 15 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 and ask grace? In a way you have a perfect right to ask both those questions, but their very pertinence shows that you think I might admit 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 Zuleka, he 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 graveled. The peripity was according to the best rules of tragic art. The whole thing was in the grand manner. Thus I felt that there were no indelicacies 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 Zuleka'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 lip, hung in the sultry air, as they would have hung in a closed room, he gazed up at the steadfast thunderclouds. 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 and on 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, and the duke remembered it now, what he had thought to be only his fancy, had been his death now, wafted to him along uncharted waves of ether from the battlements of Taktun. 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. Ay! And he was inclined to blame the gods for not having kept him still longer in the dark, and so made the Arani still more awful. Why had they not caused the telegram to be delayed in transmission? They ought to have let him go and riddle Zulika 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 Zulika now. As an artist, he saw that there was Arani 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 Maquern 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 Terle 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 Terle 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 that they had decreed that a piece of orange peel should be thrown down this morning at the corner of Terle Street, but the master of Baliel, 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 granddaughter 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 Zuleka 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 the superfluity such as that Katie should open Zuleka's letter. It was no part of their scheme that the Duke should mistake Melysand for her mistress, or that he should run away from her, and they were genuinely sorry when he, instead of the master of valial, 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 Duke d'anime self-arm, non? panted Melysand. Here is a letter from Miss Thubsence-Parte. She said to me, Give-e-de-mous-e-che-au-nande. The Duke received the letter, and, sitting upright, tore it to shreds, thus confirming a suspicion which Melysand had conceived at the moment when he took to his heels that all English noblemen are mad, but mad and of a madness. Nop de dur! she cried, ringing her hands. What shall I tell to Mamouzille? 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 Turle. Both his hands had been abraded by the fall. He tended them angrily with his handkerchief. Mr. Drousse, the chemist, had anon the privilege of bathing and plastering them, also of barming and binding the right knee and the left chin. Might have been a very nasty accident, your Grace!" he said. It was, said the Duke. Mr. Drousse concurred. Nevertheless Mr. Drousse's remark sank deep. The Duke thought it quite likely that the gods had intended the accident to be fatal, than 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. Drousse was putting the finishing touches to his chin, 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, likely tapping Mr. Drousse's counter. The sight of some bottles of cold mixture on the hospitable board reminded him of a painful fact. In the clash of the morning's excitement 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, where 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 specialist 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. Drews that he had a cold. Mr. Drews, 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 dipso maniacal. But Mr. Drews was respectfully firm against that. The Duke yielded. He fancied, instead, 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. Drews 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 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 yesterday night that Oover had dined with him? With the sensation of a man groping among archives, he began to apologize to the road 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 headlines, 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 that 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 that the doubt cast on his high seriousness. Duke, he asked, doing it 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 Oxford. Oover blushed. Duke, he said, that's a bully testimonial. But don't worry, Oover 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 your rights love transcends all. But does it? What if I told you I had changed my mind? Then Duke said over slowly, I should believe that all those yarns I used to hear about the British aristocracy were true after all. I should aware that you were not a white man. Leading us on like that and then said, Duke, are you going to die today or not? As a matter of fact, I am but a 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 got 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 at 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 Dobbson and embrace life, it was possible that his example would suffice. But now that he could only say, Behold, I spurn Miss Dobbson and will not die for her. But I am going to commit suicide all 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, and 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 Zulika. Yes, he must revert without Morudu to his first scheme. He must die in the manner that he had blazed forth. And he must do it with a good grace, non-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 Uva's eyes just now at the notion of his unfaith. Perhaps he would have been the mark. Not the saviour of Oxford. Better dishonour than death may be. But since die he must, he must die not belittling or tarnishing the name of Taville Tacton. Within these bounds, however, he must put forth his full might to avert the general catastrophe. And to punish Zulika nearly well enough, after all, by intercepting that vast nose-gay 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 Maudlin Bridge, just how was he to begin? Down the flight of steps from Queens 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 shortcut to knowledge. Tell me, do you seriously think of drowning yourself this afternoon? Rather, said the undergraduate. 