 6 The evil that men do lives after them. The good is often turd with their bones. The sinner has a better chance than the saint of being here after remembered. We, in whom original sin preponderates, find him easier to understand. He is near to us, clear to us. The saint is remote, dim. A very great saint may of course be remembered through some sheer force of originality in him, and then the very mystery that invokes him for us makes him the harder to forget. He haunts us the more surely, because we shall never understand him. But the ordinary saints grow faint to posterity, whilst quite ordinary sinners pass vividly down the ages. Of the disciples of Jesus, which is he that is most often remembered and cited by us? Not the disciple whom Jesus loved, neither of the Boanergies, nor any other of them who so steadfastly followed him and served him, but the disciple who betrayed him for thirty pieces of silver. Judas Iscariot it is, who outstands, overshadowing those other fishermen. And perhaps it was by reason of this precedence that Christopher Wittrid, Knight in the reign of Henry VI, gave the name of Judas to the college which he had founded. Or perhaps it was because he felt that in a Christian community, not even the meanest and basest of men should be accounted beneath contempt, beyond redemption. At any rate, thus he named his foundation, and though for Oxford men the savor of the name itself has long evaporated through its local connection, many things show that for the founder himself it was no empty vocable. In the niche above the gate stands a rudely carved statue of Judas holding a money-bag in his right hand. Among the original statutes of the college is one by which the bursar is enjoined to distribute in Passion Week thirty pieces of silver among the needier scholars, for the sake of atoning. The meadow adjoining the back of the college has been called from time immemorial the potter's field, and the name of salt-seller is not less ancient and significant. Salt-seller, that grey and green quadrangle visible from the room assigned to Zuleka, is very beautiful, as I have said. So tranquil is it as to seem remote, not merely from the world, but even from Oxford, so deeply as it hidden away in the core of Oxford's heart. So tranquil is it one would guess that nothing had ever happened in it. For five centuries these walls have stood, and during that time have beheld, one would say, no sight less seemingly than the good work of weeding, mowing, rolling, that has made at length so exemplary the lawn. These cloisters that grace the south and east sides, five centuries have passed through them, leaving in them no echo, leaving on them no sign of all that the outer world, for good or evil, has been doing so fiercely, so raucously. And yet, if you are versed in the antiquities of Oxford, you know that this small still quadrangle has played its part in the roughened tumble of history, and has been the background of high passions and strange fates. The sundial in its midst has told the hours to more than one bygone king. Charles I lay for twelve nights in Judas, and it was here in this very quadrangle that he heard from the lips of a breathless and bloodstained messenger the news of Chalgrove Field. Sixty years later James his son came hither black with threats, and from one of the hind windows of the warden's house, maybe from the very room where now Zuleka was changing her frock, addressed the fellows, and presented to them the papest by him chosen to be their warden, instead of the Protestant whom they had elected. They were not of so stern a staff as the fellows of Mordlin, who, despite his majesties menaces, had just rejected Bishop Farmer. The papest was elected there and then, al fresco, without dissent. Cannot one see them, these fellows of Judas, huddled together round the sundial like so many sheep in a storm. The king's wrath, according to a contemporary record, was so appeased by their pliancy that he deigned to lie for two nights in Judas, and that a great refection in Hall was gracious and merry. Perhaps it was in lingering gratitude for such patronage that Judas remained so pious to his memory even after smug Heron-Housen had been dumped down on us for ever. Certainly of all the colleges, none was more ardent than Judas for James Stewart. Dither it was that young Sir Harry Essen led under cover of night three score recruits whom he had enlisted in the surrounding villages. The cloisters of Salt Cellar were piled with arms and stores, and on its grass, its sacred grass, the squad was incessantly drilled against the good day when Ormond should land his men in Devon. For a whole month Salt Cellar was a secret camp. But somehow, at length, woe to lost causes and impossible loyalties. Heron-Housen had wind of it, and one night when the soldiers of the White Cockade lay snoring beneath the stars, stealthily the White-faced Warden unbarred his poston, that very poston through which now Zuleka had passed on her way to her bedroom, and steadily through it, one by one, on tiptoe, came the King's foot-guards. Not many shots rang out, nor many swords clashed in the night air before the trick was won for law and order. Most of the rebels were overpowered in their sleep, and those who had time to snatch arms were two days to make good resistance. Sir Harry Essen himself was the only one who did not live to be hanged. He had sprung up alert, sword in hand at the first alarm, setting his back to the cloisters. There he fought calmly, ferociously, till a bullet went through his chest. By God! this college is well-named! were the words he uttered as he fell forward and died. Comparatively tame was the scene now being enacted in this place. The duke with bowed head was pacing the path between the lawn and the cloisters. Two other undergraduates stood watching him, whispering to each other under the archway that leads to the front quadrangle. Presently, in a sheepish way, they approached him. He halted and looked up. Eh! I say! stammered the spokesman. Well! asked the duke. Both youths were slightly acquainted with him, but he was not used to being spoken to by those whom he had not first addressed. Moreover, he was loath to be thus disturbed in his sombre reverie. His manner was not encouraging. Eh! isn't it a lovely day for the eights? I can see, the duke said, that you hold back some other question. The spokesman smiled weakly. Nudged by the other, he muttered, Ask him yourself. The duke diverted his gaze to the other, who, with an angry look at the one, cleared his throat and said, I was going to ask if you thought Miss Dobson would come and have lunch with me to-morrow. The sister of mine will be there. Explained the one, knowing the duke to be a precision. If you are acquainted with Miss Dobson, a direct invitation should be sent to her. Said the duke, if you are not. The aposopuses was icy. Well, you see, said the other of the two, that is just the difficulty. I am acquainted with her, but is she acquainted with me? I met her at breakfast this morning at the Wardens. So did I, added the one. But she continued the other. She didn't take much notice of her, so she seemed to be in a sort of dream. Ah! murmured the duke, with melancholy interest. The only time she opened her lips, said the other, was when she asked us whether we took tea or coffee. She put hot milk in my tea, volunteered the one, and upset the cup over my hand and smiled vaguely. And smiled vaguely, sighed the duke. She left us long before the marmalade stage, said the one, without a word, said the other. Without a glance, asked the duke, it was testified by the one and the other that there had been not so much as a glance. Countless, the disingenuous duke said, she had a headache. Was she pale? Of any pale? answered the one. A healthy pallor, qualified the other, who was a constant reader of novels. Did she look, the duke inquired, as if she had spent a sleepless night? That was the impression made on both. Yet she did not seem listless or unhappy? No, they would not go so far as to say that. Indeed, were her eyes of an almost unnatural brilliance? Quite unnatural, confessed the one. Twin stars! interpolated the other. Did she, in fact, seem to be consumed by some inward rapture? Yes, now they came to think of it. This was exactly how she had seemed. It was very sweet. It was bitter for the duke. I remember, Zuleka had said to him, nothing that happened to me this morning till I found myself at your door. It was bitter-sweet to have that outline filled in by these artless pencils. No, it was only bitter to be at his time of life living in the past. The purpose of your tattle, he asked coldly. The two youths hurried to the point from which he had diverted them. When she went by with you just now, said the one, she evidently didn't know us from Adam. And I had so hoped to ask her to luncheon, said the other. Well, well, we wondered if you would reintroduce us, and then perhaps... There was a pause. The duke was touched by kindness to these fellow-lovers. He would pain preserve them from the anguish that beset himself, so humanizing his sorrow. You are in love with Miss Dobson? he asked, both nodded. Then, said he, you will in time be thankful to me for not affording you further traffic with that lady? To love and be scorned? Thou's fate hold for us a greater inconvenience? You think I beg the question? Let me tell you that I too love Miss Dobson, and that she scorns me. To the implied question, what chance would there be for you? The reply was obvious. Amazed, amashed, the two youths turned on their heels. Stay, said the duke, let me, in justice to myself, correct an inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns me simply because I love her. All who love her, she scorns. To see her is to love her. Therefore, shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her from your horizon. Ignore her. Will