his mood was, he could not pretend to +himself that he was about to feel in this girl’s presence anything but +gratitude. He might pretend to her? Deception were a very poor return +indeed for all her kindness. Besides, it might turn her head. Some small +token of his gratitude--some trinket by which to remember him--was all +that he could allow himself to offer... What trinket? Would she like +to have one of his scarf-pins? Studs? Still more abs--Ah! he had it, he +literally and most providentially had it, there, in the fender: a pair +of ear-rings! + +He plucked the pink pearl and the black from where they lay, and rang +the bell. + +His sense of dramatic propriety needed that the girl should, before he +addressed her, perform her task of clearing the table. If she had it +to perform after telling her love, and after receiving his gift and his +farewell, the bathos would be distressing for them both. + +But, while he watched her at her task, he did wish she would be a little +quicker. For the glow in him seemed to be cooling momently. He wished +he had had more than three glasses from the crusted bottle which she was +putting away into the chiffonier. Down, doubt! Down, sense of disparity! +The moment was at hand. Would he let it slip? Now she was folding up the +table-cloth, now she was going. + +“Stay!” he uttered. “I have something to say to you.” The girl turned to +him. + +He forced his eyes to meet hers. “I understand,” he said in a +constrained voice, “that you regard me with sentiments of something more +than esteem.--Is this so?” + +The girl had stepped quickly back, and her face was scarlet. + +“Nay,” he said, having to go through with it now, “there is no cause for +embarrassment. And I am sure you will acquit me of wanton curiosity. Is +it a fact that you--love me?” + +She tried to speak, could not. But she nodded her head. + +The Duke, much relieved, came nearer to her. + +“What is your name?” he asked gently. + +“Katie,” she was able to gasp. + +“Well, Katie, how long have you loved me?” + +“Ever since,” she faltered, “ever since you came to engage the rooms.” + +“You are not, of course, given to idolising any tenant of your +mother’s?” + +“No.” + +“May I boast myself the first possessor of your heart?” + +“Yes.” She had become very pale now, and was trembling painfully. + +“And may I assume that your love for me has been entirely +disinterested?... You do not catch my meaning? I will put my question in +another way. In loving me, you never supposed me likely to return your +love?” + +The girl looked up at him quickly, but at once her eyelids fluttered +down again. + +“Come, come!” said the Duke. “My question is a plain one. Did you ever +for an instant suppose, Katie, that I might come to love you?” + +“No,” she said in a whisper; “I never dared to hope that.” + +“Precisely,” said he. “You never imagined that you had anything to +gain by your affection. You were not contriving a trap for me. You were +upheld by no hope of becoming a young Duchess, with more frocks than +you could wear and more dross than you could scatter. I am glad. I +am touched. You are the first woman that has loved me in that way. Or +rather,” he muttered, “the first but one. And she... Answer me,” he +said, standing over the girl, and speaking with a great intensity. “If I +were to tell you that I loved you, would you cease to love me?” + +“Oh your Grace!” cried the girl. “Why no! I never dared--” + +“Enough!” he said. “The catechism is ended. I have something which I +should like to give you. Are your ears pierced?” + +“Yes, your Grace.” + +“Then, Katie, honour me by accepting this present.” So saying, he placed +in the girl’s hand the black pearl and the pink. The sight of them +banished for a moment all other emotions in their recipient. She forgot +herself. “Lor!” she said. + +“I hope you will wear them always for my sake,” said the Duke. + +She had expressed herself in the monosyllable. No words came to her +lips, but to her eyes many tears, through which the pearls were +visible. They whirled in her bewildered brain as a token that she was +loved--loved by HIM, though but yesterday he had loved another. It was +all so sudden, so beautiful. You might have knocked her down (she says +so to this day) with a feather. Seeing her agitation, the Duke pointed +to a chair, bade her be seated. + +Her mind was cleared by the new posture. Suspicion crept into it, +followed by alarm. She looked at the ear-rings, then up at the Duke. + +“No,” said he, misinterpreting the question in her eyes, “they are real +pearls.” + +“It isn’t that,” she quavered, “it is--it is--” + +“That they were given to me by Miss Dobson?” + +“Oh, they were, were they? Then”--Katie rose, throwing the pearls on the +floor--“I’ll have nothing to do with them. I hate her.” + +“So do I,” said the Duke, in a burst of confidence. “No, I don’t,” he +added hastily. “Please forget that I said that.” + +It occurred to Katie that Miss Dobson would be ill-pleased that the +pearls should pass to her. She picked them up. + +“Only--only--” again her doubts beset her and she looked from the pearls +to the Duke. + +“Speak on,” he said. + +“Oh you aren’t playing with me, are you? You don’t mean me harm, do you? +I have been well brought up. I have been warned against things. And it +seems so strange, what you have said to me. You are a Duke, and I--I am +only--” + +“It is the privilege of nobility to condescend.” + +“Yes, yes,” she cried. “I see. Oh I was wicked to doubt you. And love +levels all, doesn’t it? love and the Board school. Our stations are far +apart, but I’ve been educated far above mine. I’ve learnt more than most +real ladies have. I passed the Seventh Standard when I was only just +fourteen. I was considered one of the sharpest girls in the school. And +I’ve gone on learning since then,” she continued eagerly. “I utilise all +my spare moments. I’ve read twenty-seven of the Hundred Best Books. I +collect ferns. I play the piano, whenever...” She broke off, for she +remembered that her music was always interrupted by the ringing of the +Duke’s bell and a polite request that it should cease. + +“I am glad to hear of these accomplishments. They do you great credit, I +am sure. But--well, I do not quite see why you enumerate them just now.” + +“It isn’t that I am vain,” she pleaded. “I only mentioned them because +... oh, don’t you see? If I’m not ignorant, I shan’t disgrace you. +People won’t be so able to say you’ve been and thrown yourself away.” + +“Thrown myself away? What do you mean?” + +“Oh, they’ll make all sorts of objections, I know. They’ll all be +against me, and--” + +“For heaven’s sake, explain yourself.” + +“Your aunt, she looked a very proud lady--very high and hard. I thought +so when she came here last term. But you’re of age. You’re your own +master. Oh, I trust you; you’ll stand by me. If you love me really you +won’t listen to them.” + +“Love you? I? Are you mad?” + +Each stared at the other, utterly bewildered. + +The girl was the first to break the silence. Her voice came in a +whisper. “You’ve not been playing a joke on me? You meant what you said, +didn’t you?” + +“What have I said?” + +“You said you loved me.” + +“You must be dreaming.” + +“I’m not. Here are the ear-rings you gave me.” She pinched them as +material proof. “You said you loved me just before you gave me them. +You know you did. And if I thought you’d been laughing at me all the +time--I’d--I’d”--a sob choked her voice--“I’d throw them in your face!” + +“You must not speak to me in that manner,” said the Duke coldly. “And +let me warn you that this attempt to trap me and intimidate me--” + +The girl had flung the ear-rings at his face. She had missed her mark. +But this did not extenuate the outrageous gesture. He pointed to the +door. “Go!” he said. + +“Don’t try that on!” she laughed. “I shan’t go--not unless you drag +me out. And if you do that, I’ll raise the house. I’ll have in the +neighbours. I’ll tell them all what you’ve done, and--” But defiance +melted in the hot shame of humiliation. “Oh, you coward!” she gasped. +“You coward!” She caught her apron to her face and, swaying against the +wall, sobbed piteously. + +Unaccustomed to love-affairs, the Duke could not sail lightly over a +flood of woman’s tears. He was filled with pity for the poor quivering +figure against the wall. How should he soothe her? Mechanically he +picked up the two pearls from the carpet, and crossed to her side. He +touched her on the shoulder. She shuddered away from him. + +“Don’t,” he said gently. “Don’t cry. I can’t bear it. I have been stupid +and thoughtless. What did you say your name was? ‘Katie,’ to be sure. +Well, Katie, I want to beg your pardon. I expressed myself badly. I was +unhappy and lonely, and I saw in you a means of comfort. I snatched +at you, Katie, as at a straw. And then, I suppose, I must have said +something which made you think I loved you. I almost wish I did. I don’t +wonder you threw the ear-rings at me. I--I almost wish they had hit +me... You see, I have quite forgiven you. Now do you forgive me. You +will not refuse now to wear the ear-rings. I gave them to you as a +keepsake. Wear them always in memory of me. For you will never see me +again.” + +The girl had ceased from crying, and her anger had spent itself in sobs. +She was gazing at him woebegone but composed. + +“Where are you going?” + +“You must not ask that,” said he. “Enough that my wings are spread.” + +“Are you going because of ME?” + +“Not in the least. Indeed, your devotion is one of the things which make +bitter my departure. And yet--I am glad you love me.” + +“Don’t go,” she faltered. He came nearer to her, and this time she did +not shrink from him. “Don’t you find the rooms comfortable?” she asked, +gazing up at him. “Have you ever had any complaint to make about the +attendance?” + +“No,” said the Duke, “the attendance has always been quite satisfactory. +I have never felt that so keenly as I do to-day.” + +“Then why are you leaving? Why are you breaking my heart?” + +“Suffice it that I cannot do otherwise. Henceforth you will see me no +more. But I doubt not that in the cultivation of my memory you will find +some sort of lugubrious satisfaction. See! here are the ear-rings. If +you like, I will put them in with my own hands.” + +She held up her face side-ways. Into the lobe of her left ear he +insinuated the hook of the black pearl. On the cheek upturned to him +there were still traces of tears; the eyelashes were still spangled. For +all her blondness, they were quite dark, these glistening eyelashes. He +had an impulse, which he put from him. “Now the other ear,” he said. The +girl turned her head. Soon the pink pearl was in its place. Yet the girl +did not move. She seemed to be waiting. Nor did the Duke himself seem to +be quite satisfied. He let his fingers dally with the pearl. Anon, with +a sigh, he withdrew them. The girl looked up. Their eyes met. He looked +away from her. He turned away from her. “You may kiss my hand,” he +murmured, extending it towards her. After a pause, the warm pressure +of her lips was laid on it. He sighed, but did not look round. Another +pause, a longer pause, and then the clatter and clink of the outgoing +tray. + + + + +XVIII + +Her actual offspring does not suffice a very motherly woman. Such a +woman was Mrs. Batch. Had she been blest with a dozen children, she +must yet have regarded herself as also a mother to whatever two young +gentlemen were lodging under her roof. Childless but for Katie and +Clarence, she had for her successive pairs of tenants a truly vast fund +of maternal feeling to draw on. Nor were the drafts made in secret. To +every gentleman, from the outset, she proclaimed the relation in which +she would stand to him. Moreover, always she needed a strong filial +sense in return: this was only fair. + +Because the Duke was an orphan, even more than because he was a Duke, +her heart had with a special rush gone out to him when he and Mr. Noaks +became her tenants. But, perhaps because he had never known a mother, +he was evidently quite incapable of conceiving either Mrs. Batch as his +mother or himself as her son. Indeed, there was that in his manner, +in his look, which made her falter, for once, in exposition of her +theory--made her postpone the matter to some more favourable time. That +time never came, somehow. Still, her solicitude for him, her pride in +him, her sense that he was a great credit to her, rather waxed than +waned. He was more to her (such are the vagaries of the maternal +instinct) than Katie or Mr. Noaks: he was as much as Clarence. + +It was, therefore, a deeply agitated woman who now came heaving up into +the Duke’s presence. His Grace was “giving notice”? She was sure she +begged his pardon for coming up so sudden. But the news was that +sudden. Hadn’t her girl made a mistake, maybe? Girls were so vague-like +nowadays. She was sure it was most kind of him to give those handsome +ear-rings. But the thought of him going off so unexpected--middle of +term, too--with never a why or a but! Well! + +In some such welter of homely phrase (how foreign to these classic +pages!) did Mrs. Batch utter her pain. The Duke answered her tersely but +kindly. He apologised for going so abruptly, and said he would be very +happy to write for her future use a testimonial to the excellence of +her rooms and of her cooking; and with it he would give her a cheque not +only for the full term’s rent, and for his board since the beginning of +term, but also for such board as he would have been likely to have in +the term’s remainder. He asked her to present her accounts forthwith. + +He occupied the few minutes of her absence by writing the testimonial. +It had shaped itself in his mind as a short ode in Doric Greek. But, for +the benefit of Mrs. Batch, he chose to do a rough equivalent in English. + + + TO AN UNDERGRADUATE NEEDING + ROOMS IN OXFORD + + (A Sonnet in Oxfordshire Dialect) + + Zeek w’ere thee will in t’Univursity, + Lad, thee’ll not vind nor bread nor bed that + matches + Them as thee’ll vind, roight zure, at Mrs. + Batch’s... + + +I do not quote the poem in extenso, because, frankly, I think it was one +of his least happily-inspired works. His was not a Muse that could with +a good grace doff the grand manner. Also, his command of the Oxfordshire +dialect seems to me based less on study than on conjecture. In fact, I +do not place the poem higher than among the curiosities of literature. +It has extrinsic value, however, as illustrating the Duke’s +thoughtfulness for others in the last hours of his life. And to Mrs. +Batch the MS., framed and glazed in her hall, is an asset beyond price +(witness her recent refusal of Mr. Pierpont Morgan’s sensational bid for +it). + +This MS. she received together with the Duke’s cheque. The presentation +was made some twenty minutes after she had laid her accounts before him. + +Lavish in giving large sums of his own accord, he was apt to be +circumspect in the matter of small payments. Such is ever the way of +opulent men. Nor do I see that we have a right to sneer at them for it. +We cannot deny that their existence is a temptation to us. It is in our +fallen nature to want to get something out of them; and, as we think in +small sums (heaven knows), it is of small sums that they are careful. +Absurd to suppose they really care about halfpence. It must, therefore, +be about us that they care; and we ought to be grateful to them for the +pains they are at to keep us guiltless. I do not suggest that Mrs. Batch +had at any point overcharged the Duke; but how was he to know that she +had not done so, except by checking the items, as was his wont? The +reductions that he made, here and there, did not in all