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 to 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 might 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 is 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 have rather more than less of happiness. Undoubtedly. Then does it not seem to you that you would do well to postpone your suicide indefinitely? I've just said that 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 skillfully. 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 evangelistic wistfulness of Are you saved? and the breeziness of the recruiting sergeants Come your 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 favor 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 pleaded. 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 Hastie Cottesill, a sum of money sufficient to yield an annual income of £2,000. £3,000. 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 Maudlin, preaching from the little open-air pulpit there an impassioned sermon on the sacredness of human life, and referring to Zuleka 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 maneuvered his tongue to gentler discourse, deprecating his right to judge at this lady, and merely pointing the marvel, the awful, though noble folly of his resolve. He ended on the note of quiet pathos. Tonight I shall be among the shades. There be not you, my brothers. Good though the sermon was in style and sentiment, the floor 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, way-laying, cajoling, commanding, offering vast bribes. He carried his crusade into the loader, and then into Vincent's, and out onto the street again, eager and tiring and availing. Everywhere he found his precept checkmated by his example. The sight of the maquern 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 Zuleka 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 Nellio Mora. And the eyes of Nellio Mora seemed to meet his in reproach, just as she may have gazed at Greddon when he cast her off. 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 all around the walls of this room that hung those presentments of the junta, as focused year after year in a certain corner of Tom Quad, by Mrs Hill 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 want. Not one of them, but had in his day handed on loyally the praise of Nellio 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 chromatted. But how faded now a last by exposure, and the 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 Nellio 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 pork, please, Barrett, of sandwiches, he said nothing. At the word see, he had stretched one hand towards Nellie, the other he 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. Drewses. He snatched out his watch. One o'clock, fifteen minutes overdue. Wow, he called the waiter back. A teaspoon, quick! No pour to wine-glass and a teaspoon. 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 that our actions were explicit, had he delivered himself into the God's hands? The eyes of Nellie O'Morrah were on him compassionately, and all the eyes of his four-runners 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 teaspoon into the wine-glass, the duke poured the draught of salvation. And then, raising it aloft, he looked around at his four-runners, and in a firm voice cried, Gentlemen, I give you Nellie O'Morrah, 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 Grethen? And he made silent answer, Had you lived in my day, I should have been dobs and proof. He realized, however, that to Zuleka he owed the tenderness he now felt from Miss O'Morrah. It was Zuleka that had cured him of his asiety. 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 Philip 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'Morrah was not really extant. Suddenly he recalled certain words likely spoken yesterday by Zuleka. 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 visualized, that she had never thrust himself 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 woe-begone 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 Zuleka Dobbson at his feet, at his knees, clasping him to her, sobbing, laughing, sobbing. End of Chapter 15 Chapter 16 of Zuleka Dobbson This Librabox recording is in the public domain, reading by Termin Diane Zuleka Dobbson by Max Birbone Chapter 16 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 realize 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 anyone who passed might see you. Softly she stroked the carpet with the palms of her hands. Happy carpet! she crooned. I 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. A big 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. Well, she hesitated, will Miss Dobson be? No, he said, I shall be alone. And there was in the girl's parting half-glance at Zuleka, 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 Zuleka when the girl was gone. I have no wish to be rude, but, said she'll 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 oh, tears. What do you mean? I mean, you may set your mind at rest. I am not going to back out of my promise. Zuleka flushed. You're 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 searching the atta. 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 earrings? Your earrings? 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 first great hint this morning. Black and pink were they not when you took them? Of course. And then I forgot I had them. When I undressed they must have rolled onto the carpet. Melison 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 earrings 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. 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 her 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, and 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. When she 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 a horrible analogy and rebounded. It was at this moment that Zuleka 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 one 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 who 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 suspicious 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 today I 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. 