you do this? We will try, said the one after a pause. Thank you very much. I did the other. The duke watched them out of sight. He wished he could take the good advice he had given them. Suppose he did take it. Suppose he went to the Bertha, obtained an exiat, fled straight to London. What just humiliation for Zuleka to come down and find her captive gone? He pictured her staring around the quadrangle, ranging the cloisters calling to him. He pictured her rustling to the gate of the college, inquiring at the porter's lodge. Is Grace Miss? He passed through many a go. He's going down so hot noon. Yet even while his fancy luxuriated in this scheme, he well knew that he would not accomplish anything of the kind, knew well that he would wait there humbly, eagerly, even though Zuleka lingered over her toilet till crack of doom. He had no desire that was not centred in her. Take away his love for her and what remained. Nothing. Though only in the past twenty-four hours had this love been added to him. Why had he ever seen her? He thought of his past. It's cold splendour and insouciance. But he knew that for him there was no returning. His boats were burnt. The Scythian babes had set their torches to that flotilla, and it had blazed like match-wood. On the aisle of the enchantress he was stranded for ever. For ever stranded on the aisle of an enchantress, who would have nothing to do with him. What he wondered should be done in so piteous a quandary. There seemed to be two courses. One was to pine slowly and painfully away. The other? Academically, that you could often reason that a man for whom life holds no chance of happiness cannot too quickly shake life off. Now, all of a sudden, there was for that theory a vivid application. Whether to his nobler in the mind to suffer was not a point by which he, more an antique Roman than a Dane, was at all troubled. Never had he given the air to that cackle which is called public opinion. The judgment of his peers, this he had often told himself, was the sole arbitrage he could submit to. But then, who was to be on the bench? Peerless, he was irresponsible. The captain of his soul, the death-spot of his future, no injunction, but from himself would he bow to, and his own injunctions, so little Danish was he, had always been poromptery and lucid. Lucid and poromptery, now, the command he issued to himself. So sorry to have been so long, cuddled a voice from above, but you clooked up. I'm all but ready," said Zuleka, at her window. That brief apparition changed the colour of his resolve. He realised that to die for the love of this lady would be no mere measure of precaution or counsel of despair. It would be in itself a passionate indulgence, a fiery rapture, not to be forgotten. What better could he ask than to die for his love? Poor indeed seemed to him now the sacrament of marriage beside the sacrament of death. Death was incomparably the greater, the finer soul. Death was the one true bridle. He flung back his head, spread wide his arms, quickened his pace almost to running speed. Ah! he would win his bride before the setting of the sun. He knew not by what means he would win her. Enough that even now, full-hearted, fleet-footed, he was on his way to her, and that she heard him coming. When Zuleka, a vision in vapourous white, came out through the poston, she wondered why he was walking at so remarkable a pace. To him, wildly expressing in his movement the thought within him, she appeared as his awful bride. With a cry of joy he bounded towards her, and would have caught her in his arms. Had she not stepped nimbly aside? Forgive me, he said, after a pause. It was a mistake, an idiotic mistake of our identity. I thought you were... Zuleka rigid asked, Have I many doubles? You know well that in all the world is none so blessed as to be like you. I can only say that I was overwrought. I can only say that it shall not occur again. She was very angry indeed. Of his penitence there could be no doubt, but there are outrages for which no penitence can atone. This seemed to be one of them. Her first impulse was to dismiss the duke forthwith and for ever. But she wanted to show herself at the races, and she could not go alone. And except the duke, there was no one to take her. True, there was the concert tonight, and she could show herself there to advantage, but she wanted all Oxford to see her. See her now. I am forgiven, he asked. In her I am afraid self-respect outweighed charity. I will try, she said merely, to forget what you have done. Motioning him to her side, she opened her parasol, and signified her readiness to start. They passed together across the vast graveled expanse of the front quadrangle. In the porch of the college there were, as usual, some chained up dogs, patiently awaiting their masters. Zulika, of course, did not care for dogs. One has never known a good man to whom dogs were not dear, but many of the best women have no such fondness. You will find that the woman who is really kind to dogs is always the one who has failed to inspire sympathy in men. For the attractive woman, dogs are merely dumb and restless brutes, possibly dangerous, certainly soulless. Yet will cockatry teach her to caress any dog in the presence of a man enslaved by her. Even Zulika, it seems, was not above this rather obvious device for awakening envy. Be sure, she did not at all like the look of the very big bulldog who was squatting outside the porter's lodge. Perhaps, but for her present anger, she would not have stooped endearingly down to him, as she did, cooing over him and trying to pat his head. Alas! her pretty act was a failure. The bulldog cowered away from her, horrifically grimacing. This was strange. Like the majority of his breed, Corka, if such was his name, had ever been wistful to be noticed by any one, effusively grateful for every word or pat, an ever-ready wagger and nuzzler, to none ineffable. No beggar, no burglar, had ever been rebuffed by this Catholic beast. But he drew the line at Zulika. Seldom is even a fierce bulldog, heard to growl. Yet Corka growled at Zulika. CHAPTER VII The Duke did not try to break the stony silence in which Zulika walked. Her displeasure was a luxury to him, for it was so soon to be dispelled. A little while, and she would be hating herself for her pettiness. Here was he going to die for her, and here was she blaming him for a breach of manners. Decidedly the slave had the whip-hand. He stole a side-long look at her and could not repress a smile. His features quickly composed themselves. The triumph of death must not be handled as a cheap score. He wanted to die, because he would thereby so poignantly consummate his love, express it so completely once and for all. And she, who could say that she, knowing what he had done, might not logically come to love him. Perhaps she would devote her life to mourning him. He saw her bending over his tomb in beautiful humble curves, under a starless sky, watering the violets with her tears. Shades of Navalis and Friedrich Schlegel, and other despicable mourners, he brushed them aside. He would be practical. The point was when and how to die. Time? The sooner the better. Manor? Less easy to determine. He must not die horribly, nor without dignity. The manner of the Roman philosophers. But the only kind of bath which an undergraduate can command is a hip bath. Stay! There was the river. Drowning, he had often heard, was a rather pleasant sensation, and to the river he was even now on his way. It troubled him that he could swim. Twice, indeed, from his yacht he had swum the Hellespont. And how about the animal instinct of self-preservation, strong even in despair? No matter, his sole set purpose would subdue that. The law of gravitation that brings one to the surface, there his very skill in swimming would help him. He would swim under water, along the riverbed. Swim till he found weeds to cling to. Weird, strong weeds that he would coil round him exulting faintly. As they turned into Radcliffe Square, the Duke's ear caught the sound of a far distant gun. He started, and looked up at the clock of St Mary's. Half-bust-four. The boat said, started. He had heard that whenever a woman was to blame for a disappointment, the best way to avoid a scene was to inculpate one's self. He did not wish Zuleka to store up yet more material for penitence, and so, I'm sorry, he said. That gun, did you hear it? It was the signal for the race, and I shall never forgive myself. Then we shan't see the race at all, cried Zuleka. It will be over a last before we are near the river. All the people will be coming back through the meadows. Let us meet them. Meet a torrent. Let us have tea in my rooms, and go down quietly for the other division. Let us go straight on. Through the square, across the high, down Grove Street they passed, the Duke looked up at the tower of Merton. Strange that, to-night, it would still be standing here, in all its sober and solid beauty. Still be gazing over the roofs and chimneys at the tower of Mordlin its rightful bride. Through untold centuries of the future it would stand thus. Gaze thus. He winced. Oxford walls have a way of belittling us, and the Duke was loath to regard his doom as trivial. Aye, by all minerals we are mocked. Vegetables, yearly deciduous, are far more sympathetic. The lilac and lebernam, making lovely now the railed pathway to Christchurch meadow, were all asswaying and anodding to the Duke as he passed by. Adieu, adieu your grace. They were whispering. We are very sorry for you. Very sorry indeed. We never dared suppose you would predecease us. We think your death a very great tragedy. Adieu, perhaps we shall meet in another world. That is, if members of the animal kingdom have immortal souls, as we have. The Duke was little versed in their language. Yet, as he passed between these gently garrulous blooms, he caught at least the drift of