amount to +three-and-sixpence. I do not say they were just. But I do say that his +motive for making them, and his satisfaction at having made them, were +rather beautiful than otherwise. + +Having struck an average of Mrs. Batch’s weekly charges, and a similar +average of his own reductions, he had a basis on which to reckon his +board for the rest of the term. This amount he added to Mrs. Batch’s +amended total, plus the full term’s rent, and accordingly drew a cheque +on the local bank where he had an account. Mrs. Batch said she would +bring up a stamped receipt directly; but this the Duke waived, +saying that the cashed cheque itself would be a sufficient receipt. +Accordingly, he reduced by one penny the amount written on the cheque. +Remembering to initial the correction, he remembered also, with a +melancholy smile, that to-morrow the cheque would not be negotiable. +Handing it, and the sonnet, to Mrs. Batch, he bade her cash it before +the bank closed. “And,” he said, with a glance at his watch, “you have +no time to lose. It is a quarter to four.” Only two hours and a quarter +before the final races! How quickly the sands were running out! + +Mrs. Batch paused on the threshold, wanted to know if she could “help +with the packing.” The Duke replied that he was taking nothing with him: +his various things would be sent for, packed, and removed, within a few +days. No, he did not want her to order a cab. He was going to walk. And +“Good-bye, Mrs. Batch,” he said. “For legal reasons with which I won’t +burden you, you really must cash that cheque at once.” + +He sat down in solitude; and there crept over him a mood of deep +depression... Almost two hours and a quarter before the final races! +What on earth should he do in the meantime? He seemed to have done all +that there was for him to do. His executors would do the rest. He had no +farewell-letters to write. He had no friends with whom he was on terms +of valediction. There was nothing at all for him to do. He stared +blankly out of the window, at the greyness and blackness of the sky. +What a day! What a climate! Why did any sane person live in England? He +felt positively suicidal. + +His dully vagrant eye lighted on the bottle of Cold Mixture. He ought to +have dosed himself a full hour ago. Well, he didn’t care. + +Had Zuleika noticed the bottle? he idly wondered. Probably not. She +would have made some sprightly reference to it before she went. + +Since there was nothing to do but sit and think, he wished he could +recapture that mood in which at luncheon he had been able to see Zuleika +as an object for pity. Never, till to-day, had he seen things otherwise +than they were. Nor had he ever needed to. Never, till last night, had +there been in his life anything he needed to forget. That woman! As +if it really mattered what she thought of him. He despised himself for +wishing to forget she despised him. But the wish was the measure of the +need. He eyed the chiffonier. Should he again solicit the grape? + +Reluctantly he uncorked the crusted bottle, and filled a glass. Was he +come to this? He sighed and sipped, quaffed and sighed. The spell of the +old stored sunshine seemed not to work, this time. He could not cease +from plucking at the net of ignominies in which his soul lay enmeshed. +Would that he had died yesterday, escaping how much! + +Not for an instant did he flinch from the mere fact of dying to-day. +Since he was not immortal, as he had supposed, it were as well he should +die now as fifty years hence. Better, indeed. To die “untimely,” as men +called it, was the timeliest of all deaths for one who had carved his +youth to greatness. What perfection could he, Dorset, achieve beyond +what was already his? Future years could but stale, if not actually +mar, that perfection. Yes, it was lucky to perish leaving much to the +imagination of posterity. Dear posterity was of a sentimental, not +a realistic, habit. She always imagined the dead young hero prancing +gloriously up to the Psalmist’s limit a young hero still; and it was the +sense of her vast loss that kept his memory green. Byron!--he would be +all forgotten to-day if he had lived to be a florid old gentleman with +iron-grey whiskers, writing very long, very able letters to “The Times” + about the Repeal of the Corn Laws. Yes, Byron would have been that. It +was indicated in him. He would have been an old gentleman exacerbated by +Queen Victoria’s invincible prejudice against him, her brusque refusal +to “entertain” Lord John Russell’s timid nomination of him for a post +in the Government... Shelley would have been a poet to the last. But how +dull, how very dull, would have been the poetry of his middle age!--a +great unreadable mass interposed between him and us... Did Byron, mused +the Duke, know what was to be at Missolonghi? Did he know that he was +to die in service of the Greeks whom he despised? Byron might not have +minded that. But what if the Greeks had told him, in so many words, +that they despised HIM? How would he have felt then? Would he have been +content with his potations of barley-water?... The Duke replenished his +glass, hoping the spell might work yet.... Perhaps, had Byron not been a +dandy--but ah, had he not been in his soul a dandy there would have +been no Byron worth mentioning. And it was because he guarded not his +dandyism against this and that irrelevant passion, sexual or political, +that he cut so annoyingly incomplete a figure. He was absurd in his +politics, vulgar in his loves. Only in himself, at the times when he +stood haughtily aloof, was he impressive. Nature, fashioning him, had +fashioned also a pedestal for him to stand and brood on, to pose and +sing on. Off that pedestal he was lost.... “The idol has come sliding +down from its pedestal”--the Duke remembered these words spoken +yesterday by Zuleika. Yes, at the moment when he slid down, he, too, was +lost. For him, master-dandy, the common arena was no place. What had he +to do with love? He was an utter fool at it. Byron had at least had some +fun out of it. What fun had HE had? Last night, he had forgotten to kiss +Zuleika when he held her by the wrists. To-day it had been as much as he +could do to let poor little Katie kiss his hand. Better be vulgar +with Byron than a noodle with Dorset! he bitterly reflected... Still, +noodledom was nearer than vulgarity to dandyism. It was a less flagrant +lapse. And he had over Byron this further advantage: his noodledom was +not a matter of common knowledge; whereas Byron’s vulgarity had ever +needed to be in the glare of the footlights of Europe. The world +would say of him that he laid down his life for a woman. Deplorable +somersault? But nothing evident save this in his whole life was +faulty... The one other thing that might be carped at--the partisan +speech he made in the Lords--had exquisitely justified itself by its +result. For it was as a Knight of the Garter that he had set the perfect +seal on his dandyism. Yes, he reflected, it was on the day when first +he donned the most grandiose of all costumes, and wore it grandlier +than ever yet in history had it been worn, than ever would it be worn +hereafter, flaunting the robes with a grace unparalleled and inimitable, +and lending, as it were, to the very insignia a glory beyond their own, +that he once and for all fulfilled himself, doer of that which he had +been sent into the world to do. + +And there floated into his mind a desire, vague at first, soon definite, +imperious, irresistible, to see himself once more, before he died, +indued in the fulness of his glory and his might. + +Nothing hindered. There was yet a whole hour before he need start for +the river. His eyes dilated, somewhat as might those of a child about to +“dress up” for a charade; and already, in his impatience, he had undone +his neck-tie. + +One after another, he unlocked and threw open the black tin boxes, +snatching out greedily their great good splendours of crimson and white +and royal blue and gold. You wonder he was not appalled by the task of +essaying unaided a toilet so extensive and so intricate? You wondered +even when you heard that he was wont at Oxford to make without help his +toilet of every day. Well, the true dandy is always capable of such high +independence. He is craftsman as well as artist. And, though any unaided +Knight but he with whom we are here concerned would belike have doddered +hopeless in that labyrinth of hooks and buckles which underlies the +visible glory of a Knight “arraied full and proper,” Dorset threaded his +way featly and without pause. He had mastered his first excitement. In +his swiftness was no haste. His procedure had the ease and inevitability +of a natural phenomenon, and was most like to the coming of a rainbow. + +Crimson-doubleted, blue-ribanded, white-trunk-hosed, he stooped to +understrap his left knee with that strap of velvet round which +sparkles the proud gay motto of the Order. He affixed to his breast the +octoradiant star, so much larger and more lustrous than any actual star +in heaven. Round his neck he slung that long daedal chain wherefrom St. +George, slaying the Dragon, dangles. He bowed his shoulders to assume +that vast mantle of blue velvet, so voluminous, so enveloping, that, +despite the Cross of St. George blazing on it, and the shoulder-knots +like two great white tropical flowers planted on it, we seem to know +from it in what manner of mantle Elijah prophesied. Across his breast +he knotted this mantle’s two cords of gleaming bullion, one tassel a +due trifle higher than its fellow. All these things being done, he moved +away from the mirror, and drew on a pair of white kid gloves. Both of +these being buttoned, he plucked up certain folds of his mantle into the +hollow of his left arm, and with his right hand gave to his left hand +that ostrich-plumed and heron-plumed hat of black velvet in which a +Knight of the Garter is entitled to take his walks abroad. Then, with +head erect, and measured tread, he returned to the mirror. + +You are thinking, I know, of Mr. Sargent’s famous portrait of him. +Forget it. Tankerton Hall is open to the public on Wednesdays. Go +there, and in the dining-hall stand to study well Sir Thomas Lawrence’s +portrait of the eleventh Duke. Imagine a man some twenty years younger +than he whom you there behold, but having some such features and some +such bearing, and clad in just such robes. Sublimate the dignity of +that bearing and of those features, and you will then have seen the +fourteenth Duke somewhat as he stood reflected in the mirror of his +room. Resist your impulse to pass on to the painting which hangs next +but two to Lawrence’s. It deserves, I know, all that you said about it +when (at the very time of the events in this chronicle) it was hanging +in Burlington House. Marvellous, I grant you, are those passes of the +swirling brush by which the velvet of the mantle is rendered--passes so +light and seemingly so fortuitous, yet, seen at the right distance, +so absolute in their power to create an illusion of the actual velvet. +Sheen of white satin and silk, glint of gold, glitter of diamonds--never +were such things caught by surer hand obedient to more voracious eye. +Yes, all the splendid surface of everything is there. Yet must you not +look. The soul is not there. An expensive, very new costume is there, +but no evocation of the high antique things it stands for; whereas by +the Duke it was just these things that were evoked to make an aura round +him, a warm symbolic glow sharpening the outlines of his own +particular magnificence. Reflecting him, the mirror reflected, in due +subordination, the history of England. There is nothing of that on Mr. +Sargent’s canvas. Obtruded instead is the astounding slickness of Mr. +Sargent’s technique: not the sitter, but the painter, is master here. +Nay, though I hate to say it, there is in the portrayal of the Duke’s +attitude and expression a hint of something like mockery--unintentional, +I am sure, but to a sensitive eye discernible. And--but it is clumsy of +me to be reminding you of the very picture I would have you forget. + +Long stood the Duke gazing, immobile. One thing alone ruffled his deep +inward calm. This was the thought that he must presently put off from +him all his splendour, and be his normal self. + +The shadow passed from his brow. He would go forth as he was. He would +be true to the motto he wore, and true to himself. A dandy he had lived. +In the full pomp and radiance of his dandyism he would die. + +His soul rose from calm to triumph. A smile lit his face, and he held +his head higher than ever. He had brought nothing into this world and +could take nothing out of it? Well, what he loved best he could carry +with him to the very end; and in death they would not be divided. + +The smile was still on his face as he passed out from his room. Down +the stairs he passed, and “Oh,” every stair creaked faintly, “I ought to +have been marble!” + +And it did indeed seem that Mrs. Batch and Katie, who had hurried +out into the hall, were turned to some kind of stone at sight of the +descending apparition. A moment ago, Mrs. Batch had been hoping she +might yet at the last speak motherly words. A hopeless mute now! A +moment ago, Katie’s eyelids had been red with much weeping. Even from +them the colour suddenly ebbed now. Dead-white her face was between the +black pearl and the pink. “And this is the man of whom I dared once for +an instant hope that he loved me!”