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 take on the crown of pity. Don't forbid me to call you, John. I looked you up in debret 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 Belial, he suavely said, you will find the matter of my death easier to forget than here. He took her hat and gloves from the armchair 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 goodbye 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 gleamed 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 Baliel? Far from here? No, he added, choking a little, as might a card player who, having been dealt a splendid hand, and having played it with flawless skill, has yet, dammit! Lost the odd trick. Baliel 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 of 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 Baliel 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'd 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 eight, you know. Good-bye. Good-bye, little John, small John. She cried across her shoulder, having the last word. 17 He might not have grudged her the last word, had she properly needed it. It's utter superfluity. The perfection of her victory without it, was what called 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 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 aspired 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-juggs 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 Zulika 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 the sound of the clinking and rattling of the tray born 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 lunch and been postponed, and the coming of it now made intolerable the pangs of his hunger. Also, while the girl laid the tablecloth, 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 Nelio Mora. Well, a miniature by Hockner 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 pitch and 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 a bottle of port. His was a head that had always hitherto defied the grape, but he thought that, today, 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 again seen symptoms in his fellows. Nor was he altogether disappointed of this hope. As the meal progressed, and the last of the champagne tinkled in his glass, certain things said to him by Zuleka, 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 tenderick 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 Zuleka! 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. And on, 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, coughed it, poured a third. The grey gloom of the weather did, but, as he eyed the bottle, heightened 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? 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? Sturds? Still more of a— Ah! he had it! Literally and most providentially had it! There, in the fender, a pair of earrings. 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 to perform it 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 momentely. He wished he had had more than three glasses from the crusted bottle which he was putting away in the chiffonier. Down, doubt, down, sense of disparity. The moment was at hand. Would he let it slip? Now she was folding up the tablecloth. 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? Over since. She faltered. Ever since you came to engage the rooms. You are not, of course, given to idolizing any tenant of your mother's? No. Nay, 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? Oh! 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'm glad. I'm 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. My 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. No! 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 said so to this day, with a feather. Seeing her agitation, the duke pointed to a chair, but her besieged. Her mind was cleared by the new posture. Suspicion crept into it, followed by alarm. She looked at the earrings. Then up at the duke. No! said he, misinterpreting the question in her eyes. They are real pearls. It isn't that, she quavered. That they were given to me by Miss Dobson. Oh, where were they? Then Katie Rose, throwing the pearls on the floor. Oh, I have nothing to do with them. I hate her. So do I, said the duke in the 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've been well brought up. I've been warned against things, and it seems so strange what you have said to me. You're a duke, and 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'll connect ferns, I'll play the piano whenever— She broke off, for she had 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'm sure, but, um, well, I do not quite see why you enumerate them just now. It isn't a damn vain, she pleaded. I only mention 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 a-throwing yourself away. Throwing myself away? Well, what do you mean? Oh, they 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, and I trust you. You'll stand by me. If you'll 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. In the earrings 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— I'd— I'd throw us in your face. A sob choked her voice. 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 earrings 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 shudded 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 on? 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 if 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 earrings at me. I almost wish they had hit me. You see, I had quite forgiven you. Now, do you forgive me? You will not refuse now to wear the earrings. I gave them to you to keep sake. 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, woe be gone, 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 today. 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 earrings. If you like, I will put them in with my own hands. She held up her face sideways. Into the lobe of her left ear he insinuated the hawk 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. And on, 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. Her actual offspring does not suffice a very motherly woman. Such a woman was Mrs. Batch. Had she been blessed 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 draughts 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. Noakes 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. Noakes. 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 nose 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 her those handsome earrings. 