their salutation, and smiled vague but courteous acknowledgment to the right and the left alternately, creating a very favourable impression. No doubt the young elms lining the straight way to the barges had seen him coming, but any whispers of their leaves were lost in the murmur of the crowd returning from the race. Here, at length, came the torrent of which the Duke had spoken, and Zuleka's heart rose at it. Here was Oxford. From side to side the avenue was filled with a dense procession of youths, youths then dispersed with maidens, whose parasols were as flotsome and jetsome on a seething current of straw hats. Zuleka neither quickened nor slackened her advance, but brightlier and brightlier shone her eyes. The vanguard of the procession was pausing now, swaying, breaking at sight of her. She passed imperial through the way cloven for her. All the down the avenue the throng parted, as though some great invisible comb were being drawn through it. The few youths who had already seen Zuleka, and by whom her beauty had been brooded throughout the university, were lost in a new wonder, so incomparably fairer was she than the remembered vision. And the rest hardly recognised her from the descriptions, so incomparably fairer was the reality than the hope. She passed among them, non-questioned the worthiness of her escort. Could I give you better proof the awe in which our duke was held? Any man is glad to be seen escorting a very pretty woman. He thinks it adds to his prestige, whereas, in point of fact, his fellow men are saying merely, Who's that appalling fellow with her? Or why does she go about with that ass so-and-so? Such cavill may in part be envy, but it is a fact that no man, how so evergraced, can shine in juxtaposition to a very pretty woman. The duke himself cut a poor figure besides Zuleka, yet not one of all the undergraduates felt that she could have made a wiser choice. She swept among them. Her own intrinsic radiance was not all that flashed from her. She was a moving reflector and refractor of all the rays of all the eyes that mankind had turned on her. Hermion told the story of her days. Bright eyes, light feet, she trod erect from her vista whose glare was dazzling to all beholders. She swept among them a miracle, overwhelming, breath-breathing, nothing at all like her had ever been seen in Oxford. Mainly architectural, the beauties of Oxford. True, the place is no longer one-sexed. There are the word gunkules of Somerville and Lady Margaret's Hall, but beauty and the lust for learning have yet to be allied. There are the innumerable wives and daughters around the parks, running in and out of their little red-brick villas. But the indignant shade of celibacy seems to have called down on the dons an emesis which precludes them from either marrying beauty or begetting it. From the warden's son, that unhappy curate, Zuleka inherited no title of her charm. Some of it, there is no doubt, she did inherit from the circus rider who was her mother. But the casual feminine visitors? Well, the sisters and cousins of an undergraduate seldom seem more passable to his comrades than to himself. Altogether, the instinct of sex is not pandered to in Oxford. It is not, however, as it may once have been, dormant. The modern importation of samples of femininity serves to keep it alert. No, not to gratify it. A like result is achieved by another modern development—photography. The undergraduate may, and usually does, surround himself with photographs of pretty ladies known to the public. A phantom harine. Yet the hurries have an effect on their sultan. Surrounded both by plain women of flesh and blood, and by beautious women on paste-board, the undergraduate is the easiest victim of living loveliness. Is, as a fire ever well and truly laid, amenable to a spark? And if the spark be such a flaring torch as Zulika? Marvel not, reader, at the conflagration? Not only was the whole throng of youths drawing a sunder before her. Much of it, as she passed, was forming up in her wake. Thus, with the confluence of two masses, one coming away from the river, the other returning to it, chaos seathed around her and the duke, before they were half-way along the avenue. Behind them, and on either side of them, the people were crushed inextricably together, swaying and surging this way and that. Help! cried many a shrill feminine voice. Don't push! Let me out! You brute! Save me! Save me! Many ladies fainted, whilst their escort, supporting them and protecting them as best they could, peered over the heads of their fellows for one glimpse of the divine Miss Dobson. Yet for her and the duke, in the midst of the terrific compress, there was space enough. In front of them, as by a miracle of deference, a way still cleared itself. They reached the end of the avenue without a pause in their measured progress. Nor even when they turned to the left, along the rather narrow path beside the barges, was there any obstacle to their advance. Passing evenly forward, they alone were cool, unhustled, undercheffled. The duke was so wrapped in his private thoughts that he was hardly conscious of the strange scene. And as for Zuleka, she, as well as she might be, was in the very best of humours. What a lot of house-boats, she explained. Are you going to take me on to one of them? The duke started. Already they were alongside the Judas barge. Here, he said, is our girl. He stepped through the gate of the railings, out upon the plank, and offered her his hand. She looked back. The young men in the vanguard were crushing their shoulders against the row behind them to stay the oncoming host. She had half a mind to go back through the midst of them, but she really did want her tea. And she followed the duke on to the barge, and under his auspices climbed the steps to the roof. It looked very cool and gay, this roof, under its awning of red and white stripes. Nests of red and white flowers depended along either side of it. Zuleka moved to the side which commanded a view of the bank. She lent her arms on the balustrade and gazed down. The crowd stretched as far as she could see. A vista of faces upturned to her. Suddenly it hoe forward. Its vanguard was swept irresistibly past the barge, swept by the desire of the rest to see her at closer quarters. Such was the impetus that the vision for each man was but a lightning-flash. He was world-past, struggling, almost before his brain took the message of his eyes. Those who were Judas men made frantic efforts to board the barge, trying to hurl themselves through the gate in the railings, but they were swept vainly on. Presently the torrent began to slacken. Became a mere river, a mere procession of use staring up rather shyly. Before the last stragglers had marched by, Zuleka moved away to the other side of the roof, and after a glance at the Sunlit River, sang into one of the wicker chairs, and asked the Duke to look less disagreeable and to give her some tea. Among others, hovering near the little buffet were the two youths whose parley with the Duke I have recorded. Zuleka was aware of the special persistence of their gaze. When the Duke came back with her cup, she asked him who they were. He replied, truthfully enough, that their names were unknown to him. Then, she said, asked them their names and introduced them to me. No, said the Duke, sinking into the chair beside her, that I shall not do. I am your victim, not your panda. Those two men stand on the threshold of a possibly useful and agreeable career. I am not going to trip them up for you. I am not sure, said Zuleka, that you are very polite, certainly or foolish. It is natural for boys to fall in love. If those two are in love with me, why not let them talk to me? It were an experience on which they would always look back with romantic pleasure. They may never see me again. Why grudge them this little thing? She sipped her tea. As for tripping them up on a threshold, that is all nonsense. What harm has unrequited love ever done to anybody? She laughed, Look at me. When I came to your rooms this morning, thinking I loved in vain, did I seem one jot the worst for it? Did I look different? You looked, I am bound to say, nobler, more spiritual. More spiritual? She exclaimed. Do you mean I look tired or ill? No, you seem quite fresh, but then you are singular. You are no criterion. You mean you can't judge those two young men by me. Well, I am only a woman, of course. I have heard of women no longer young, wasting away because no man loved them. I have often heard of a young woman fretting because some particular young man didn't love her, but I never heard of her wasting away. Certainly a young man doesn't waste away for love of some particular young woman. He very soon makes love to some other one. If his be an ardent nature, the quicker his transition. All the most ardent of my past adorers have married. Will you put my cup down, please? Past? Echoed the dew because he placed her cup on the floor. Have any of your lovers ceased to love you? Oh, no, no, not in retrospect. I remain their ideal and all that, of course. They cherished the thought of me. They see the world in terms of me, but I am an inspiration, not an obsession, a glow, not a blight. You don't believe in the love that corrodes, the love that ruins? No, love, Zuleka. You have never dipped into the Greek pastoral poets nor sampled the Elizabethan sonateers? No, never. You will think me lamentably cruel. My experience of life has been drawn from life itself. Yet often you talk as though you had read rather much. Your way of speech has what is called a literary favour. Oh, that is an unfortunate trick which I caught from a writer, and Mr Birbo, who once sat next to me at dinner somewhere, I can't break myself of it. I assure you I hardly ever open a book. Of life, though, my experience has been very wide. Brief, but I suppose the soul of man during the past