--it was thus that the Duke, quite +correctly, interpreted her gaze. + +To her and to her mother he gave an inclusive bow as he swept slowly by. +Stone was the matron, and stone the maid. + +Stone, too, the Emperors over the way; and the more poignantly thereby +was the Duke a sight to anguish them, being the very incarnation of what +themselves had erst been, or tried to be. But in this bitterness they +did not forget their sorrow at his doom. They were in a mood to forgive +him the one fault they had ever found in him--his indifference to their +Katie. And now--o mirum mirorum--even this one fault was wiped out. + +For, stung by memory of a gibe lately cast at him by himself, the Duke +had paused and, impulsively looking back into the hall, had beckoned +Katie to him; and she had come (she knew not how) to him; and there, +standing on the doorstep whose whiteness was the symbol of her love, +he--very lightly, it is true, and on the upmost confines of the brow, +but quite perceptibly--had kissed her. + + + + +XIX + +And now he had passed under the little arch between the eighth and the +ninth Emperor, rounded the Sheldonian, and been lost to sight of Katie, +whom, as he was equally glad and sorry he had kissed her, he was able to +dismiss from his mind. + +In the quadrangle of the Old Schools he glanced round at the familiar +labels, blue and gold, over the iron-studded doors,--Schola Theologiae +et Antiquae Philosophiae; Museum Arundelianum; Schola Musicae. And +Bibliotheca Bodleiana--he paused there, to feel for the last time the +vague thrill he had always felt at sight of the small and devious portal +that had lured to itself, and would always lure, so many scholars from +the ends of the earth, scholars famous and scholars obscure, scholars +polyglot and of the most diverse bents, but none of them not stirred in +heart somewhat on the found threshold of the treasure-house. “How +deep, how perfect, the effect made here by refusal to make any effect +whatsoever!” thought the Duke. Perhaps, after all... but no: one could +lay down no general rule. He flung his mantle a little wider from his +breast, and proceeded into Radcliffe Square. + +Another farewell look he gave to the old vast horse-chestnut that is +called Bishop Heber’s tree. Certainly, no: there was no general rule. +With its towering and bulging masses of verdure tricked out all over in +their annual finery of catkins, Bishop Heber’s tree stood for the very +type of ingenuous ostentation. And who should dare cavil? who not be +gladdened? Yet awful, more than gladdening, was the effect that the tree +made to-day. Strangely pale was the verdure against the black sky; and +the multitudinous catkins had a look almost ghostly. The Duke remembered +the legend that every one of these fair white spires of blossom is +the spirit of some dead man who, having loved Oxford much and well, is +suffered thus to revisit her, for a brief while, year by year. And +it pleased him to doubt not that on one of the topmost branches, next +Spring, his own spirit would be. + +“Oh, look!” cried a young lady emerging with her brother and her aunt +through the gate of Brasenose. + +“For heaven’s sake, Jessie, try to behave yourself,” hissed her brother. +“Aunt Mabel, for heaven’s sake don’t stare.” He compelled the pair to +walk on with him. “Jessie, if you look round over your shoulder... +No, it is NOT the Vice-Chancellor. It’s Dorset, of Judas--the Duke of +Dorset... Why on earth shouldn’t he?... No, it isn’t odd in the least... +No, I’m NOT losing my temper. Only, don’t call me your dear boy... No, +we will NOT walk slowly so as to let him pass us... Jessie, if you look +round...” + +Poor fellow! However fond an undergraduate be of his womenfolk, at +Oxford they keep him in a painful state of tension: at any moment they +may somehow disgrace him. And if throughout the long day he shall have +had the added strain of guarding them from the knowledge that he is +about to commit suicide, a certain measure of irritability must be +condoned. + +Poor Jessie and Aunt Mabel! They were destined to remember that Harold +had been “very peculiar” all day. They had arrived in the morning, happy +and eager despite the menace of the sky, and--well, they were destined +to reproach themselves for having felt that Harold was “really rather +impossible.” Oh, if he had only confided in them! They could have +reasoned with him, saved him--surely they could have saved him! When he +told them that the “First Division” of the races was always very dull, +and that they had much better let him go to it alone,--when he told them +that it was always very rowdy, and that ladies were not supposed to be +there--oh, why had they not guessed and clung to him, and kept him away +from the river? + +Well, here they were, walking on Harold’s either side, blind to fate, +and only longing to look back at the gorgeous personage behind them. +Aunt Mabel had inwardly calculated that the velvet of the mantle alone +could not have cost less than four guineas a yard. One good look back, +and she would be able to calculate how many yards there were... She +followed the example of Lot’s wife; and Jessie followed hers. + +“Very well,” said Harold. “That settles it. I go alone.” And he was gone +like an arrow, across the High, down Oriel Street. + +The two women stood staring ruefully at each other. + +“Pardon me,” said the Duke, with a sweep of his plumed hat. “I observe +you are stranded; and, if I read your thoughts aright, you are impugning +the courtesy of that young runagate. Neither of you, I am very sure, is +as one of those ladies who in Imperial Rome took a saucy pleasure in the +spectacle of death. Neither of you can have been warned by your escort +that you were on the way to see him die, of his own accord, in company +with many hundreds of other lads, myself included. Therefore, regard his +flight from you as an act not of unkindness, but of tardy compunction. +The hint you have had from him let me turn into a counsel. Go back, both +of you, to the place whence you came.” + +“Thank you SO much,” said Aunt Mabel, with what she took to be great +presence of mind. “MOST kind of you. We’ll do JUST what you tell us. +Come, Jessie dear,” and she hurried her niece away with her. + +Something in her manner of fixing him with her eye had made the Duke +suspect what was in her mind. Well, she would find out her mistake soon +enough, poor woman. He desired, however, that her mistake should be made +by no one else. He would give no more warnings. + +Tragic it was for him, in Merton Street, to see among the crowd +converging to the meadows so many women, young and old, all imprescient, +troubled by nothing but the thunder that was in the air, that was on the +brows of their escorts. He knew not whether it was for their escorts or +for them that he felt the greater pity; and an added load for his heart +was the sense of his partial responsibility for what impended. But +his lips were sealed now. Why should he not enjoy the effect he was +creating? + +It was with a measured tread, as yesterday with Zuleika, that he entered +the avenue of elms. The throng streamed past from behind him, parting +wide, and marvelling as it streamed. Under the pall of this evil evening +his splendour was the more inspiring. And, just as yesterday no man had +questioned his right to be with Zuleika, so to-day there was none to +deem him caparisoned too much. All the men felt at a glance that +he, coming to meet death thus, did no more than the right homage to +Zuleika--aye, and that he made them all partakers in his own glory, +casting his great mantle over all commorients. Reverence forbade them to +do more than glance. But the women with them were impelled by wonder to +stare hard, uttering sharp little cries that mingled with the cawing of +the rooks overhead. Thus did scores of men find themselves shamed like +our friend Harold. But this, you say, was no more than a just return for +their behaviour yesterday, when, in this very avenue, so many women were +almost crushed to death by them in their insensate eagerness to see Miss +Dobson. + +To-day by scores of women it was calculated not only that the velvet of +the Duke’s mantle could not have cost less than four guineas a yard, but +also that there must be quite twenty-five yards of it. Some of the fair +mathematicians had, in the course of the past fortnight, visited the +Royal Academy and seen there Mr. Sargent’s portrait of the wearer, so +that their estimate now was but the endorsement of an estimate already +made. Yet their impression of the Duke was above all a spiritual one. +The nobility of his face and bearing was what most thrilled them as they +went by; and those of them who had heard the rumour that he was in love +with that frightfully flashy-looking creature, Zuleika Dobson, were more +than ever sure there wasn’t a word of truth in it. + +As he neared the end of the avenue, the Duke was conscious of a thinning +in the procession on either side of him, and anon he was aware that not +one undergraduate was therein. And he knew at once--did not need to look +back to know--why this was. SHE was coming. + +Yes, she had come into the avenue, her magnetism speeding before her, +insomuch that all along the way the men immediately ahead of her looked +round, beheld her, stood aside for her. With her walked The MacQuern, +and a little bodyguard of other blest acquaintances; and behind her +swayed the dense mass of the disorganised procession. And now the last +rank between her and the Duke was broken, and at the revealed vision +of him she faltered midway in some raillery she was addressing to The +MacQuern. Her eyes were fixed, her lips were parted, her tread had +become stealthy. With a brusque gesture of dismissal to the men beside +her, she darted forward, and lightly overtook the Duke just as he was +turning towards the barges. + +“May I?” she whispered, smiling round into his face. + +His shoulder-knots just perceptibly rose. + +“There isn’t a policeman in sight, John. You’re at my mercy. No, no; +I’m at yours. Tolerate me. You really do look quite wonderful. There, I +won’t be so impertinent as to praise you. Only let me be with you. Will +you?” + +The shoulder-knots repeated their answer. + +“You needn’t listen to me; needn’t look at me--unless you care to use my +eyes as mirrors. Only let me be seen with you. That’s what I want. Not +that your society isn’t a boon in itself, John. Oh, I’ve been so bored +since I left you. The MacQuern is too, too dull, and so are his friends. +Oh, that meal with them in Balliol! As soon as I grew used to the +thought that they were going to die for me, I simply couldn’t stand +them. Poor boys! it was as much as I could do not to tell them I wished +them dead already. Indeed, when they brought me down for the first +races, I did suggest that they might as well die now as later. Only they +looked very solemn and said it couldn’t possibly be done till after the +final races. And oh, the tea with them! What have YOU been doing all the +afternoon? Oh John, after THEM, I could almost love you again. Why can’t +one fall in love with a man’s clothes? To think that all those splendid +things you have on are going to be spoilt--all for me. Nominally for +me, that is. It is very wonderful, John. I do appreciate it, really and +truly, though I know you think I don’t. John, if it weren’t mere spite +you feel for me--but it’s no good talking about that. Come, let us be as +cheerful as we may be. Is this the Judas house-boat?” + +“The Judas barge,” said the Duke, irritated by a mistake which but +yesterday had rather charmed him. + +As he followed his companion across the plank, there came dully from the +hills the first low growl of the pent storm. The sound struck for him a +strange contrast with the prattle he had perforce been listening to. + +“Thunder,” said Zuleika over her shoulder. + +“Evidently,” he answered. + +Half-way up the stairs to the roof, she looked round. “Aren’t you +coming?” she asked. + +He shook his head, and pointed to the raft in front of the barge. She +quickly descended. + +“Forgive me,” he said, “my gesture was not a summons. The raft is for +men.” + +“What do you want to do on it?” + +“To wait there till the races are over.” + +“But--what do you mean? Aren’t you coming up on to the roof at all? +Yesterday--” + +“Oh, I see,” said the Duke, unable to repress a smile. “But to-day I am +not dressed for a flying-leap.” + +Zuleika put a finger to her lips. “Don’t talk so loud. Those women up +there will hear you. No one must ever know I knew what was going to +happen. What evidence should I have that I tried to prevent it? Only my +own unsupported word--and the world is always against a woman. So do be +careful. I’ve thought it all out. The whole thing must be SPRUNG on me. +Don’t look so horribly cynical... What was I saying? Oh yes; well, it +doesn’t really matter. I had it fixed in my mind that you--but no, of +course, in that mantle you couldn’t. But why not come up on the roof +with me meanwhile, and then afterwards make some excuse and--” The rest +of her whisper was lost in another growl of thunder. + +“I would rather make my excuses forthwith,” said the Duke. “And, as the +races must be almost due now, I advise you to go straight up and secure +a place against the railing.” + +“It will look very odd, my going all alone into a crowd of people whom I +don’t know. I’m an unmarried girl. I do think you might--” + +“Good-bye,” said the Duke. + +Again Zuleika raised a warning finger. + +“Good-bye, John,” she whispered. “See, I am still wearing your studs. +Good-bye. Don’t forget to call my name in a loud voice. You promised.” + +“Yes.” + +“And,” she added, after a pause, “remember this. I have loved but twice +in my life; and none but you have I loved. This, too: if you hadn’t +forced me to kill my love, I would have died with you. And you know it +is true.” + +“Yes.” It was true enough. + +Courteously he watched her up the stairs. + +As she reached the roof, she cried down to him from the throng, “Then +you will wait down there to take me home afterwards?” + +He bowed silently. + +The raft was even more crowded than yesterday, but way was made for him +by Judasians past and present. He took his place in the centre of the +front row. + +At his feet flowed the fateful river. From the various barges the last +punt-loads had been ferried across to the towing-path, and the last +of the men who were to follow the boats in their course had vanished +towards the starting-point. There remained, however, a fringe of lesser +enthusiasts. Their figures stood outlined sharply in that strange dark +clearness which immediately precedes a storm. + +The thunder rumbled around the hills, and now and again there was a +faint glare on the horizon. + +Would Judas bump Magdalen? Opinion on the raft seemed to be divided. But +the sanguine spirits were in a majority. + +“If I were making a book on the event,” said a middle-aged clergyman, +with that air of breezy emancipation which is so distressing to the +laity, “I’d bet two to one we bump.” + +“You demean your cloth, sir,” the Duke would have said, “without +cheating its disabilities,” had not his mouth been stopped by a loud and +prolonged thunder-clap. + +In the hush thereafter, came the puny sound of a gunshot. The boats were +starting. Would Judas bump Magdalen? Would Judas be head of the river? + +Strange, thought the Duke, that for him, standing as he did on the peak +of dandyism, on the brink of eternity, this trivial question of boats +could have importance. And yet, and yet, for this it was that his heart +was beating. A few minutes hence, an end to victors and vanquished +alike; and yet... + +A sudden white vertical streak slid down the sky. Then there was +a consonance to split the drums of the world’s ears, followed by +a horrific rattling as of actual artillery--tens of thousands of +gun-carriages simultaneously at the gallop, colliding, crashing, heeling +over in the blackness. + +Then, and yet more awful, silence; the little earth cowering voiceless +under the heavens’ menace. And, audible in the hush now, a faint sound; +the sound of the runners on the towing-path cheering the crews forward, +forward. + +And there was another faint sound that came to the Duke’s ears. It he +understood when, a moment later, he saw the surface of the river alive +with infinitesimal fountains. + +Rain! + +His very mantle was aspersed. In another minute he would stand sodden, +inglorious, a mock. He didn’t hesitate. + +“Zuleika!” he cried in a loud voice. Then he took a deep breath, and, +burying his face in his mantle, plunged. + +Full on the river lay the mantle outspread. Then it, too, went under. A +great roll of water marked the spot. The plumed hat floated. + +There was a confusion of shouts from the raft, of screams from the roof. +Many youths--all the youths there--cried “Zuleika!” and leapt emulously +headlong into the water. “Brave fellows!” shouted the elder men, +supposing rescue-work. The rain pelted, the thunder pealed. Here and +there was a glimpse of a young head above water--for an instant only. + +Shouts and screams now from the infected barges on either side. A score +of fresh plunges. “Splendid fellows!” + +Meanwhile, what of the Duke? I am glad to say that he was alive and (but +for the cold he had caught last night) well. Indeed, his mind had never +worked more clearly than in this swift dim underworld. His mantle, the +cords of it having come untied, had drifted off him, leaving his arms +free. With breath well-pent, he steadily swam, scarcely less amused than +annoyed that the gods had, after all, dictated the exact time at which +he should seek death. + +I am loth to interrupt my narrative at this rather exciting moment--a +moment when the quick, tense style, exemplified in the last paragraph +but one, is so very desirable. But in justice to the gods I must pause +to put in a word of excuse for