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 check not only for the full terms 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 terms 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. Zeke were the will and no university, lad they'll not find nor bread nor bed that matches, them as they'll find, right sure at Mrs. Batch's. I do not quote the poem in extensive 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 manor. Also his command of the Oxfordshire dialect seems to me baseless 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, illustrating the Duke's thoughtfulness for others in the last hours of his life. And to Mrs. Batch, the manuscript, framed and glazed in her haul, is an asset beyond price. Witness her recent refusal of Mr. Peerpoint Morgan's sensational bid for it. This manuscript 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 manner of small payments, such as 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, even those, it is of small sums that they are careful. Observed to suppose that they really cared about tapens, 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 what his want? The reductions that he made here and there did not in all amounts 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 check 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 cash check itself would be a sufficient receipt. Accordingly he reduced by one penny the amount written on the check. Remembering to initial correction, he remembered also with a melancholy smile that tomorrow the check would not be negotiable. Handing it and the sonnet to Mrs. Batch, he bought 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 check 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 race. 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 dull, invagrant eye lighted on a bottle of cold mixture. He ought to have dosed himself a full hour ago. Well, he didn't care. Had Zuleka 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 Zuleka 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 see 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 that 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, a brusque refusal to entertain Lord John Russell's timid nomination of him for a post in the government. Shelly 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 Missalongi? 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 dandiesome 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 Zuleka. 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 not a fool at it. Byron had at least some fun out of it. What fun had he had? Last night he had forgotten to kiss Zuleka when he held her by the wrists. Today 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, noodle-dom was nearer than vulgarity to dandyism. It was a less flagrant lapse. As he had over Byron this further advantage, his noodle-dom 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 saved this in his whole life was faulty. The one other thing that might be carped at, the partisan speech he made in the Lord's, 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'd donned the most grandiose of all costumes, and wore it grandlyer 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 of glory beyond their own, as he once and for all fulfilled himself, doer of that which he had been sent into the world to do. And though floated into his mind a desire vague at first, soon definite, imperious, irresistible, to see himself once more before he died, endued in the fullness 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 necktie. 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 wonder even when you heard that he was warned at Oxford to make without help his toilet of every day. Well, the true dandy is always capable of such high independence. He is a craftsman as well as an artist. And though any unaided night that he, with whom we are here concerned, would be like a dodded hopeless in that labyrinth of hooks and buckles which underlies the visible glory of a night arrayed full and proper, Dorsett threaded his way fitly and without pause. He had mastered his first excitement. In his swiftness was no haste. His procedure had the case and inevitability of a natural phenomenon, and was most like to the coming of a rainbow. Crimson doubleted, blue ribbended, 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 octoradient star, so much larger and more lustrous than any actual star in heaven. Round his neck he slung that long, tidal chain where from St. George slaying the dragon dangles. He bowed his shoulder 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 seemed 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 erects and measured tread, he returned to the mirror. You are thinking, I know, of Mr. Sargent's famous portrait of him. Forget it. Takton 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. Marvelous, 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 a sureer 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 around him, a warm symbolic glow sharpening the outlines of his own particular magnificence. Reflecting him, the mirror reflected in deuce of ordination, the history of England. There is nothing of that on Mr. Sargeant's canvas. Abtruded instead is the astounding slickness of Mr. Sargeant's techniques. 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. An intention, I'm 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. The 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, returned to some kind of stone at the site 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 site to anguish them, being the very incarnation of what themselves had erstbeen 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 Miram Miroram, even this one fault was wiped out. For, stung by memory of a jib 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 utmost confines of the brow, but quite perceptibly, had kissed her. END OF CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER 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. Scholar Theologiae et Antiquae Philosophiae Museum Arandelianum Scholar Musicae and Bibliotheca Bodleana He paused there to feel for the last time the vague thrill he had always felt at the 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 bends, but none of them, not stirred in heart somewhere 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 verger tricked out all over in their annual finery of capkins, Bishop Heber's Tree stood for the very type of ingenuous ostentation. And who should dare cavill? Who not be gladdened? Yet awful, more than gladdening, was the effect that the tree made to-day. Strangely pale was the verger against the black sky, and the multitudinous capkins 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 Brazenos. For heaven's sake, Jesse, 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. Jesse, 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. Jesse, if you look round. Poor fellow, however fond and 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 Jesse 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 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 eye the 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 Lott's wife, and Jesse followed her. Very well, said Harold, that settles it, I go alone. And he was gone, like an arrow, across the high, down Oriole Street. The two women stood looking roofily at each other. Pardon me, said the duke, with a sweep of his bloomed hat. I observe that you are stranded. If I read your thoughts aright, you are impugning the courtesy of that young renegade. 