two or three years has been much as it was in the reign of Queen Elizabeth and of whoever it was that reigned over the Greek pastures? And I dare say the modern poets are making the same old silly distortions. But forgive me, she added gently, perhaps you yourself are a poet. Ernestons yesterday answered the Duke, not less unfairly to himself than to Roger Newdigate and Thomas Gaisford, that he felt he was especially a dramatic poet, all the while that she had been sitting by him here, talking so glibly, looking so straight into his eyes, flashing at him so many pretty gestures, it was the sense of tragic irony that prevailed in him, that sense which had stirred in him and been repressed on the way from Judas. He knew that she was making her effect consciously for the other young men, by whom the roof of the barge was now thronged. Him alone, she seemed to observe. By her manner, she might have seemed to be making love to him. He envied the men she was so deliberately making envious. The men whom, in her undertone to him, she was really addressing, but he did take comfort in the irony. Though she used him as a stalking-horse, he, after all, was playing with her as a cat plays with a mouse. While she chattered on, without an inkling, that he was no ordinary lover, and coaxing him to present two quite ordinary young men to her, he held over her the revelation that he, for love of her, was about to die. While he drank in the radiance of her beauty, he heard her chattering on. So you see, she was saying, it couldn't do these young men any harm. Suppose unrequited love is anguished, isn't the discipline wholesome? Suppose I am a sort of furnace, shan't I purge, refine, temper? Those two boys are but scorched from here. That is horrid, and what good will it do them? She laid a hand on his arm. Cast them into the furnace for their own sake, dear Duke, or cast one of them, or, she added, glancing round at the throng, any one of these others. For their own sake, he echoed, withdrawing his arm, if you were not, as the whole world knows you to be, perfectly respectable, there might be something in what you say. But as it is, you can but be an engine for mischief, and your sophistries leave me unmoved, I shall certainly keep you to myself. I hate you, said Zuleka, with an ugly petulance that crowned the irony. So long as I live, uttered the Duke in a level voice, you will address no man but me. If your prophecy is to be fulfilled, laughed Zuleka, rising from her chair, your last moment is at hand. It is, he answered, rising too. What do you mean? she asked, awed by something in his tone. I mean what I say, that my last moment is at hand. He withdrew his eyes from hers, and leaning his elbows on the balustrade, gazed thoughtfully at the river. When I am dead, he added over his shoulder, you will find these fellows rather coy of your advances. For the first time since his avowal of his love for her, Zuleka found herself genuinely interested in him. A suspicion of his meaning had flashed through her soul. But no, surely he could not be that. It must have been a matter for her merely, and yet, something in his eyes. She lent beside him, her shoulder touched his, she gazed, questioningly at him. He did not turn his face to her, he gazed at the sunlit river. The Judas Ait had just embarked for their voyage to the starting point. Standing on the edge of the raft that makes a floating platform for the barge, William, the hoary bargee, was pushing them off with his boat-hook, wishing them luck with deferential familiarity. The raft was thronged with old judasians, mostly clergymen, who were shouting hearty hortations, and evidently trying not to appear so old as they felt, or rather not to appear so startlingly old as their contemporaries looked to them. It occurred to the Duke, as a strange thing, and a thing to be glad of, that he, in this world, would never be an old judasian. Zulika's shoulder pressed his. He thrilled not at all. To all intents, he was dead already. The enormous age-young men in the thread-like skiff, the skiff that would scarce have seemed an adequate vehicle for the tiny cocks who sat facing them, were staring up at Zulika with that uniformity of impulse which, in another direction, had enabled them to bump a boat or two of the previous nights. If to-night they bumped the next boat, Univ, then would judas be three places up on the river, and to-morrow, judas would have a bump supper. Furthermore, if Univ were bumped to-night, Mordlin might be bumped to-morrow, then would judas, for the first time in history, behead of the river. Oh, tremulous hope! Yet, for the moment, these age-young men seemed to have forgotten the awful responsibility that rested on their overdeveloped shoulders. Their hearts, already strained by rowing, had been transfixed this afternoon by Eros's darts. All of them had seen Zulika as she came down to the river, and now they sat gaping up at her, fumbling with their oars. The tiny cocks gaped, too, but he it was who first recalled duty. With piping adurations, he brought the giants back to their senses. The boat moved away downstream with a fairly steady stroke. Not in a day can the traditions of Oxford be sense spinning. From all the barges the usual pun-loads of young men were being ferried across to the towing-path. Young men, naked of knee, armed with rattles, post-horns, motor-hooters, gongs, and other instruments of clanger. Those who Zulika filled their thoughts, they hurried along the towing-path, as by custom, to the starting point. She, meanwhile, had not taken her eyes off the duke's profile, nor had she dared, for fear of disappointment, to ask him just what he had meant. All these men, he repeated, dreamily, will be coy of your advances. It seemed to him a good thing that his death, his awful example, would disinfatuate his fellow alumni. He had never been conscious of public spirit. He had lived for himself alone. Love had come to him yesterday night, and today had waked in him a sympathy with mankind. It was a fine thing to be a saviour. It was splendid to be human. He looked quickly round to her who had wrought this change in him. But the loveliest face in all the world will not please you, if you see it, suddenly, eye to eye, at a distance of half an inch from your own. It was thus that the duke saw Zulika's, a monstrous delinquent upon a glare, only for the fraction of an instant, though. Recoiling, he beheld the loveliness that he knew, more adorably vivid now in its look of eager questioning, and in his every fibre he thrilled to her. Even so had she gazed at him last night, this morning. Aye, now as then her soul was full of him. He had recaptured not her love, but his power to please her. It was enough. He bowed his head, and, moritoris te saluto, were the words formed silently by his lips. He was glad that his death would be a public service to the university, but the salutary lesson of what the newspapers would call his rash act was after all only a side issue. The great thing, the prospect that flushed his cheek, was the consummation of his own love, for its own sake, by his own death. And as he met her gaze, the question that had already flitted through his brain found a faltering utterance, and, shall you mourn me? he asked her. But she would have no ellipses. What are you going to do? she whispered. Do you not know? Tell me. Once and for all, you cannot love me? Slowly she shook her head. The black pearl and the pink quivering gave stress to her ultimatum, but the violet of her eyes was all but hidden by the dilation of her pupils. Then whispered the duke, When I have died, deeming life a vain thing without you, will the gods give you tears for me? Miss Dobson, will your soul awaken? When I shall have sunk for ever beneath these waters, whose supposed purpose here this afternoon is but they be ploughed by the blades of these young oarsmen? Will there be struck from that flint your heart, some late and momentary spark of pity for me? They will have, of course, of course, babbled Zulika with clasped hands and dazzling eyes, but she curbed herself. It is, it is. Oh, you mustn't think of it. I couldn't allow it. I should never forgive myself. In fact, you would mourn me always. They were, yes, yes, always. What else could she say? But would his answer be that he dared not condemn her to lifelong torment? Then his answer was, My joy in dying for you is made perfect. Her muscles relaxed, her breath escaped between her teeth. You are utterly resolved, she asked. Are you? Utterly. Nothing, I might say, could change your purpose. Nothing. No entreaty, however piteous could move you. None. Forthwith, she urged entreated, cajoled, commanded, with infinite prettiness of ingenuity and of eloquence, never was such a cascade of dissuasion as hers. She only didn't say that she could love him. She never hinted that. Indeed, throughout her pleading rang this recurrent motif, that he must live to take to himself as mate some good, serious, clever woman who would be a not unworthy mother of his children. She laid stress on his youth, his great position, his brilliant attainments, the much he had already achieved, the splendid possibilities of his future. Though, of course, she spoke in undertones, not to be overheard by the throng on the barge, it was almost as though his health were being floridly proposed at some public banquet, say, at a tenant's dinner. In so much that, when she ceased, the duke half-expected jellings his steward to bother buttering with lifted hands a stentorial, and all the company to take up the chant, He's a jolly good fellow. His brief reply, on those occasions, seemed always to indicate that whatever else he might be, a jolly good fellow he was not. But, by Zuleka's eulogy, he really was touched. Thank you, thank you, he gasped, and there were tears in his eyes. Dear, the thought that she so revered him, so wished him