them. They had imagined that it was +in mere irony that the Duke had said he could not die till after the +bumping-races; and not until it seemed that he stood ready to make an +end of himself had the signal been given by Zeus for the rain to fall. +One is taught to refrain from irony, because mankind does tend to take +it literally. In the hearing of the gods, who hear all, it is conversely +unsafe to make a simple and direct statement. So what is one to do? The +dilemma needs a whole volume to itself. + +But to return to the Duke. He had now been under water for a full +minute, swimming down stream; and he calculated that he had yet another +full minute of consciousness. Already the whole of his past life +had vividly presented itself to him--myriads of tiny incidents, long +forgotten, now standing out sharply in their due sequence. He had +mastered this conspectus in a flash of time, and was already tired of +it. How smooth and yielding were the weeds against his face! He wondered +if Mrs. Batch had been in time to cash the cheque. If not, of course his +executors would pay the amount, but there would be delays, long delays, +Mrs. Batch in meshes of red tape. Red tape for her, green weeds for +him--he smiled at this poor conceit, classifying it as a fair sample of +merman’s wit. He swam on through the quiet cool darkness, less quickly +now. Not many more strokes now, he told himself; a few, only a few; then +sleep. How was he come here? Some woman had sent him. Ever so many years +ago, some woman. He forgave her. There was nothing to forgive her. It +was the gods who had sent him--too soon, too soon. He let his arms rise +in the water, and he floated up. There was air in that over-world, and +something he needed to know there before he came down again to sleep. + +He gasped the air into his lungs, and he remembered what it was that he +needed to know. + +Had he risen in mid-stream, the keel of the Magdalen boat might have +killed him. The oars of Magdalen did all but graze his face. The eyes of +the Magdalen cox met his. The cords of the Magdalen rudder slipped from +the hands that held them; whereupon the Magdalen man who rowed “bow” + missed his stroke. + +An instant later, just where the line of barges begins, Judas had bumped +Magdalen. + +A crash of thunder deadened the din of the stamping and dancing crowd on +the towing-path. The rain was a deluge making land and water as one. + +And the conquered crew, and the conquering, both now had seen the face +of the Duke. A white smiling face, anon it was gone. Dorset was gone +down to his last sleep. + +Victory and defeat alike forgotten, the crews staggered erect and flung +themselves into the river, the slender boats capsizing and spinning +futile around in a melley of oars. + +From the towing-path--no more din there now, but great single cries +of “Zuleika!”--leapt figures innumerable through rain to river. The +arrested boats of the other crews drifted zigzag hither and thither. The +dropped oars rocked and clashed, sank and rebounded, as the men plunged +across them into the swirling stream. + +And over all this confusion and concussion of men and man-made things +crashed the vaster discords of the heavens; and the waters of the +heavens fell ever denser and denser, as though to the aid of waters that +could not in themselves envelop so many hundreds of struggling human +forms. + +All along the soaked towing-path lay strewn the horns, the rattles, the +motor-hooters, that the youths had flung aside before they leapt. Here +and there among these relics stood dazed elder men, staring through the +storm. There was one of them--a grey-beard--who stripped off his blazer, +plunged, grabbed at some live man, grappled him, was dragged under. He +came up again further along stream, swam choking to the bank, clung to +the grasses. He whimpered as he sought foot-hold in the slime. It was +ill to be down in that abominable sink of death. + +Abominable, yes, to them who discerned there death only; but sacramental +and sweet enough to the men who were dying there for love. Any face that +rose was smiling. + +The thunder receded; the rain was less vehement: the boats and the oars +had drifted against the banks. And always the patient river bore its +awful burden towards Iffley. + +As on the towing-path, so on the youth-bereft rafts of the barges, +yonder, stood many stupefied elders, staring at the river, staring back +from the river into one another’s faces. + +Dispeopled now were the roofs of the barges. Under the first drops of +the rain most of the women had come huddling down for shelter inside; +panic had presently driven down the rest. Yet on one roof one woman +still was. A strange, drenched figure, she stood bright-eyed in the +dimness; alone, as it was well she should be in her great hour; draining +the lees of such homage as had come to no woman in history recorded. + + + + +XX + +Artistically, there is a good deal to be said for that old Greek friend +of ours, the Messenger; and I dare say you blame me for having, as it +were, made you an eye-witness of the death of the undergraduates, when +I might so easily have brought some one in to tell you about it after +it was all over... Some one? Whom? Are you not begging the question? +I admit there were, that evening in Oxford, many people who, when they +went home from the river, gave vivid reports of what they had seen. But +among them was none who had seen more than a small portion of the whole +affair. Certainly, I might have pieced together a dozen of the various +accounts, and put them all into the mouth of one person. But credibility +is not enough for Clio’s servant. I aim at truth. And so, as I by my +Zeus-given incorporeity was the one person who had a good view of the +scene at large, you must pardon me for having withheld the veil of +indirect narration. + +“Too late,” you will say if I offer you a Messenger now. But it was not +thus that Mrs. Batch and Katie greeted Clarence when, lamentably soaked +with rain, that Messenger appeared on the threshold of the kitchen. +Katie was laying the table-cloth for seven o’clock supper. Neither she +nor her mother was clairvoyante. Neither of them knew what had been +happening. But, as Clarence had not come home since afternoon-school, +they had assumed that he was at the river; and they now assumed from the +look of him that something very unusual had been happening there. As to +what this was, they were not quickly enlightened. Our old Greek friend, +after a run of twenty miles, would always reel off a round hundred of +graphic verses unimpeachable in scansion. Clarence was of degenerate +mould. He collapsed on to a chair, and sat there gasping; and his +recovery was rather delayed than hastened by his mother, who, in her +solicitude, patted him vigorously between the shoulders. + +“Let him alone, mother, do,” cried Katie, wringing her hands. + +“The Duke, he’s drowned himself,” presently gasped the Messenger. + +Blank verse, yes, so far as it went; but delivered without the slightest +regard for rhythm, and composed in stark defiance of those laws which +should regulate the breaking of bad news. You, please remember, were +carefully prepared by me against the shock of the Duke’s death; and yet +I hear you still mumbling that I didn’t let the actual fact be told you +by a Messenger. Come, do you really think your grievance against me +is for a moment comparable with that of Mrs. and Miss Batch against +Clarence? Did you feel faint at any moment in the foregoing chapter? No. +But Katie, at Clarence’s first words, fainted outright. Think a little +more about this poor girl senseless on the floor, and a little less +about your own paltry discomfort. + +Mrs. Batch herself did not faint, but she was too much overwhelmed to +notice that her daughter had done so. + +“No! Mercy on us! Speak, boy, can’t you?” + +“The river,” gasped Clarence. “Threw himself in. On purpose. I was on +the towing-path. Saw him do it.” + +Mrs. Batch gave a low moan. + +“Katie’s fainted,” added the Messenger, not without a touch of personal +pride. + +“Saw him do it,” Mrs. Batch repeated dully. “Katie,” she said, in the +same voice, “get up this instant.” But Katie did not hear her. + +The mother was loth to have been outdone in sensibility by the daughter, +and it was with some temper that she hastened to make the necessary +ministrations. + +“Where am I?” asked Katie, at length, echoing the words used in this +very house, at a similar juncture, on this very day, by another lover of +the Duke. + +“Ah, you may well ask that,” said Mrs. Batch, with more force than +reason. “A mother’s support indeed! Well! And as for you,” she cried, +turning on Clarence, “sending her off like that with your--” She +was face to face again with the tragic news. Katie, remembering it +simultaneously, uttered a loud sob. Mrs. Batch capped this with a much +louder one. Clarence stood before the fire, slowly revolving on one +heel. His clothes steamed briskly. + +“It isn’t true,” said Katie. She rose and came uncertainly towards her +brother, half threatening, half imploring. + +“All right,” said he, strong in his advantage. “Then I shan’t tell +either of you anything more.” + +Mrs. Batch through her tears called Katie a bad girl, and Clarence a bad +boy. + +“Where did you get THEM?” asked Clarence, pointing to the ear-rings worn +by his sister. + +“HE gave me them,” said Katie. Clarence curbed the brotherly intention +of telling her she looked “a sight” in them. + +She stood staring into vacancy. “He didn’t love HER,” she murmured. +“That was all over. I’ll vow he didn’t love HER.” + +“Who d’you mean by her?” asked Clarence. + +“That Miss Dobson that’s been here.” + +“What’s her other name?” + +“Zuleika,” Katie enunciated with bitterest abhorrence. + +“Well, then, he jolly well did love her. That’s the name he called out +just before he threw himself in. ‘Zuleika!’--like that,” added the boy, +with a most infelicitous attempt to reproduce the Duke’s manner. + +Katie had shut her eyes, and clenched her hands. + +“He hated her. He told me so,” she said. + +“I was always a mother to him,” sobbed Mrs. Batch, rocking to and fro on +a chair in a corner. “Why didn’t he come to me in his trouble?” + +“He kissed me,” said Katie, as in a trance. “No other man shall ever do +that.” + +“He did?” exclaimed Clarence. “And you let him?” + +“You wretched little whipper-snapper!” flashed Katie. + +“Oh, I am, am I?” shouted Clarence, squaring up to his sister. “Say that +again, will you?” + +There is no doubt that Katie would have said it again, had not her +mother closed the scene with a prolonged wail of censure. + +“You ought to be thinking of ME, you wicked girl,” said Mrs. Batch. +Katie went across, and laid a gentle hand on her mother’s shoulder. +This, however, did but evoke a fresh flood of tears. Mrs. Batch had a +keen sense of the deportment owed to tragedy. Katie, by bickering with +Clarence, had thrown away the advantage she had gained by fainting. Mrs. +Batch was not going to let her retrieve it by shining as a consoler. +I hasten to add that this resolve was only sub-conscious in the good +woman. Her grief was perfectly sincere. And it was not the less so +because with it was mingled a certain joy in the greatness of the +calamity. She came of good sound peasant stock. Abiding in her was the +spirit of those old songs and ballads in which daisies and daffodillies +and lovers’ vows and smiles are so strangely inwoven with tombs and +ghosts, with murders and all manner of grim things. She had not had +education enough to spoil her nerve. She was able to take the rough with +the smooth. She was able to take all life for her province, and death +too. + +The Duke was dead. This was the stupendous outline she had grasped: now +let it be filled in. She had been stricken: now let her be racked. Soon +after her daughter had moved away, Mrs. Batch dried her eyes, and bade +Clarence tell just what had happened. She did not flinch. Modern Katie +did. + +Such had ever been the Duke’s magic in the household that Clarence +had at first forgotten to mention that any one else was dead. Of +this omission he was glad. It promised him a new lease of importance. +Meanwhile, he described in greater detail the Duke’s plunge. Mrs. +Batch’s mind, while she listened, ran ahead, dog-like, into the +immediate future, ranging around: “the family” would all be here +to-morrow, the Duke’s own room must be “put straight” to-night, “I was +of speaking”... + +Katie’s mind harked back to the immediate past--to the tone of that +voice, to that hand which she had kissed, to the touch of those lips on +her brow, to the door-step she had made so white for him, day by day... + +The sound of the rain had long ceased. There was the noise of a +gathering wind. + +“Then in went a lot of others,” Clarence was saying. “And they all +shouted out ‘Zuleika!’ just like he did. Then a lot more went in. +First I thought it was some sort of fun. Not it!” And he told how, +by inquiries further down the river, he had learned the extent of the +disaster. “Hundreds and hundreds of them--ALL of them,” he summed up. +“And all for the love of HER,” he added, as with a sulky salute to +Romance. + +Mrs. Batch had risen from her chair, the better to cope with such +magnitude. She stood with wide-spread arms, silent, gaping. She seemed, +by sheer force of sympathy, to be expanding to the dimensions of a +crowd. + +Intensive Katie recked little of all these other deaths. “I only know,” + she said, “that he hated her.” + +“Hundreds and hundreds--ALL,” intoned Mrs. Batch, then gave a sudden +start, as having remembered something. Mr. Noaks! He, too! She staggered +to the door, leaving her actual offspring to their own devices, and went +heavily up the stairs, her mind scampering again before her.... If he +was safe and sound, dear young gentleman, heaven be praised! and she +would break the awful news to him, very gradually. If not, there was +another “family” to be solaced; “I’m a mother myself, Mrs. Noaks”... + +The sitting-room door was closed. Twice did Mrs. Batch tap on the panel, +receiving no answer. She went in, gazed around in the dimness, sighed +deeply, and struck a match. Conspicuous on the table lay a piece of +paper. She bent to examine it. A piece of lined paper, torn from an +exercise book, it was neatly inscribed with the words “What is Life +without Love?” The final word and the note of interrogation were +somewhat blurred, as by a tear. The match had burnt itself out. The +landlady lit another, and read the legend a second time, that she might +take in the full pathos of it. Then she sat down in the arm-chair. For +some minutes she wept there. Then, having no more, tears, she went out +on tip-toe, closing the door very quietly. + +As she descended the last flight of stairs, her daughter had just shut +the front-door, and was coming along the hall. + +“Poor Mr. Noaks--he’s gone,” said the mother. + +“Has he?” said Katie listlessly. + +“Yes he has, you heartless girl. What’s that you’ve got in your hand? +Why, if it isn’t the black-leading! And what have you been doing with +that?” + +“Let me alone, mother, do,” said poor Katie. She had done her lowly +task. She had expressed her mourning, as best she could, there where she +had been wont to express her love. + + + + +XXI + +And Zuleika? She had done a wise thing, and was where it was best that +she should be. + +Her face lay upturned on the water’s surface, and round it were the +masses of her dark hair, half floating, half submerged. Her eyes were +closed, and her lips were parted. Not Ophelia in the brook could have +seemed more at peace. + + “Like a creature native and indued + Unto that element,” + tranquil Zuleika lay. + +Gently to and