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 cord, 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, Jesse, 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 converting to the meadows, so many women, young and old, all impressionant, 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 Zuleka, 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 splendor was the more inspiring. And just as yesterday no man had questioned his right to be with Zuleka, so to-day there was none to deem him comparison too much. All the men felt at a glance that he, coming to meet death thus, did know more than the right homage to Zuleka, I, and that he made them all partakers in his own glory, casting his great mantle over all Camorians. 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 coring 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. Today, 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 Zuleka Dobson, were more than ever sure that 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 there in, 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, in so much that all along the way the many immediately ahead of her looked round, beheld her, stood aside for her. With her walked the Macquern, and a little bodyguard of other blessed 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 railery 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 didn't listen to me, didn'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 McQuirn is too, too dull, and so are his friends. Oh, that meal with them in Daliel. 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 until after the final races. And oh, the tea with them. What have you been doing all 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'll have on are going to be spoiled. All for me. Nominally for me, that is. It's very wonderful, John. I do appreciate it really and truly. Though I know you think I don't, John. If it weren't me a spite you'll 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' houseboat? 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 dullly from the hills the first low growl of the pent storm. The sounds struck for him a strange contrast with the pratle he had perforce been listening to. Thander, said Zulika over her shoulder. Evidently, he answered. Halfway 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 until the races are over. But what do you mean? Aren't you coming up to the roof at all yesterday? Oh, I see, said the Duke, unable to repress a smile. But today I am not dressed for a flying leap. Zulika 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, did 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 by going all alone into a crowd of people whom I don't know. I'm an unmarried girl. I do think you might. Goodbye, said the Duke. Again Zulika raised a warning finger. Goodbye, John, she whispered. See, I am still wearing your studs. Goodbye. 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. Curiously 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 Judezin's 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 letter-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 Mordlin? 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, say the 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'd have been your cloth, sir, that you could have said, without cheating its disabilities, had not his mouth been stopped by a loud and prolonged thunderclap. In the hush thereafter came the puny sound of a gunshot. The boats were starting. Would Judas bump Mordlin? Would Judas behead 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 an 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 streaks led 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, healing over in the blackness. Then, an yet more awful silence, the little earth cowering voiceless under the heaven's 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 dispersed. In another minute he would stand sodden in glorious amok. He didn't hesitate. Zunika! 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 rafts, of screams from the roof. Many youths, all youths there, cried Zunika, and leapt emulously headlong into the water. Bray, fellows! shouted the elder men, supposing rescue work. The rain pelted, the thunder peeled. 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'm 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'm loath 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 him. 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 underwater for a full minute, swimming downstream, 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 conspexus 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 check. 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 overworld, 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 midstream, the keel of the Mordland boat might have killed him. The oars of Mordland did all but grace his face. The eyes of the Mordland cocks met his. The cords of the Mordland rudder slipped from the hands that held them, whereupon the Mordland man who rowed bow missed his stroke. An instant later, just where the line of barges begins, Judas had bumped Mordland. 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, and on it was gone. Dorset was gone down to his last sleep. Victory and defeat are like forgotten. The crews staggered erect and flung themselves into the river, the slender boats capsizing and spinning futile around in a melle of oars. From the towing path, no more din there now, but great single cries of Zulika leapt figures innumerable through rain to river. The arrested boats of the other crews drifted zigzag hither and thither. The drop-doors 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 faster 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 foothold in the slime. It was ill to be down in that abominable sink of death. Abominable, yes, to them who discerned their 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 Ifley. 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. This people now were the roofs of the barges. Under the first drops of 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 leaves of such homage as had come to no woman in history recorded.