not to die, but this was no more than a rush-light in the austere radiance of his joy in dying for her. And the time was come, now for the sacrament of his immersion in infinity. Good-bye, he said simply, and was about to swing himself onto the ledge of the balustrade. Zuleka, divining his intention, made way for him. Her bosom heaved quickly, quickly. All colour had left her face, but her eyes shone as never before. Already his foot was on the ledge, when, park, the sound of a distant gun. To Zuleka, with all the cords of her soul strung to the utmost density, the effect was if she herself had been shot, and she clutched at the duke's arm like a frightened child. He laughed. It was a signal for the race, he said, and laughed again rather bitterly at the crude and trivial interruption of high matters. The race! She laughed hysterically. Yes, thereof. He mingled his laughter with hers, gently seeking to disengage his arm, and perhaps, he said, I, clinging to the weeds of the river's bed, shall see dimly the boats and the oars pass over me, and shall be able to gurgle her cheer for Judas. Don't, she shuddered. With a woman's notion that a jest means levity, a tumult of thoughts surged in her, all confused. She only knew that he must not die, not yet. A moment ago his death would have been beautiful. Not now. Her grip of his arm tightened. Only by breaking her wrist could he have freed himself. A moment ago she had been in the seventh heaven. Men were supposed to have died for love of her. It had never been proved that had always been something, car debts, ill health, what not, to account for the tragedy. No man, to the best of her recollection, had ever hinted that he was going to die for her. Never assuredly had she seen the deed done. And then came he, the first man she had loved, going to die here, before her eyes, because she no longer loved him. But she knew now that he must not die, not yet. All around her was the hush that falls on Oxford, when the signal for the race has sounded. In the distance could be heard faintly the noise of cheering. A little sing-song sound drawing nearer. How could she have thought of letting him die so soon? She gazed into his face. The face she might never have seen again. Even now, but for that gun-shot, the waters would have closed over him, and his soul may be have passed away. She had saved him, thank heavens. She had him still with her. Gently, vainly, he still sought to unclasp her fingers from his arm. Not now, she whispered, not yet. And the noise of the cheering, and of the trumpeting and rattling, as it drew near, was an accompaniment to her joy in having saved her lover. She would keep him with her for a while. Let all be done in order. She would savor the full sweetness of his sacrifice. Tomorrow? Tomorrow? Yes. Let him have his heart's desire of death. Not now, not yet. Tomorrow, she whispered. Tomorrow, if you will, not yet. The first boat came jerking past in mid-stream. And the towing-path, with its serred throng of runners, was like a live thing, keeping pace. As in a dream, Zuleika saw it. And the din was in her ears. No heroine of Wagner had ever allowed her accompaniment, than had hers to the singing soul within her bosom. And the duke, tightly held by her, vibrated as to a powerful electric current. He let her cling to him, and her magnetism ranged through him. Ah! it was good not to have died. Fool! he had meant to drain off-hand, at one coarse draught, the delicate wine of death. He would let his lips caress the brim of the august goblet. He would dally with the aroma that was there. So be it! he cried into Zuleika's ear. Cried loudly, for it seemed, as though all the Wagnerian orchestras of Europe, with the Straussian ones thrown in, were here to clash in unison, the full volume of right music for the glory of the reprieve. The fact was, that the Judas-boat had just bumped Univ, exactly opposite the Judas-barge. The oarsmen in either boat sat humped, panting, some of them rocking and writhing, after their wholesome exercise. But there was not one of them, whose eyes were not upcast at Zuleika. And the vocalisation and instrumentation of the dancers and stampers on the towing-path, had by this time ceased to mean ought of joy in the victors, or of comfort for the vanquish, and had resolved itself into a wild, wordless hymn, to the glory of Miss Dobson. Behind her and all around her on the roof of the barge, young Judasians were venting in like manner their hearts through their lungs. She paid no heed. It was as if she stood alone, with her lover on some silent pinnacle of the world. It was as if she were a little girl, with a brand new and very expensive doll, which had banished all the little other-old toys from her mind. She simply could not, in her naive rapture, take her eyes off her companion, to the dancers and stampers of the towing-path, many of whom were now being ferried back across the river, and to the other youths on the roof of the barge. Zuleika's air of absorption must have seemed a little strange, for already the news that the Duke loved Zuleika, and that she loved him not, and would stoop to no man who loved her, had spread like wildfire among the undergraduates. The two youths in whom the Duke had deigned to confide had not held their peace, and the effect that Zuleika had made as she came down to the river was intensified by the knowledge that not the great Paragon himself did she deem worthy of her. The mere sight of her had captured young Oxford. The news of her supernal haughtiness had riveted the chains. Come, said the Duke at length, staring around him with the eyes of one awakened from a dream, come, I must take you back to Judas. But you won't leave me there, pleaded Zuleika. You will stay to dinner. I'm sure my grandfather would be delighted. I'm sure he would, said the Duke, as he piloted her down the steps of the barge. But alas, I have to dine at the junta tonight. The junta? What is that? A little dining club. It meets every Tuesday. But you don't mean you're going to refuse me for that. To do so is misery, but I have no choice. I have asked a guest. Then ask another. Ask me. Zuleika's notions of Oxford life were rather hazy. It was with difficulty that the Duke made her realize that he could not, not even if, as she suggested, she dressed herself up as a man, invited her to the junta. She then fell back on the impossibility that he would not dine with her tonight, his last night in this world. She could not understand that admirable fidelity to social engagements, which is one of the virtues implanted in the members of our aristocracy, bohemian by training and by career, she construed the Duke's refusal as either a cruel slight to herself or an act of imbecility. The thought of being parted from her for one moment was tortured to him, but no bless of liege, and it was quite impossible for him to break an engagement, merely because a more charming one offered itself. He would as soon have cheated at cards. And so, as they went side by side up the avenue, in the mellow light of the westering sun, preceded in their course and pursued and surrounded by the mob of horse-infatuated youths, Zuleika's face was as that of a little girl sulking. Vainly the Duke reasoned with her. She could not see the point of view. With that sudden softening that comes to the face of an angry woman who has hit on a good argument, she turned to him and asked, How if I hadn't saved your life just now, but you thought about your guest when you were going to dive and to die? I did not forget him, answered the Duke, smiling at her casuistry. Nor had I any scruple in disappointing him. Death cancels all engagements. And Zuleika, worsted, resumed her sulking, but presently, as they near Judas she relented. It was paltry to be cross with him who had resolved to die for her and was going to die so on the morrow. And after all she would see him at the concert tonight. They would sit together, and all tomorrow they would be together till the time came for parting. Hers was a naturally sunny disposition, and the evening was such a lovely one, all bathed in gold. She was ashamed of her ill humour. Forgive me, she said, touching his arm. Forgive me for being horrid. And forgiven she promptly was. And promise you will spend all tomorrow with me. And, of course, he promised. As they stood together on the steps of the warden's front door, exalted about the level of the flushed and swaying crowd that filled the whole length and breadth of Judas Street, she implored him not to be late for the concert. I am never late, he smiled. Ah, you're so beautifully brought up! The door was opened. And, oh, you're so beautiful, mithy-hides! She whispered, and waved her hand to him, as she vanished into the hall. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Of Zuleika Dobson This Librabox recording is in the public domain. Reading by Termin Dayan Zuleika Dobson by Max Birbone Chapter 8 A few minutes before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner, passed leisurely up the high. The arresting feature of his costume was a mulberry-coloured coat with brass buttons. This, to any one versed in Oxford law, betokened him a member of the junta. It is awful to think that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It does not do to think of such things. The tradesmen, at the doors of their shops, bowed low as he passed, rubbing their hands and smiling, hoping inwardly that they took no liberty in sharing the cool rosy air of the evening with his grace. They noted that he wore in his shirt front a black pearl and a pink. Daring but becoming, they opined. The rooms of the junta were over a stationer's shop, next door but one to the mitre. They were small rooms, but as the junta had now, besides the Duke, only two members, and as no member might introduce more than one guest, there was ample space. The Duke had been elected in his second term. At that time there were four members, but these were all leaving Oxford at the end of the summer term, and there seemed to be, in the ranks of the Bullingdon and the Lodre, no one quite eligible for the junta that holy of holies. Thus it was that the Duke inaugurated in solitude his second year of membership. From time to time he proposed and seconded a few candidates after sounding them as to whether they were willing to join, but always when election evening the last Tuesday of term drew near, he began to have his doubts about these fellows. This one was rowdy. That one was overdressed. Another did not ride quite straight to Hounds. In the pedigree of another a bar sinister was more than suspected. Election evening was always a rather melancholy time. After dinner when the two club servants had placed on the mahogany the time worn candidates' book and the ballot box and had noiselessly withdrawn, the Duke clearing his throat read aloud to himself a Mr. Sir and so of such and such college proposed by the Duke of Dorset, seconded by the Duke of Dorset. And in every case when he drew out the drawer of the ballot box found it was a black ball that he had dropped into the urn. Thus it was that at the end of the summer term the annual photographic group had taken by Mrs. Hill and Saunders was a presentment of the Duke alone. In the course of his third year he had become less exclusive not because there seemed to be anyone really worthy of the junta but because the junta having thriven since the 18th century must not die. Suppose one ever knew he was struck by lightning the junta would be no more. So not without reluctance but unanimously he had elected the maquern of Baliel and Sir John Maraby of Brazenose. Tonight as he a doomed man went up into the familiar rooms he was wholly glad that he had thus relented as yet he was spared the tragic knowledge that it would make no difference. Note the junta has been reconstituted but the apostolic line was broken the thread was snapped the old magic is fled. The maquern and two other young men were already there. Mr. President said the maquern I present Mr. Trent Garby of Christchurch. The junta is honoured said the Duke bowing. Such was the ritual of the club. The other young man because his host Sir John Maraby was not yet on the scene had no luck or stand-eye and though a friend of the maquern and well known to the Duke had to be ignored a moment later Sir John arrived. A Mr. President he said I present Lord Sayes of Maudlin. The junta is honoured said the Duke bowing. Both hosts and both guests having been prominent in the throng that vociferated around Zuleka an hour earlier was slightly abashed in the Duke's presence. He however had not noticed anyone in particular and even if he had that fine tradition of the club a member of the junta can do no wrong a guest of the junta cannot err would have prevented him from showing his displeasure. The Herculean figure filled the doorway. The junta is honoured said the Duke bowing to his guest. Duke said the newcomer quietly the honour is as much man as that of the interesting and ancient institution which I am this night privileged to inspect. Turning to Sir John and the maquern the Duke said I present Mr. Abimelech V. Hoover of Trinity. The junta they replied is honoured. Gentlemen said the Rhodes scholar your good courtesy is just such as I would have anticipated from members of the ancient junta. Like most of my countrymen I am a man of few words. We are habituated out there to act rather than talk. Judge from the viewpoint of your beautiful old civilisation I am aware my curtness must seem crude but gentlemen believe me right here. Thus interrupted Mr. Hoover with the resourcefulness of a practiced orator brought his thanks to a quick but not abrupt conclusion. The little company passed into the front room. Through the window from the high fading daylight mingled with the candlelight. The mulberry coats of the hosts interspersed by the black ones of the guests made a fine pattern round the oval table a gleam with the many curious pieces of gold and silver plate that had accrued to the junta in the course of years. The president showed much deference to his guest. He seemed to listen with close attention to the humorous anecdote with which in the American fashion Mr. Hoover inaugurated dinner. To all Rhodes scholars indeed his courtesy was invariable. He went out of his way to cultivate them, and this he did more as a favour to Lord Milner than of his own caprice. He found these scholars, good fellows there they were, rather oppressive. They had not, how could they have, the undergraduate's virtue of taking Oxford as a matter of course. The Germans loved it too little, the Colonials too much. The Americans were to a sensitive observer the most troublesome, as being the most troubled, of the whole lot. The Duke was not one of those Englishmen who fleeing or care to hear flung cheap sneers at America. Whenever anyone in his presence said that America was not large in area, he would firmly maintain that it was. He held too in his enlightened way that Americans have a perfect right to exist, but he did often find himself wishing Mr. Rhodes had not enabled them to exercise that right in Oxford. They were so awfully afraid of having their strenuous native characters undermined by their delight in the place. They held that the future was theirs, a glorious asset, far more glorious than the past. But a theory, as the Duke saw is one thing, an emotion another. It is so much easier to covet what one hasn't, than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be enthusiastic about what exists, than about what doesn't. The future doesn't exist, the past does. For whereas all men can learn, the gift of prophecy has died out. A man cannot work up in his breast any real excitement about what possibly won't happen. He cannot very well help being sentimentally interested in what he knows has happened. On the other hand, he owes a duty to his country. And if his country be America, he ought to try to feel a vivid respect for the future, and a cold contempt for the past. Also, if he be selected by his country as a specimen of the best moral, physical and intellectual type that she can produce for the astounding of the effete foreigner, and incidentally for the purpose of raising that foreigner's tone, he must, mustn't he, do his best to astound, to exalt. But then comes in this difficulty. Young men don't like to astound and exalt their fellows, and Americans, individually, are of all people the most anxious to please. That they talk over marches often taken as a sign of self-satisfaction. It is merely a mannerism. Rhetoric is a thing inbred in them. They are quite unconscious of it. It is as natural to them as breathing. And while they talk on, they really do believe that they are a quick, business-like people, by whom things are put through, with an almost brutal abruptness. This notion of theirs is rather confusing to the patient English auditor. All together, the American Rhodes scholars, with their splendid native gift of oratory, and their modest desire to please, and their not less evident feeling that they ought merely to edify, and their constant delight in all that of Oxford their English brethren don't notice, and their constant fear that they are being corrupted are a noble, rather than a comfortable element in the social life of the university. So at least they seem to the Duke. And tonight, but that he had invited Hoover to dine with him, he could have been dining with Zuleka. And this was his last dinner on earth. Such thoughts made him the less able to take pleasure in his guest. Perfect, however, the amenity of his manner. This was the more commendable because Hoover's aura was even more disturbing than that of the average Rhodes scholar. Tonight, besides the usual conflict in this young man's bosom, raged a special one between his desire to behave well, and his jealousy of the man who had today been Miss Dobson's escort. In theory he denied the Duke's right to that honour. In sentiment he admitted it. Another conflict, you see. And another he longed to orate about the woman who had his heart, yet she was the one topic that must be shirked. The Macquern and Mr. Trent Garby, Sir John Maraby and Lord Sayes, they too, though they were no orators, would feign have unpacked their hearts in words about Zuleka. They spoke of this and that automatically, non-listening to another, each man listening wide-eyed to his own heart's solo on the Zuleka theme, and drinking rather more champagne that was good for him. Maybe these youths owed in themselves on this night the seeds of lifelong intemperance. We cannot tell. They did not live long enough for us to know. While the six dined, a seventh, invisible to them, leaned moodily against the mantelpiece, watching them. He was not of their time. His long brown hair was knotted in a black ribbon behind. He wore a pale, brocaded coat and lace ruffles, silk and stockings, a sword. Privileged to their doom, he watched them. He was loath that his junta must die. Yes, his. Could the diners have seen him? They would have known him by his resemblance to the Metzetint portrait that hung on the wall above him. They would have risen to their feet in presence of Humphry Greddon, founder and first president of the club. His face was not so oval, nor were his eyes so big, nor his lips so full, nor his hands so delicate, as they appeared in the Metzetint. Yet, baiting the conventions of eighteenth-century portraiture, the likeness was a good one. Humphry Greddon was not less well-knit and graceful than the painter had made him. And, hard though the lines of the face were, there was about him a certain air of high romance, that could not be explained away, by the fact that he was of a period not our own. You could understand the great love that Nellie O'Morrah