fro her tresses drifted on the water, or under the water +went ever ravelling and unravelling. Nothing else of her stirred. + +What to her now the loves that she had inspired and played on? the lives +lost for her? Little thought had she now of them. Aloof she lay. + +Steadily rising from the water was a thick vapour that turned to dew on +the window-pane. The air was heavy with scent of violets. These are the +flowers of mourning; but their scent here and now signified nothing; for +Eau de Violettes was the bath-essence that Zuleika always had. + +The bath-room was not of the white-gleaming kind to which she was +accustomed. The walls were papered, not tiled, and the bath itself was +of japanned tin, framed in mahogany. These things, on the evening of +her arrival at the Warden’s, had rather distressed her. But she was the +better able to bear them because of that well-remembered past when a +bath-room was in itself a luxury pined for--days when a not-large and +not-full can of not-hot water, slammed down at her bedroom door by a +governess-resenting housemaid, was as much as the gods allowed her. And +there was, to dulcify for her the bath of this evening, the yet sharper +contrast with the plight she had just come home in, sopped, shivering, +clung to by her clothes. Because this bath was not a mere luxury, but a +necessary precaution, a sure means of salvation from chill, she did the +more gratefully bask in it, till Melisande came back to her, laden with +warmed towels. + +A few minutes before eight o’clock she was fully ready to go down to +dinner, with even more than the usual glow of health, and hungry beyond +her wont. + +Yet, as she went down, her heart somewhat misgave her. Indeed, by force +of the wide experience she had had as a governess, she never did feel +quite at her ease when she was staying in a private house: the fear of +not giving satisfaction haunted her; she was always on her guard; the +shadow of dismissal absurdly hovered. And to-night she could not tell +herself, as she usually did, not to be so silly. If her grandfather knew +already the motive by which those young men had been actuated, dinner +with him might be a rather strained affair. He might tell her, in so +many words, that he wished he had not invited her to Oxford. + +Through the open door of the drawing room she saw him, standing +majestic, draped in a voluminous black gown. Her instinct was to run +away; but this she conquered. She went straight in, remembering not to +smile. + +“Ah, ah,” said the Warden, shaking a forefinger at her with old-world +playfulness. “And what have you to say for yourself?” + +Relieved, she was also a trifle shocked. Was it possible that he, a +responsible old man, could take things so lightly? + +“Oh, grand-papa,” she answered, hanging her head, “what CAN I say? It +is--it is too, too, dreadful.” + +“There, there, my dear. I was but jesting. If you have had an agreeable +time, you are forgiven for playing truant. Where have you been all day?” + +She saw that she had misjudged him. “I have just come from the river,” + she said gravely. + +“Yes? And did the College make its fourth bump to-night?” + +“I--I don’t know, grand-papa. There was so much happening. It--I will +tell you all about it at dinner.” + +“Ah, but to-night,” he said, indicating his gown, “I cannot be with you. +The bump-supper, you know. I have to preside in Hall.” + +Zuleika had forgotten there was to be a bump-supper, and, though she +was not very sure what a bump-supper was, she felt it would be a mockery +to-night. + +“But grand-papa--” she began. + +“My dear, I cannot dissociate myself from the life of the College. And, +alas,” he said, looking at the clock, “I must leave you now. As soon as +you have finished dinner, you might, if you would care to, come and peep +down at us from the gallery. There is apt to be some measure of +noise and racket, but all of it good-humoured and--boys will be +boys--pardonable. Will you come?” + +“Perhaps, grand-papa,” she said awkwardly. Left alone, she hardly knew +whether to laugh or cry. In a moment, the butler came to her rescue, +telling her that dinner was served. + +As the figure of the Warden emerged from Salt Cellar into the Front +Quadrangle, a hush fell on the group of gowned Fellows outside the Hall. +Most of them had only just been told the news, and (such is the force +of routine in an University) were still sceptical of it. And in face of +these doubts the three or four dons who had been down at the river were +now half ready to believe that there must, after all, be some mistake, +and that in this world of illusions they had to-night been specially +tricked. To rebut this theory, there was the notable absence of +undergraduates. Or was this an illusion, too? Men of thought, agile on +the plane of ideas, devils of fellows among books, they groped feebly +in this matter of actual life and death. The sight of their Warden +heartened them. After all, he was the responsible person. He was father +of the flock that had strayed, and grandfather of the beautiful Miss +Zuleika. + +Like her, they remembered not to smile in greeting him. + +“Good evening, gentlemen,” he said. “The storm seems to have passed.” + +There was a murmur of “Yes, Warden.” + +“And how did our boat acquit itself?” + +There was a shuffling pause. Every one looked at the Sub-Warden: it was +manifestly for him to break the news, or to report the hallucination. He +was nudged forward--a large man, with a large beard at which he plucked +nervously. + +“Well, really, Warden,” he said, “we--we hardly know,” * and he ended +with what can only be described as a giggle. He fell low in the esteem +of his fellows. + + + *Those of my readers who are interested in athletic sports will + remember the long controversy that raged as to whether Judas had + actually bumped Magdalen; and they will not need to be minded that + it was mainly through the evidence of Mr. E. T. A. Cook, who had + been on the towing-path at the time, that the O. U. B. C. decided + the point in Judas’ favour, and fixed the order of the boats for + the following year accordingly. + + +Thinking of that past Sub-Warden whose fame was linked with the +sun-dial, the Warden eyed this one keenly. + +“Well, gentlemen,” he presently said, “our young men seem to be already +at table. Shall we follow their example?” And he led the way up the +steps. + +Already at table? The dons’ dubiety toyed with this hypothesis. But the +aspect of the Hall’s interior was hard to explain away. Here were the +three long tables, stretching white towards the dais, and laden with the +usual crockery and cutlery, and with pots of flowers in honour of the +occasion. And here, ranged along either wall, was the usual array of +scouts, motionless, with napkins across their arms. But that was all. + +It became clear to the Warden that some organised prank or protest was +afoot. Dignity required that he should take no heed whatsoever. Looking +neither to the right nor to the left, stately he approached the dais, +his Fellows to heel. + +In Judas, as in other Colleges, grace before meat is read by the Senior +Scholar. The Judas grace (composed, they say, by Christopher Whitrid +himself) is noted for its length and for the excellence of its Latinity. +Who was to read it to-night? The Warden, having searched his mind vainly +for a precedent, was driven to create one. + +“The Junior Fellow,” he said, “will read grace.” + +Blushing to the roots of his hair, and with crablike gait, Mr. Pedby, +the Junior Fellow, went and unhooked from the wall that little shield +of wood on which the words of the grace are carven. Mr. Pedby was--Mr. +Pedby is--a mathematician. His treatise on the Higher Theory of Short +Division by Decimals had already won for him an European reputation. +Judas was--Judas is--proud of Pedby. Nor is it denied that in +undertaking the duty thrust on him he quickly controlled his nerves and +read the Latin out in ringing accents. Better for him had he not done +so. The false quantities he made were so excruciating and so many that, +while the very scouts exchanged glances, the dons at the high table lost +all command of their features, and made horrible noises in the effort to +contain themselves. The very Warden dared not look from his plate. + +In every breast around the high table, behind every shirt-front or +black silk waistcoat, glowed the recognition of a new birth. Suddenly, +unheralded, a thing of highest destiny had fallen into their academic +midst. The stock of Common Room talk had to-night been re-inforced and +enriched for all time. Summers and winters would come and go, old faces +would vanish, giving place to new, but the story of Pedby’s grace would +be told always. Here was a tradition that generations of dons yet unborn +would cherish and chuckle over. Something akin to awe mingled itself +with the subsiding merriment. And the dons, having finished their soup, +sipped in silence the dry brown sherry. + +Those who sat opposite to the Warden, with their backs to the void, +were oblivious of the matter that had so recently teased them. They +were conscious only of an agreeable hush, in which they peered down +the vistas of the future, watching the tradition of Pedby’s grace as it +rolled brighter and ever brighter down to eternity. + +The pop of a champagne cork startled them to remembrance that this was a +bump-supper, and a bump-supper of a peculiar kind. The turbot that +came after the soup, the champagne that succeeded the sherry, helped to +quicken in these men of thought the power to grapple with a reality. The +aforesaid three or four who had been down at the river recovered their +lost belief in the evidence of their eyes and ears. In the rest was a +spirit of receptivity which, as the meal went on, mounted to conviction. +The Sub-Warden made a second and more determined attempt to enlighten +the Warden; but the Warden’s eye met his with a suspicion so cruelly +pointed that he again floundered and gave in. + +All adown those empty other tables gleamed the undisturbed cutlery, and +the flowers in the pots innocently bloomed. And all adown either wall, +unneeded but undisbanded, the scouts remained. Some of the elder ones +stood with closed eyes and heads sunk forward, now and again jerking +themselves erect, and blinking around, wondering, remembering. + +And for a while this scene was looked down on by a not disinterested +stranger. For a while, her chin propped on her hands, Zuleika leaned +over the rail of the gallery, just as she had lately leaned over the +barge’s rail, staring down and along. But there was no spark of triumph +now in her eyes; only a deep melancholy; and in her mouth a taste as of +dust and ashes. She thought of last night, and of all the buoyant life +that this Hall had held. Of the Duke she thought, and of the whole vivid +and eager throng of his fellows in love. Her will, their will, had been +done. But, there rose to her lips the old, old question that withers +victory--“To what end?” Her eyes ranged along the tables, and an +appalling sense of loneliness swept over her. She turned away, wrapping +the folds of her cloak closer across her breast. Not in this College +only, but through and through Oxford, there was no heart that beat for +her--no, not one, she told herself, with that instinct for self-torture +which comes to souls in torment. She was utterly alone to-night in the +midst of a vast indifference. She! She! Was it possible? Were the gods +so merciless? Ah no, surely... + +Down at the high table the feast drew to its close, and very different +was the mood of the feasters from that of the young woman whose glance +had for a moment rested on their unromantic heads. Generations of +undergraduates had said that Oxford would be all very well but for the +dons. Do you suppose that the dons had had no answering sentiment? Youth +is a very good thing to possess, no doubt; but it is a tiresome setting +for maturity. Youth all around prancing, vociferating, mocking; callow +and alien youth, having to be looked after and studied and taught, +as though nothing but it mattered, term after term--and now, all of a +sudden, in mid-term, peace, ataraxy, a profound and leisured stillness. +No lectures to deliver to-morrow; no “essays” to hear and criticise; +time for the unvexed pursuit of pure learning... + +As the Fellows passed out on their way to Common Room, there to tackle +with a fresh appetite Pedby’s grace, they paused, as was their wont, on +the steps of the Hall, looking up at the sky, envisaging the weather. +The wind had dropped. There was even a glimpse of the moon riding behind +the clouds. And now, a solemn and plangent token of Oxford’s perpetuity, +the first stroke of Great Tom sounded. + + + + +XXII + +Stroke by stroke, the great familiar monody of that incomparable curfew +rose and fell in the stillness. + +Nothing of Oxford lingers more surely than it in the memory of Oxford +men; and to one revisiting these groves nothing is more eloquent of that +scrupulous historic economy whereby his own particular past is utilised +as the general present and future. “All’s as it was, all’s as it will +be,” says Great Tom; and that is what he stubbornly said on the evening +I here record. + +Stroke by measured and leisured stroke, the old euphonious clangour +pervaded Oxford, spreading out over the meadows, along the river, +audible in Iffley. But to the dim groups gathering and dispersing on +either bank, and to the silent workers in the boats, the bell’s message +came softened, equivocal; came as a requiem for these dead. + +Over the closed gates of Iffley lock, the water gushed down, eager for +the sacrament of the sea. Among the supine in the field hard by, there +was one whose breast bore a faint-gleaming star. And bending over him, +looking down at him with much love and pity in her eyes, was the shade +of Nellie O’Mora, that “fairest witch,” to whose memory he had to-day +atoned. + +And yonder, “sitting upon the river-bank o’ergrown,” with questioning +eyes, was another shade, more habituated to these haunts--the shade +known so well to bathers “in the abandoned lasher,” and to dancers +“around the Fyfield elm in May.” At the bell’s final stroke, the Scholar +Gipsy rose, letting fall on the water his gathered wild-flowers, and +passed towards Cumnor. + +And now, duly, throughout Oxford, the gates of the Colleges were closed, +and closed were the doors of the lodging-houses. Every night, for many +years, at this hour precisely, Mrs. Batch had come out from her kitchen, +to turn the key in the front-door. The function had long ago become +automatic. To-night, however, it was the cue for further tears. These +did not cease at her return to the kitchen, where she had gathered +about her some sympathetic neighbours--women of her own age and +kind, capacious of tragedy; women who might be relied on; founts of +ejaculation, wells of surmise, downpours of remembered premonitions. + +With his elbows on the kitchen table, and his knuckles to his brow, sat +Clarence, intent on belated “prep.” Even an eye-witness of disaster may +pall if he repeat his story too often. Clarence had noted in the last +recital that he was losing his hold on his audience. So now he sat +committing to memory the names of the cantons of Switzerland, and waving +aside with a harsh gesture such questions as were still put to him by +the women. + +Katie had sought refuge in the need for “putting the gentlemen’s rooms +straight,” against the arrival of the two families to-morrow. Duster +in hand, and by the light of a single candle that barely survived the +draught from the open window, she moved to and fro about the Duke’s +room, a wan and listless figure, casting queerest shadows on the +ceiling. There were other candles that she might have lit, but this +ambiguous gloom suited her sullen humour. Yes, I am sorry to say, Katie +was sullen. She had not ceased to mourn the Duke; but it was even more +anger than grief that she felt at his dying. She was as sure as ever +that he had not loved Miss Dobson; but this only made it the more +outrageous that he had died because of her. What was there in this woman +that men should so demean themselves for her? Katie, as you know, had at +first been unaffected by the death of the undergraduates at large. But, +because they too had died for Zuleika, she was bitterly incensed against +them now. What could they have admired in such a woman? She didn’t even +look like a lady. Katie caught the dim reflection of herself in the +mirror. She took the candle from the table, and examined the reflection +closely. She was sure she was just as pretty as Miss Dobson. It was only +the clothes that made the difference--the clothes and the behaviour. +Katie threw back her head, and smiled brilliantly, hand on hip. She +nodded reassuringly at herself; and the black pearl and the pink danced +a duet. She put the candle down, and undid her hair, roughly parting +it on one side, and letting it sweep down over the further eyebrow. She +fixed it in that fashion, and posed accordingly. Now! But gradually her +smile relaxed, and a mist came to her eyes. For she had to admit that +even so, after all, she hadn’t just that something which somehow Miss +Dobson had. She put away from her the hasty dream she had had of a whole +future generation of undergraduates drowning themselves, every one, in +honour of her. She went wearily on with her work. + +Presently, after a last look round, she went up the creaking stairs, to +do Mr. Noaks’ room. + +She found on the table that screed which her mother had recited so often +this evening. She put it in the waste-paper basket. + +Also on the table were a lexicon, a Thucydides, and some note-books. +These she took and shelved without a tear for the closed labours they +bore witness to. + +The next disorder that met her eye was one that gave her pause--seemed, +indeed, to transfix her. + +Mr. Noaks had never, since he came to lodge here, possessed more than +one pair of boots. This fact had been for her a lasting source of +annoyance; for it meant that she had to polish Mr. Noaks’ boots always +in the early morning, when there were so many other things to be done, +instead of choosing her own time. Her annoyance had been all the keener +because Mr. Noaks’ boots more than made up in size for what they lacked +in number. Either of them singly took more time and polish than any +other pair imaginable. She would have recognised them, at a glance, +anywhere. Even so now, it was at a glance that she recognised the toes +of them protruding from beneath the window-curtain. She dismissed the +theory that Mr. Noaks might have gone utterly unshod to the river. She +scouted the hypothesis that his ghost could be shod thus. By process +of elimination she arrived at the truth. “Mr. Noaks,” she said quietly, +“come out of there.” + +There was a slight quiver of the curtain; no more. Katie repeated her +words. There was a pause, then a convulsion of the curtain. Noaks stood +forth. + +Always, in polishing his boots, Katie had found herself thinking of him +as a man of prodigious stature, well though she knew him to be quite +tiny. Even so now, at recognition of his boots, she had fixed her eyes +to meet his, when he should emerge, a full yard too high. With a sharp +drop she focussed him. + +“By what right,” he asked, “do you come prying about my room?” + +This was a stroke so unexpected that it left Katie mute. It equally +surprised Noaks, who had been about to throw himself on his knees and +implore this girl not to betray him. He was quick, though, to clinch his +advantage. + +“This,” he said, “is the first time I have caught you. Let it be the +last.” + +Was this the little man she had so long despised, and so superciliously +served? His very smallness gave him an air of concentrated force. She +remembered having read that all the greatest men in history had been of +less than the middle height. And--oh, her heart leapt--here was the +one man who had scorned to die for Miss Dobson. He alone had held out +against the folly of his fellows. Sole and splendid survivor he stood, +rock-footed, before her. And impulsively she abased herself, kneeling at +his feet as at the great double altar of some dark new faith. + +“You are great, sir, you are wonderful,” she said, gazing up to him, +rapt. It was the first time she had ever called him “sir.” + +It is easier, as Michelet suggested, for a woman to change her opinion +of a man than for him to change his opinion of himself. Noaks, despite +the presence of mind he had shown a few moments ago, still saw himself +as he had seen himself during the past hours: that is, as an arrant +little coward--one who by his fear to die had put himself outside the +pale of decent manhood. He had meant to escape from the house at dead of +night and, under an assumed name, work his passage out to Australia--a +land which had always made strong appeal to his imagination. No one, he +had reflected, would suppose because his body was not retrieved from +the water that he had not perished with the rest. And he had looked to +Australia to make a man of him yet: in Encounter Bay, perhaps, or in the +Gulf of Carpentaria, he might yet end nobly. + +Thus Katie’s behaviour was as much an embarrassment as a relief; and he +asked her in what way he was great and wonderful. + +“Modest, like all heroes!” she cried, and, still kneeling, proceeded to +sing his praises with a so infectious fervour that Noaks did begin to +feel he had done a fine thing in not dying. After all, was it not moral +cowardice as much as love that had tempted him to die? He had wrestled +with it, thrown it. “Yes,” said he, when her rhapsody was over, “perhaps +I am modest.” + +“And that is why you hid yourself just now?” + +“Yes,” he gladly said. “I hid myself for the same reason,” he added, +“when I heard your mother’s footstep.” + +“But,” she faltered, with a sudden doubt, “that bit of writing which +Mother found on the table--” + +“That? Oh, that was only a general reflection, copied out of a book.” + +“Oh, won’t poor Mother be glad when she knows!” + +“I don’t want her to know,” said Noaks, with a return of nervousness. +“You mustn’t tell any one. I--the fact is--” + +“Ah, that is so like you!” the girl said tenderly. “I suppose it was +your modesty that all this while blinded me. Please, sir, I have a +confession to make to you. Never till to-night have I loved you.” + +Exquisite was the shock of these words to one who, not without reason, +had always assumed that no woman would ever love him. Before he knew +what he was doing, he had bent down and kissed the sweet upturned face. +It was the first kiss he had ever given outside his family circle. It +was an artless and a resounding kiss. + +He started back, dazed. What manner of man, he wondered, was he? A +coward, piling profligacy on poltroonery? Or a hero, claiming exemption +from moral law? What was done could not be undone; but it could be +righted. He drew off from the little finger of his left hand that iron +ring which, after a twinge of rheumatism, he had to-day resumed. + +“Wear it,” he said. + +“You mean--?” She leapt to her feet. + +“That we are engaged. I hope you don’t think we have any choice?” + +She clapped her hands, like the child she was, and adjusted the ring. + +“It is very pretty,” she said. + +“It is very simple,” he answered lightly. “But,” he added, with a change +of tone, “it is very durable. And that is the important thing. For I +shall not be in a position to marry before I am forty.” + +A shadow of disappointment hovered over Katie’s clear young brow, but +was instantly chased away by the thought that to be engaged was almost +as splendid as to be married. + +“Recently,” said her lover, “I meditated leaving Oxford for Australia. +But now that you have come into my life, I am compelled to drop that +notion, and to carve out the career I had first set for myself. A year +hence, if I get a Second in Greats--and I SHALL” he said, with a +fierce look that entranced her--“I shall have a very good chance of an +assistant-mastership in a good private school. In eighteen years, if I +am careful--and, with you waiting for me, I SHALL be careful--my savings +will enable me to start a small school of my own, and to take a wife. +Even then it would be more prudent to wait another five years, no doubt. +But there was always a streak of madness in the Noakses. I say ‘Prudence +to the winds!’” + +“Ah, don’t say that!” exclaimed Katie, laying a hand on his sleeve. + +“You are right. Never hesitate to curb me. And,” he said, touching the +ring, “an idea has just occurred to me. When the time comes, let this +be the wedding-ring. Gold is gaudy--not at all the thing for a +schoolmaster’s bride. It is a pity,” he muttered, examining her through +his spectacles, “that your hair is so golden. A schoolmaster’s bride +should--Good heavens! Those ear-rings! Where did you get THEM?” + +“They were given to me to-day,” Katie faltered. “The Duke gave me them.” + +“Indeed?” + +“Please, sir, he gave me them as a memento.” + +“And that memento shall immediately be handed over to his executors.” + +“Yes, sir.” + +“I should think so!” was on the tip of Noaks’ tongue, but suddenly he +ceased to see the pearls as trinkets finite and inapposite--saw them, +in a flash, as things transmutable by sale hereafter into desks, forms, +black-boards, maps, lockers, cubicles, gravel soil, diet unlimited, and +special attention to backward pupils. Simultaneously, he saw how mean +had been his motive for repudiating the gift. What more despicable than +jealousy of a man deceased? What sillier than to cast pearls before +executors? Sped by nothing but the pulse of his hot youth, he had wooed +and won this girl. Why flinch from her unsought dowry? + +He told her his vision. Her eyes opened wide to it. “And oh,” she cried, +“then we can be married as soon as you take your degree!” + +He bade her not be so foolish. Who ever heard of a head-master aged +three-and-twenty? What parent or guardian would trust a stripling? The +engagement must run its course. “And,” he said, fidgeting, “do you know +that I have hardly done any reading to-day?” + +“You want to read NOW--TO-NIGHT?” + +“I must put in a good two hours. Where are the books that were on my +table?” + +Reverently--he was indeed a king of men--she took the books down from +the shelf, and placed them where she had found them. And she knew not +which thrilled her the more--the kiss he gave her at parting, or the +tone in which he told her that the one thing he could not and would not +stand was having his books disturbed. + +Still less than before attuned to the lugubrious session downstairs, she +went straight up to her attic, and did a little dance there in the +dark. She threw open the lattice of the dormer-window, and leaned out, +smiling, throbbing. + +The Emperors, gazing up, saw her happy, and wondered; saw Noaks’ ring on +her finger, and would fain have shaken their grey heads. + +Presently she was aware of a protrusion from the window beneath hers. +The head of her beloved! Fondly she watched it, wished she could reach +down to stroke it. She loved him for having, after all, left his books. +It was sweet to be his excuse. Should she call softly to him? No, it +might shame him to be caught truant. He had already chidden her for +prying. So she did but gaze down on his head silently, wondering whether +in eighteen years it would be bald, wondering whether her own hair would +still have the fault of being golden. Most of all, she wondered whether +he loved her half so much as she loved him. + +This happened to be precisely what he himself was wondering. Not that +he wished himself free. He was one of those in whom the will does not, +except under very great pressure, oppose the conscience. What pressure +here? Miss Batch was a superior girl; she would grace any station in +life. He had always been rather in awe of her. It was a fine thing to be +suddenly loved by her, to be in a position to over-rule her every whim. +Plighting his troth, he had feared she would be an encumbrance, only to +find she was a lever. But--was he deeply in love with her? How was it +that he could not at this moment recall her features, or the tone of her +voice, while of deplorable Miss Dobson, every lineament, every accent, +so vividly haunted him? Try as he would to beat off these memories, he +failed, and--some very great pressure here!--was glad he failed; glad +though he found himself relapsing to the self-contempt from which Miss +Batch had raised him. He scorned himself for being alive. And again, he +scorned himself for his infidelity. Yet he was glad he could not forget +that face, that voice--that queen. She had smiled at him when she +borrowed the ring. She had said “Thank you.” Oh, and now, at this very +moment, sleeping or waking, actually she was somewhere--she! herself! +This was an incredible, an indubitable, an all-magical fact for the +little fellow. + +From the street below came a faint cry that was as the cry of his own +heart, uttered by her own lips. Quaking, he peered down, and dimly saw, +over the way, a cloaked woman. + +She--yes, it was she herself--came gliding to the middle of the road, +gazing up at him. + +“At last!” he heard her say. His instinct was to hide himself from the +queen he had not died for. Yet he could not move. + +“Or,” she quavered, “are you a phantom sent to mock me? Speak!” + +“Good evening,” he said huskily. + +“I knew,” she murmured, “I knew the gods were not so cruel. Oh man of my +need,” she cried, stretching out her arms to him, “oh heaven-sent, I see +you only as a dark outline against the light of your room. But I know +you. Your name is Noaks, isn’t it? Dobson is mine. I am your Warden’s +grand-daughter. I am faint and foot-sore. I have ranged this desert city +in search of--of YOU. Let me hear from your own lips that you love me. +Tell me in your own words--” She broke off with a little scream, and did +not stand with forefinger pointed at him, gazing, gasping. + +“Listen, Miss Dobson,” he stammered, writhing under what he took to be +the lash of her irony. “Give me time to explain. You see me here--” + +“Hush,” she cried, “man of my greater, my deeper and nobler need! +Oh hush, ideal which not consciously I was out for to-night--ideal +vouchsafed to me by a crowning mercy! I sought a lover, I find a master. +I sought but a live youth, was blind to what his survival would betoken. +Oh master, you think me light and wicked. You stare coldly down at me +through your spectacles, whose glint I faintly discern now that the moon +peeps forth. You would be readier to forgive me the havoc I have wrought +if you could for the life of you understand what charm your friends +found in me. You marvel, as at the skull of Helen of Troy. No, you don’t +think me hideous: you simply think me plain. There was a time when I +thought YOU plain--you whose face, now that the moon shines full on it, +is seen to be of a beauty that is flawless without being insipid. Oh +that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek! You +shudder at the notion of such contact. My voice grates on you. You try +to silence me with frantic though exquisite gestures, and with noises +inarticulate but divine. I bow to your will, master. Chasten me with +your tongue.” + +“I am not what you think me,” gibbered Noaks. “I was not afraid to die +for you. I love you. I was on my way to the river this afternoon, but +I--I