had borne him. Under the Metzetint hung Hopner's miniature of that lovely and ill-starred girl, with her soft dark eyes, and her curls all astray from beneath her little blue turban. And the Duke was telling Mr. Hoover her story, how she had left her home for Humphry Greddon when she was but sixteen, and he an undergraduate at Christchurch, and had lived for him in a cottage at Littlemore, wither he would ride most days to be with her, and how he tired of her. Broke his oath that he would marry her, thereby broke her heart. And how she drowned herself in a mill-pond, and how Greddon was killed in Venice, two years later, dueling on the Rivasquione with a senator whose daughter he had seduced. And he, Greddon, was not listening very attentively to the tale. He had heard it told so often in this room, and he did not understand the sentiments of the modern world. Nellie had been a monstrous pretty creature. He had adored her, and had done with her. It was right that she should always be toasted after dinner by the junta, as in the days when he first loved her. Here's to Nellie O'Morrah, the fairest witch that ever was or will be. He would have resented the omission of that toast. But he was sick of the pitying, melting looks that were always cast towards her miniature. Nellie had been beautiful, but by God she was always a dunce and a simpleton. How could he have spent his life with her? She was a fool, by God, not to marry that fool Trailby of Merton, whom he took to see her. Mr. Hoover's moral tone and his sense of chivalry were of the American kind, far higher than ours even, and far better expressed. Whereas the English guests of the junta, when they heard the tale of Nellie O'Morrah would merely murmur, poor girl, or what a shame. Mr. Hoover said in tone of quiet authority that compelled Greddon's ear, Duke, I hope I'm not incognizant of the laws that govern the relations of guest and host, but, Duke, I have ver deliberately that the founder of this fine old club, at which you are so splendidly entertained me tonight, was an unmitigated scoundrel. I'll say he was not a white man. At the word scoundrel, Humphrey Greddon had sprung forward, drawing his sword unloudly, in a voice audible to himself alone, challenged the American to make good his words. Then, as this gentleman took no notice, with one clean, straight thrust, Greddon ran him through the heart, shouting, Die, you damned palm-singer and traducer! And so die all rebels against King George. Note, as Edward VII was at this time on the throne, it must have been to George III that Mr. Greddon was referring. Withdrawing the blade, he wiped it daintily on his cambrick handkerchief. There was no blood. Mr. Hoover, with unpunctured shirt-front, was repeating, ah, say, he was not a white man. And Greddon remembered himself. Remembered he was only a ghost, impalpable, impotent, of no account. But I shall meet you in hell to-morrow. He hissed in Hoover's face. And there he was wrong. It is quite certain that Hoover went to heaven. Unable to avenge himself, Greddon had looked to the duke to act for him. When he saw that this young man did but smile at Hoover and make a vague, deprecatory gesture, he again, in his wrath, forgot his disabilities. Drawing himself to his full height, he took, with great deliberation, a pinch of snuff. And, bowing low to the duke, said, I am dastly a-bleached, your grace, for a fine high courage you have exhibited on behalf of your most admiring, most humble servant. Then, having brushed away a speck of snuff from his jabbo, he turned on his heel. And only in the doorway, where one of the club servants, carrying a decanter in each hand, walked straight through him, did he realise that he had not spoiled the duke's evening. With a volley of the most appalling eighteenth-century oaths, he passed back into the nether world. To the duke, Nellie O'Morder had never been a very vital figure. He had often repeated the legend of her. But, having never known what love was, he could not imagine her rapture or her anguish. Himself, the quarry of all mayfair's wise virgins, he had always, the so far he thought of the matter at all, suspected that Nellie's death was due to thwarted ambition. But, to-night, while he told Uver about her, he could see into her soul. Nor did he pity her. She had loved. She had known the one thing worth living for, and dying for. She, as she went down to the mill-pond, had felt just that ecstasy of self-sacrifice, which he himself had felt to-day, and would feel to-morrow. And for a while, too, for a full year, she had known the joy of being loved, had been for Greddon, the fairest witch that ever was or will be. He could not agree with Uver's long disquisition on her sufferings, and glancing at her well-remembered miniature, he wondered just what it was in her that had captivated Greddon. He was in that blessed state, when a man cannot believe the earth has been trodden by any really beautiful or desirable lady save the lady of his own heart. The moment had come for the removal of the tablecloth. The mahogany of the junta was laid bare, a clear dark lake, an on to reflect in its still and ruddy depths, the candelabras and the fruit cradles, the slender glasses and the stout old decanters, the forfeit box and the snuff box, and other paraphernalia of the dignity of dessert. Lucidly and unwaveringly inverted in those depths, these good things stood, and so soon as the wine had made its circuit, the duke rose, and with uplifted glass proposed the first of the two toasts traditional to the junta. Gentlemen, I give you church and state. The toast having been honoured by all, and by none with a richer reference than by uver, despite his passionate mental reservation in favour of Pittsburgh Anabaptism and the Republican Ideal. The snuff box was handed round, and fruit was eaten. Presently, when the wine had gone round again, the duke rose, and with uplifted glass said, gentlemen, I give you. And there halted. Silent, frowning, flushed. He stood for a few moments, and then with deliberate gesture tilted his glass and let fall the wine to the carpet. No, he said, looking round the table. I cannot give you Nellie Amora. Why not? gasped Sir John Marrowby. You have a right to ask that, said the duke, still standing. I can only say that my conscience is stronger than my sense of what is due to the customs of the club. Nellie Amora, he said, passing his hand over his brow, may have been in her day the fairest witch that ever was, and so fair that our founder had good reason to suppose her the fairest witch that ever would be. But his prediction was a false one. So at least it seems to me. Of course, I cannot both hold this view and remain president of this club. Macquern, Marrowby, which of you is vice president? He is, said Marrowby. Then Macquern, you are hereby president. Vice myself resigned. Take the chair and propose the toast. I would rather not, said the Macquern, after a pause. Then Marrowby, you must. Not I, said Marrowby. Why is this? asked the duke, looking from one to the other. The Macquern, with scotch caution, was silent. But the impulsive Marrowby, madcap Marrowby, as they called him in BNC, said, It's because I won't lie. And leaping up, raised his glass aloft, and cried, I give you Zuleka Dobson, the fairest witch that ever was or will be. Mr. Hoover, Lord Sayes, Mr. Trent Garby, sprang to their feet. The Macquern rose to his. Zuleka Dobson! They cried, and drained their glasses. Then, when they had resumed their seats, came an awkward pause. The duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave and pale. Marrowby had taken an outrageous liberty, but a member of the junta can do no wrong, and the liberty could not be resented. The duke felt that the blame was on himself, who had elaped Marrowby to the club. Mr. Hoover, too, looked grave. All the antiquarian in him deplored the sudden rupture of a fine old Oxford tradition. All the chivalrous American in him resented the slight on that fair victim of the feudal system, Miss O'Morrah. And at the same time, all the abimelech three in him rejoiced at having honoured by word and act the one woman in the world. Glancing around at the flushed faces and heaving shirt-fronts of the diners, the duke forgot Marrowby's misdemeanor. What mattered far more to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of Zuleka. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his influence was in the university. He knew also how strong was Zuleka's. He had not much hope of the issue, but his newborn sense of duty to his fellows spurred him on. Is there, he asked, with a bitter smile, any one of you who doesn't with his whole heart love Miss Dobson? Nobody held up a hand. As I feared, said the duke, knowing not that if a hand had been held up he would have taken it as a personal insult. No man really in love can forgive another for not sharing his ardour. His jealousy for himself, when his beloved prefers another man, is hardly a stronger passion than his jealousy for her when she is not preferred to all other women. You know her only by sight, by repute, asked the duke. They signified that this was so. I wish you would introduce me to her, said Marrowby. You are all coming to the Judas concert tonight? The duke asked, ignoring Marrowby. You have all secured tickets? They nodded. To hear me play or to see Miss Dobson? There was a murmur of both. And you would all of you, like Marrowby, wish to be presented to this lady? Their eyes delated. That way happiness lies, think you? Oh, happiness be hanged, said Marrowby. To the duke this seemed a profoundly sane remark, an epitome of his own sentiments. But what was right for himself was not right for all. He believed in convention as the best way for average mankind, and so, slowly, calmly, he told to his fellow diners just what he had told a few hours earlier to those young men in Saltseller, not