tripped and sprained my ankle, and--and jarred my spine. They +carried me back here. I am still very weak. I can’t put my foot to the +ground. As soon as I can--” + +Just then Zuleika heard a little sharp sound which, for the fraction of +an instant, before she knew it to be a clink of metal on the pavement, +she thought was the breaking of the heart within her. Looking quickly +down, she heard a shrill girlish laugh aloft. Looking quickly up, +she descried at the unlit window above her lover’s a face which she +remembered as that of the land-lady’s daughter. + +“Find it, Miss Dobson,” laughed the girl. “Crawl for it. It can’t have +rolled far, and it’s the only engagement-ring you’ll get from HIM,” she +said, pointing to the livid face twisted painfully up at her from the +lower window. “Grovel for it, Miss Dobson. Ask him to step down and help +you. Oh, he can! That was all lies about his spine and ankle. Afraid, +that’s what he was--I see it all now--afraid of the water. I wish you’d +found him as I did--skulking behind the curtain. Oh, you’re welcome to +him.” + +“Don’t listen,” Noaks cried down. “Don’t listen to that person. I admit +I have trifled with her affections. This is her revenge--these wicked +untruths--these--these--” + +Zuleika silenced him with a gesture. “Your tone to me,” she said up to +Katie, “is not without offence; but the stamp of truth is on what you +tell me. We have both been deceived in this man, and are, in some sort, +sisters.” + +“Sisters?” cried Katie. “Your sisters are the snake and the spider, +though neither of them wishes it known. I loathe you. And the Duke +loathed you, too.” + +“What’s that?” gasped Zuleika. + +“Didn’t he tell you? He told me. And I warrant he told you, too.” + +“He died for love of me: d’you hear?” + +“Ah, you’d like people to think so, wouldn’t you? Does a man who loves a +woman give away the keepsake she gave him? Look!” Katie leaned forward, +pointing to her ear-rings. “He loved ME,” she cried. “He put them in with +his own hands--told me to wear them always. And he kissed me--kissed me +good-bye in the street, where every one could see. He kissed me,” she +sobbed. “No other man shall ever do that.” + +“Ah, that he did!” said a voice level with Zuleika. It was the voice of +Mrs. Batch, who a few moments ago had opened the door for her departing +guests. + +“Ah, that he did!” echoed the guests. + +“Never mind them, Miss Dobson,” cried Noaks, and at the sound of his +voice Mrs. Batch rushed into the middle of the road, to gaze up. “_I_ +love you. Think what you will of me. I--” + +“You!” flashed Zuleika. “As for you, little Sir Lily Liver, leaning +out there, and, I frankly tell you, looking like nothing so much as a +gargoyle hewn by a drunken stone-mason for the adornment of a Methodist +Chapel in one of the vilest suburbs of Leeds or Wigan, I do but +felicitate the river-god and his nymphs that their water was saved +to-day by your cowardice from the contamination of your plunge.” + +“Shame on you, Mr. Noaks,” said Mrs. Batch, “making believe you were +dead--” + +“Shame!” screamed Clarence, who had darted out into the fray. + +“I found him hiding behind the curtain,” chimed in Katie. + +“And I a mother to him!” said Mrs. Batch, shaking her fist. “‘What is +life without love?’ indeed! Oh, the cowardly, underhand--” + +“Wretch,” prompted her cronies. + +“Let’s kick him out of the house!” suggested Clarence, dancing for joy. + +Zuleika, smiling brilliantly down at the boy, said “Just you run up and +fight him!” + +“Right you are,” he answered, with a look of knightly devotion, and +darted back into the house. + +“No escape!” she cried up to Noaks. “You’ve got to fight him now. He and +you are just about evenly matched, I fancy.” + +But, grimly enough, Zuleika’s estimate was never put to the test. Is +it harder for a coward to fight with his fists than to kill himself? Or +again, is it easier for him to die than to endure a prolonged cross-fire +of women’s wrath and scorn? This I know: that in the life of even the +least and meanest of us there is somewhere one fine moment--one high +chance not missed. I like to think it was by operation of this law that +Noaks had now clambered out upon the window-sill, silencing, sickening, +scattering like chaff the women beneath him. + +He was already not there when Clarence bounded into the room. “Come on!” + yelled the boy, first thrusting his head behind the door, then diving +beneath the table, then plucking aside either window-curtain, vowing +vengeance. + +Vengeance was not his. Down on the road without, not yet looked at but +by the steadfast eyes of the Emperors, the last of the undergraduates +lay dead; and fleet-footed Zuleika, with her fingers still pressed to +her ears, had taken full toll now. + + + + +XXIII + +Twisting and turning in her flight, with wild eyes that fearfully +retained the image of that small man gathering himself to spring, +Zuleika found herself suddenly where she could no further go. + +She was in that grim ravine by which you approach New College. At sight +of the great shut gate before her, she halted, and swerved to the wall. +She set her brow and the palms of her hands against the cold stones. She +threw back her head, and beat the stones with her fists. + +It was not only what she had seen, it was what she had barely saved +herself from seeing, and what she had not quite saved herself from +hearing, that she strove so piteously to forget. She was sorrier for +herself, angrier, than she had been last night when the Duke laid hands +on her. Why should every day have a horrible ending? Last night she +had avenged herself. To-night’s outrage was all the more foul and mean +because of its certain immunity. And the fact that she had in some +measure brought it on herself did but whip her rage. What a fool she +had been to taunt the man! Yet no, how could she have foreseen that he +would--do THAT? How could she have guessed that he, who had not dared +seemly death for her in the gentle river, would dare--THAT? + +She shuddered the more as she now remembered that this very day, in that +very house, she had invited for her very self a similar fate. What if +the Duke had taken her word? Strange! she wouldn’t have flinched then. +She had felt no horror at the notion of such a death. And thus she now +saw Noaks’ conduct in a new light--saw that he had but wished to prove +his love, not at all to affront her. This understanding quickly steadied +her nerves. She did not need now to forget what she had seen; and, not +needing to forget it--thus are our brains fashioned--she was able to +forget it. + +But by removal of one load her soul was but bared for a more grievous +other. Her memory harked back to what had preceded the crisis. She +recalled those moments of doomed rapture in which her heart had soared +up to the apocalyptic window--recalled how, all the while she was +speaking to the man there, she had been chafed by the inadequacy of +language. Oh, how much more she had meant than she could express! Oh, +the ecstasy of that self-surrender! And the brevity of it! the sudden +odious awakening! Thrice in this Oxford she had been duped. Thrice all +that was fine and sweet in her had leapt forth, only to be scourged back +into hiding. Poor heart inhibited! She gazed about her. The stone alley +she had come into, the terrible shut gate, were for her a visible symbol +of the destiny she had to put up with. Wringing her hands, she hastened +along the way she had come. She vowed she would never again set foot in +Oxford. She wished herself out of the hateful little city to-night. She +even wished herself dead. + +She deserved to suffer, you say? Maybe. I merely state that she did +suffer. + +Emerging into Catherine Street, she knew whereabouts she was, and made +straight for Judas, turning away her eyes as she skirted the Broad, that +place of mocked hopes and shattered ideals. + +Coming into Judas Street, she remembered the scene of yesterday--the +happy man with her, the noise of the vast happy crowd. She suffered in +a worse form what she had suffered in the gallery of the Hall. For +now--did I not say she was not without imagination?--her self-pity was +sharpened by remorse for the hundreds of homes robbed. She realised the +truth of what the poor Duke had once said to her: she was a danger in +the world... Aye, and all the more dire now. What if the youth of all +Europe were moved by Oxford’s example? That was a horribly possible +thing. It must be reckoned with. It must be averted. She must not show +herself to men. She must find some hiding-place, and there abide. Were +this a hardship? she asked herself. Was she not sickened for ever of +men’s homage? And was it not clear now that the absorbing need in her +soul, the need to love, would never--except for a brief while, now and +then, and by an unfortunate misunderstanding--be fulfilled? + +So long ago that you may not remember, I compared her favourably with +the shepherdess Marcella, and pleaded her capacity for passion as an +excuse for her remaining at large. I hope you will now, despite your +rather evident animus against her, set this to her credit: that she did, +so soon as she realised the hopelessness of her case, make just that +decision which I blamed Marcella for not making at the outset. It was as +she stood on the Warden’s door-step that she decided to take the veil. + +With something of a conventual hush in her voice, she said to the +butler, “Please tell my maid that we are leaving by a very early train +to-morrow, and that she must pack my things to-night.” + +“Very well, Miss,” said the butler. “The Warden,” he added, “is in the +study, Miss, and was asking for you.” + +She could face her grandfather without a tremour--now. She would hear +meekly whatever reproaches he might have for her, but their sting was +already drawn by the surprise she had in store for him. + +It was he who seemed a trifle nervous. In his + +“Well, did you come and peep down from the gallery?” there was a +distinct tremour. + +Throwing aside her cloak, she went quickly to him, and laid a hand on +the lapel of his coat. “Poor grand-papa!” she said. + +“Nonsense, my dear child,” he replied, disengaging himself. “I didn’t +give it a thought. If the young men chose to be so silly as to stay +away, I--I--” + +“Grand-papa, haven’t you been told YET?” + +“Told? I am a Gallio for such follies. I didn’t inquire.” + +“But (forgive me, grand-papa, if I seem to you, for the moment, pert) +you are Warden here. It is your duty, even your privilege, to GUARD. +Is it not? Well, I grant you the adage that it is useless to bolt the +stable door when the horse has been stolen. But what shall be said of +the ostler who doesn’t know--won’t even ‘inquire’ whether--the horse HAS +been stolen, grand-papa?” + +“You speak in riddles, Zuleika.” + +“I wish with all my heart I need not tell you the answers. I think I +have a very real grievance against your staff--or whatever it is you +call your subordinates here. I go so far as to dub them dodderers. And +I shall the better justify that term by not shirking the duty they have +left undone. The reason why there were no undergraduates in your Hall +to-night is that they were all dead.” + +“Dead?” he gasped. “Dead? It is disgraceful that I was not told. What +did they die of?” + +“Of me.” + +“Of you?” + +“Yes. I am an epidemic, grand-papa, a scourge, such as the world has not +known. Those young men drowned themselves for love of me.” + +He came towards her. “Do you realise, girl, what this means to me? I am +an old man. For more than half a century I have known this College. To +it, when my wife died, I gave all that there was of heart left in me. +For thirty years I have been Warden; and in that charge has been all my +pride. I have had no thought but for this great College, its honour and +prosperity. More than once lately have I asked myself whether my eyes +were growing dim, my hand less steady. ‘No’ was my answer, and again +‘No.’ And thus it is that I have lingered on to let Judas be struck down +from its high eminence, shamed in the eyes of England--a College for +ever tainted, and of evil omen.” He raised his head. “The disgrace to +myself is nothing. I care not how parents shall rage against me, and the +Heads of other Colleges make merry over my decrepitude. It is because +you have wrought the downfall of Judas that I am about to lay my undying +curse on you.” + +“You mustn’t do that!” she cried. “It would be a sort of sacrilege. I am +going to be a nun. Besides, why should you? I can quite well understand +your feeling for Judas. But how is Judas more disgraced than any other +College? If it were only the Judas undergraduates who had--” + +“There were others?” cried the Warden. “How many?” + +“All. All the boys from all the Colleges.” + +The Warden heaved a deep sigh. “Of course,” he said, “this changes the +aspect of the whole matter. I wish you had made it clear at once. You +gave me a very great shock,” he said sinking into his arm-chair, “and I +have not yet recovered. You must study the art of exposition.” + +“That will depend on the rules of the convent.” + +“Ah, I forgot that you were going into a convent. Anglican, I hope?” + +Anglican, she supposed. + +“As a young man,” he said, “I saw much of dear old Dr. Pusey. It might +have somewhat reconciled him to my marriage if he had known that my +grand-daughter would take the veil.” He adjusted his glasses, and looked +at her. “Are you sure you have a vocation?” + +“Yes. I want to be out of the world. I want to do no more harm.” + +He eyed her musingly. “That,” he said, “is rather a revulsion than +a vocation. I remember that I ventured to point out to Dr. Pusey the +difference between those two things, when he was almost persuading me +to enter a Brotherhood founded by one of his friends. It may be that the +world would be well rid of you, my dear child. But it is not the world +only that we must consider. Would you grace the recesses of the Church?” + +“I could but try,” said Zuleika. + +“‘You could but try’ are the very words Dr. Pusey used to me. I ventured +to say that in such a matter effort itself was a stigma of unfitness. +For all my moods of revulsion, I knew that my place was in the world. I +stayed there.” + +“But suppose, grand-papa”--and, seeing in fancy the vast agitated +flotilla of crinolines, she could not forbear a smile--“suppose all the +young ladies of that period had drowned themselves for love of you?” + +Her smile seemed to nettle the Warden. “I was greatly admired,” he said. +“Greatly,” he repeated. + +“And you liked that, grand-papa?” + +“Yes, my dear. Yes, I am afraid I did. But I never encouraged it.” + +“Your own heart was never touched?” + +“Never, until I met Laura Frith.” + +“Who was she?” + +“She was my future wife.” + +“And how was it you singled her out from the rest? Was she very +beautiful?” + +“No. It cannot be said that she was beautiful. Indeed, she was accounted +plain. I think it was her great dignity that attracted me. She did not +smile archly at me, nor shake her ringlets. In those days it was the +fashion for young ladies to embroider slippers for such men in holy +orders as best pleased their fancy. I received hundreds--thousands--of +such slippers. But never a pair from Laura Frith.” + +“She did not love you?” asked Zuleika, who had seated herself on the +floor at her grandfather’s feet. + +I concluded that she did not. It interested me very greatly. It fired +me. + +“Was she incapable of love?” + +“No, it was notorious in her circle that she had loved often, but loved +in vain.” + +“Why did she marry you?” + +“I think she was fatigued by my importunities. She was not very strong. +But it may be that she married me out of pique. She never told me. I did +not inquire.” + +“Yet you were very happy with her?” + +“While she lived, I was ideally happy.” + +The young woman stretched out a hand, and laid it on the clasped hands +of the old man. He sat gazing into the past. She was silent for a while; +and in her eyes, still fixed intently on his face, there were tears. + +“Grand-papa dear”--but there were tears in her voice, too. + +“My child, you don’t understand. If I had needed pity--” + +“I do understand--so well. I wasn’t pitying you, dear, I was envying you +a little.” + +“Me?--an old man with only the remembrance of happiness?” + +“You, who have had happiness granted to you. That isn’t what made me +cry, though. I cried because I was glad. You and I, with all this great +span of years between us, and yet--so wonderfully alike! I had always +thought of myself as a creature utterly apart.” + +“Ah, that is how all young people think of themselves. It wears off. +Tell me about this wonderful resemblance of ours.” + +He sat attentive while she described her heart to him. But when, at the +close of her confidences, she said, “So you see it’s a case of sheer +heredity, grand-papa,” the word “Fiddlesticks!” would out. + +“Forgive me, my dear,” he said, patting her hand. “I was very much +interested. But I do believe young people are even more staggered by +themselves than they were in my day. And then, all these grand theories +they fall back on! Heredity... as if there were something to baffle us +in the fact of a young woman liking to be admired! And as if it were +passing strange of her to reserve her heart for a man she can respect +and look up to! And as if a man’s indifference to her were not of all +things the likeliest to give her a sense of inferiority to him! You and +I, my dear, may in some respects be very queer people, but in the matter +of the affections we are ordinary enough.” + +“Oh grand-papa, do you really mean that?” she cried eagerly. + +“At my age, a man husbands his resources. He says nothing that he does +not really mean. The indifference between you and other young women +is that which lay also between me and other young men: a special +attractiveness... Thousands of slippers, did I say? Tens of thousands. I +had hoarded them with a fatuous pride. On the evening of my betrothal I +made a bonfire of them, visible from three counties. I danced round it +all night.” And from his old eyes darted even now the reflections of +those flames. + +“Glorious!” whispered Zuleika. “But ah,” she said, rising to her feet, +“tell me no more of it--poor me! You see, it isn’t a mere special +attractiveness that _I_ have. _I_ am irresistible.” + +“A daring statement, my child--very hard to prove.” + +“Hasn’t it been proved up to the hilt to-day?” + +“To-day?... Ah, and so they did really all drown themselves for you?... +Dear, dear!... The Duke--he, too?” + +“He set the example.” + +“No! You don’t say so! He was a greatly-gifted young man--a true +ornament to the College. But he always seemed to me rather--what shall I +say?--inhuman... I remember now that he did seem rather excited when +he came to the concert last night and you weren’t yet there... You are +quite sure you were the cause of his death?” + +“Quite,” said Zuleika, marvelling at the lie--or fib, rather: he had +been GOING to die for her. But why not have told the truth? Was it +possible, she wondered, that her wretched vanity had survived her +renunciation of the world? Why had she so resented just now the doubt +cast on that irresistibility which had blighted and cranked her whole +life? + +“Well, my dear,” said the Warden, “I confess that I am +amazed--astounded.” Again he adjusted his glasses, and looked at her. + +She found herself moving slowly around the study, with the gait of a +mannequin in a dress-maker’s show-room. She tried to stop this; but her +body seemed to be quite beyond control of her mind. It had the insolence +to go ambling on its own account. “Little space you’ll have in a convent +cell,” snarled her mind vindictively. Her body paid no heed whatever. + +Her grandfather, leaning back in his chair, gazed at the ceiling, and +meditatively tapped the finger-tips of one hand against those of the +other. “Sister Zuleika,” he presently said to the ceiling. + +“Well? and what is there so--so ridiculous in”--but the rest was lost in +trill after trill of laughter; and these were then lost in sobs. + +The Warden had risen from his chair. “My dear,” he said, “I wasn’t +laughing. I was only--trying to imagine. If you really want to retire +from--” + +“I do,” moaned Zuleika. + +“Then perhaps--” + +“But I don’t,” she wailed. + +“Of course, you don’t, my dear.” + +“Why, of course?” + +“Come, you are tired, my poor child. That is very natural after this +wonderful, this historic day. Come dry your eyes. There, that’s better. +To-morrow--” + +“I do believe you’re a little proud of me.” + +“Heaven forgive me, I believe I am. A grandfather’s heart--But there, +good night, my dear. Let me light your candle.” + +She took her cloak, and followed him out to the hall table. There she +mentioned that she was going away early to-morrow. + +“To the convent?” he slyly asked. + +“Ah, don’t tease me, grand-papa.” + +“Well, I am sorry you are going away, my dear. But perhaps, in the +circumstances, it is best. You must come and stay here again, later +on,” he said, handing her the lit candle. “Not in term-time, though,” he +added. + +“No,” she echoed, “not in term-time.” + + + + +XXIV + +From the shifting gloom of the stair-case to the soft radiance cast +through the open door of her bedroom was for poor Zuleika an almost +heartening transition. She stood awhile on the threshold, watching +Melisande dart to and fro like a shuttle across a loom. Already the main +part of the packing seemed to have been accomplished. The wardrobe was a +yawning void, the carpet was here and there visible, many of the +trunks were already brimming and foaming over... Once more on the road! +Somewhat as, when beneath the stars the great tent had been struck, and +the lions were growling in their vans, and the horses were pawing the +stamped grass and whinnying, and the elephants trumpeting, Zuleika’s +mother may often have felt within her a wan exhilaration, so now did the +heart of that mother’s child rise and flutter amidst the familiar bustle +of “being off.” Weary she was of the world, and angry she was at not +being, after all, good enough for something better. And yet--well, at +least, good-bye to Oxford! + +She envied Melisande, so nimbly and cheerfully laborious till the day +should come when her betrothed had saved enough to start a little cafe +of his own and make her his bride and dame de comptoir. Oh, to have a +purpose, a prospect, a stake in the world, as this faithful soul had! + +“Can I help you at all, Melisande?” she asked, picking her way across +the strewn floor. + +Melisande, patting down a pile of chiffon, seemed to be amused at such +a notion. “Mademoiselle has her own art. Do I mix myself in that?” she +cried, waving one hand towards the great malachite casket. + +Zuleika looked at the casket, and then very gratefully at the maid. Her +art--how had she forgotten that? Here was solace, purpose. She would +work as she had never worked yet. She KNEW that she had it in her to do +better than she had ever done. She confessed to herself that she had too +often been slack in the matter of practice and rehearsal, trusting her +personal magnetism to carry her through. Only last night she had badly +fumbled, more than once. Her bravura business with the Demon Egg-Cup had +been simply vile. The audience hadn’t noticed it, perhaps, but she +had. Now she would perfect herself. Barely a fortnight now before her +engagement at the Folies Bergeres! What if--no, she must not think of +that! But the thought insisted. What if she essayed for Paris that +which again and again she had meant to graft on to her repertory--the +Provoking Thimble? + +She flushed at the possibility. What if her whole present repertory were +but a passing phase in her art--a mere beginning--an earlier manner? She +remembered how marvellously last night she had manipulated the ear-rings +and the studs. Then lo! the light died out of her eyes, and her face +grew rigid. That memory had brought other memories in its wake. + +For her, when she fled the Broad, Noaks’ window had blotted out all +else. Now she saw again that higher window, saw that girl flaunting her +ear-rings, gibing down at her. “He put them in with his own hands!”--the +words rang again in her ears, making her cheeks tingle. Oh, he had +thought it a very clever thing to do, no doubt--a splendid little +revenge, something after his own heart! “And he kissed me in the open +street”--excellent, excellent! She ground her teeth. And these doings +must have been fresh in his mind when she overtook him and walked with +him to the house-boat! Infamous! And she had then been wearing his +studs! She drew his attention to them when-- + +Her jewel-box stood open, to receive the jewels she wore to-night. She +went very calmly to it. There, in a corner of the topmost tray, rested +the two great white pearls--the pearls which, in one way and another, +had meant so much to her. + +“Melisande!” + +“Mademoiselle?” + +“When we go to Paris, would you like to make a little present to your +fiance?” + +“Je voudrais bien, mademoiselle.” + +“Then you shall give him these,” said Zuleika, holding out the two +studs. + +“Mais jamais de la vie! Chez Tourtel tout le monde le dirait +millionaire. Un garcon de cafe qui porte au plastron des perles +pareilles--merci!” + +“Tell him he may tell every one that they were given to me by the late +Duke of Dorset, and given by me to you, and by you to him.” + +“Mais--” The protest died on Melisande’s lips. Suddenly she had ceased +to see the pearls as trinkets finite and inapposite--saw them as things +presently transmutable into little marble tables, bocks, dominos, +absinthes au sucre, shiny black portfolios with weekly journals in them, +yellow staves with daily journals flapping from them, vermouths secs, +vermouths cassis... + +“Mademoiselle is too amiable,” she said, taking the pearls. + +And certainly, just then, Zuleika was looking very amiable indeed. The +look was transient. Nothing, she reflected, could undo what the Duke had +done. That hateful, impudent girl would take good care that every one +should know. “He put them in with his own hands.” HER ear-rings! “He +kissed me in the public street. He loved me”... Well, he had called out +“Zuleika!” and every one around had heard him. That was something. But +how glad all the old women in the world would be to shake their heads +and say “Oh, no, my dear, believe me! It wasn’t anything to do with HER. +I’m told on the very best authority,” and so forth, and so on. She knew +he had told any number of undergraduates he was going to die for her. +But they, poor fellows, could not bear witness. And good heavens! +If there were a doubt as to the Duke’s motive, why not doubts as to +theirs?... But many of them had called out “Zuleika!” too. And of course +any really impartial person who knew anything at all about the matter at +first hand would be sure in his own mind that it was perfectly absurd to +pretend that the whole thing wasn’t entirely and absolutely for her... +And of course some of the men must have left written evidence of their +intention. She remembered that at The MacQuern’s to-day was a Mr. +Craddock, who had made a will in her favour and wanted to read it aloud +to her in the middle of luncheon. Oh, there would be proof positive as +to many of the men. But of the others it would be said that they died +in trying to rescue their comrades. There would be all sorts of silly +far-fetched theories, and downright lies that couldn’t be disproved... + +“Melisande, that crackling of tissue paper is driving me mad! Do leave +off! Can’t you see that I am waiting to be undressed?” + +The maid hastened to her side, and with quick light fingers began to +undress her. “Mademoiselle va bien dormir--ca se voit,” she purred. + +“I shan’t,” said Zuleika. + +Nevertheless, it was soothing to be undressed, and yet more soothing +anon to sit merely night-gowned before the mirror, while, slowly and +gently, strongly and strand by strand, Melisande brushed her hair. + +After all, it didn’t so much matter what the world thought. Let the +world whisper and insinuate what it would. To slur and sully, to +belittle and drag down--that was what the world always tried to do. +But great things were still great, and fair things still fair. With no +thought for the world’s opinion had these men gone down to the water +to-day. Their deed was for her and themselves alone. It had sufficed +them. Should it not suffice her? It did, oh it did. She was a wretch to +have repined. + +At a gesture from her, Melisande brought to a close the rhythmical +ministrations, and--using no tissue paper this time--did what was yet to +be done among the trunks. + +“WE know, you and I,” Zuleika whispered to the adorable creature in the +mirror; and the adorable creature gave back her nod and smile. + +THEY knew, these two. + +Yet, in their happiness, rose and floated a shadow between them. It was +the ghost of that one man who--THEY knew--had died irrelevantly, with a +cold heart. + +Came also the horrid little ghost of one who had died late and unseemly. + +And now, thick and fast, swept a whole multitude of other ghosts, the +ghosts of all them who, being dead, could not die again; the poor ghosts +of them who had done what they could, and could do no more. + +No more? Was it not enough? The lady in the mirror gazed at the lady +in the room, reproachfully at first, then--for were they not +sisters?--relentingly, then pityingly. Each of the two covered her face +with her hands. + +And there recurred, as by stealth, to the lady in the room a thought +that had assailed her not long ago in Judas Street... a thought about +the power of example... + +And now, with pent breath and fast-beating heart, she stood staring at +the lady of the mirror, without seeing her; and now she wheeled round +and swiftly glided to that little table on which stood her two books. +She snatched Bradshaw. + +We always intervene between Bradshaw and any one whom we see consulting +him. “Mademoiselle will permit me to find that which she seeks?” asked +Melisande. + +“Be quiet,” said Zuleika. We always repulse, at first, any one who +intervenes between us and Bradshaw. + +We always end by accepting the intervention. “See if it is possible to +go direct from here to Cambridge,” said Zuleika, handing the book on. +“If it isn’t, then--well, see how to get there.” + +We never have any confidence in the intervener. Nor is the intervener, +when it comes to the point, sanguine. With mistrust mounting to +exasperation Zuleika sat watching the faint and frantic researches of +her maid. + +“Stop!” she said suddenly. “I have a much better idea. Go down very +early to the station. See the station-master. Order me a special train. +For ten o’clock, say.” + +Rising, she stretched her arms above her head. Her lips parted in a +yawn, met in a smile. With both hands she pushed back her hair from her +shoulders, and twisted it into a loose knot. Very lightly she slipped up +into bed, and very soon she was asleep. + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Zuleika Dobson, by Max Beerbohm + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ZULEIKA DOBSON *** + +***** This file should be named 1845-0.txt or 1845-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/1/8/4/1845/ + +Produced by Judy Boss + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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