knowing that his words had already been spread throughout Oxford. He was rather surprised they seemed to make no sensation. Quite flat, too, fell his appeal that the siren be shunned by all. Mr. Hoover, during his year of residence, had been sorely tried by the quaint old English custom of not making public speeches after private dinners. It was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that he now rose to his feet. Duke, he said, in low voice, which yet penetrated to every corner of the room, I guess I am voicing these gentlemen when I say that your words show up your good heart all the time. Your mentality, too, is bully as we all predicate. One may say without exaggeration that your scholarly and social attainments are a byword throughout the solar system and beyond. We rightly venerate you as our boss. Sir, we worship the ground you walk on, but we owe a duty to our own free and independent manhood. Sir, we worship the ground Miss Z. Dobson trades on. We have pegged out a claim right there, and from that location we aren't to be budged, not for Bob-not. We asseverate, we squat. Well, we squat, come what will. You say we have no chance to win Miss Z. Dobson? That we know. We aren't worthy. We lie prone. Let her walk over us. You say her heart is cold? We don't profess. We can take the chill out. But, sir, we can be diverted out of loving her, not even by you, sir. No, sir, we love her and shall and will, sir, with our latest breath. The peroration evoked loud applause. I love her and shall and will, shouted each man. And again they honoured in wine her image. Sir John Maraby uttered a cry familiar in the hunting field. The Macquern contributed a few bars of a sentimental ballad in the dialect of his country. Hurrah! Hurrah! shouted Mr. Trent Garby. Lord Sayes hummed the latest waltz, waving his arms to its rhythm. While the wine he had just spilt on his shirt front, trickled unheeded to his waistcoat. Mr. Hoover gave the Yale chair. The genial din was wafted down through the open window to the passer's by. The wine merchant across the way heard it and smiled pensively. Youth, youth, he murmured. The genial din grew louder. At any other time the Duke would have been jarred by the disgrace to the junta. But now, as he stood with bent head, covering his face with his hands, he thought only of the need to rid these young men here and now of the influence that had befallen them. Tomorrow his tragic example might be too late. The mischief might have sunk too deep. The agony be lifelong. His good-breeding forbade him to cast over a dinner-table the shadow of his death. His conscience insisted that he must. He uncovered his face and held up one hand for silence. We are all of us, he said, old enough to remember vividly the demonstrations made in the streets of London when war was declared between us and the Transvaal Republic. You, Mr. Hoover, doubtless heard in America the echoes of these ebullition. The general idea was that the war was going to be a brief and simple affair, what was called a walkover. To me, though I was only a small boy, it seemed that all this delirious pride in the prospect of crushing a trumpery foe argued a defect in our sense of proportion. Still I was able to understand the demonstrator's point of view, to the giddy vulgar any sort of victory is pleasant. But defeat? If when that war was declared, every one of us had been sure that not only should we fail to conquer the Transvaal, but that it would conquer us, that not only would it have made good its freedom and independence, but that we should have forfeited ours, how would the sights have felt then? Would they not have pulled long faces, spoken in whispers, wept? You must forgive me for saying that the noise you have just made around this table was very like the noise made on the verge of the Boer War, and your procedure seems to me as unaccountable as would have seemed the antics of those mobs if England had been plainly doomed to disaster and vacillage. My guest here tonight, in the course of his very eloquent and racy speech, spoke of the need that he and you should preserve your free and independent manhood. That seemed to me an irreproachable ideal. But I confess I was somewhat taken aback by my friend's scheme for realising it. He declared his intention of lying prone and letting Miss Dobson walk over him, and he advised you to follow his example, and to this council you gave evident approval. Gentlemen, suppose that on the verge of the aforesaid war some orator had said to the British people, it is going to be a walk over for our enemy in the field. Mr Kruger holds us in the hollow of his hand, in subjection to him we shall find our long-lost freedom and independence. What would have been Britannia's answer? What on reflection is yours to Mr Oever? What are Mr Oever's own second thoughts? The Duke paused, with a smile to his guest. Go right ahead, Duke, said Mr Oever, our reply when Martin comes. And not utterly demolish me, I hope, said the Duke. His was the Oxford manor. Gentlemen, he continued, is it possible that Britannia would have thrown her helmet in the air, shrieking slavery for ever? You gentlemen seem to think slavery a pleasant and unhonourable state. You have less experience of it than I. I have been enslaved to Miss Dobson since yesterday evening, you only since this afternoon. I at close quarters, you at a respectful distance. Your fetters have not galled you yet. My wrists, my ankles, are excoriated. The iron has entered into my soul. I droop, I stumble. Blood flows from me, I quiver and curse, I rise. The sun mocks me. The moon titters in my face. I can stand it no longer. I will know more of it. Tomorrow I die. The flushed faces of the diners grew gradually pale. Their eyes lost lustre, their tongues cloved to the roofs of their mouths. At length, almost inaudibly, the Macquern asked, Do you mean you're going to commit suicide? Yes, said the Duke, if you choose to put it that way. Yes, and it is early by chance that I did not commit suicide this afternoon. You don't say, gasped Mr. Hoover. I do indeed, said the Duke, and I ask you all to weigh well my message. But does Miss Dobson know? asked Sir John. Oh, yes, was the reply. Indeed, it was she who persuaded me not to die till tomorrow. But, but, faulted Lord says, I saw her saying good-bye to you in Deuter Street, she looked quite as if nothing had happened. Nothing had happened, said the Duke, and she was very much pleased to have me still with her. But she isn't so cruel as to hinder me from dying for her tomorrow. I don't think she exactly fixed the hour. It shall be just after the eights have been rode. An earlier death would mark in me a lack of courtesy to that contest. It seems strange to you that I should do this thing? Take warning by me. Master all your willpower and forget Miss Dobson. Tear up your tickets for the concert. Say here and play cards. Play high, or rather go back to your various colleges and speed the news I have told you. Put all Oxford on its guard against this woman who can love no lover. Let all Oxford know that I, Dorset, who had so much reason to love life, I, the non-parai, I am going to die for the love I bear this woman, and let no man think I go unwilling. I am no damn led to the slaughter. I am priest as well as victim. I offer myself up with a pious joy. Then enough of this cold's hebraism. It is ill-attuned to my soul's moon. Self-sacrifice, blah! Regard me as a voluptuary. I am that. All my baffled ardour speeds me to the bosom of death. She is gentle and wanton. She knows I could never have loved her for her own sake. She has no illusions about me. She knows well I come to her because, not otherwise, may I quench my passion. There was a long silence. The duke, looking around at the bent heads and drawn mouths of his auditors, saw that his words had gone home. It was Maraby who revealed how powerfully home they had gone. Dorset! he said huskily, I shall die too. The duke flung up his hands, staring wildly. Ah, stand in with that, said Mr. Hoover. Said, why? said Lord Sayes. And I, said Mr. Trent Garby, and I, the Macquern. The duke found voice. Are you mad? he asked, clutching at his throat. Are you all mad? No, Duke, said Mr. Hoover. Or if we are, you have no right to be at lunch. You have shown us the way. We take it. Just so, said the Macquern, stolidly. Listen, you fools! cried the duke. But through the open window came the vibrant stroke of some clock. He wheeled round, plucked out his watch. Nine! the concert! His promise not to be late! Zuleka! All other thoughts vanished. In an instant he dodged between the sash of the window. From the flower-box he sprang to the road beneath. The façade of the house is called to this day Dorset's Leap. A lighting with the legality of a cat, he swerved leftward in the recoil, and was off, like a streak of mulberry-coloured lightning down the high. The other men had rushed to the window, fearing the worst. No! cried Hoover. That's all right. Save time! And he raised himself onto the window-box. It splintered under his weight. He leapt, heavily but well, followed by some uprooted geraniums. Squaring his shoulders he threw back his head, and doubled down the slope. There was a violent jostle between the remaining men. The Macquern cannelly got out of it and rushed downstairs. He emerged at the front door, just after Maroby touched ground. The Baronet's left ankle had twisted under him. His face was drawn with pain as he hopped down the high on his right foot, fingering his ticket for the concert. Next let Lord Sayes, and last of all let Mr. Trent Garby, who, catching his foot in the ruined flower-box, fell headlong, and was, I regret to say, killed. Lord Sayes passed Sir John in a few paces. The Macquern overtook Mr. Hoover at St. Mary's and outstripped him in Radcliffe Square. The Duke came in uneasy first. Euth! Euth! End of Chapter 8