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Zuleika Dobson
CHAPTER 8
Max Beerbohm
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       _ A few minutes before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner,
       passed leisurely up the High. The arresting feature of his costume was
       a mulberry-coloured coat, with brass buttons. This, to any one versed
       in Oxford lore, betokened him a member of the Junta. It is awful to
       think that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It
       does not do to think of such things.
       The tradesmen, at the doors of their shops, bowed low as he passed,
       rubbing their hands and smiling, hoping inwardly that they took no
       liberty in sharing the cool rosy air of the evening with his Grace.
       They noted that he wore in his shirt-front a black pearl and a pink.
       "Daring, but becoming," they opined.
       The rooms of the Junta were over a stationer's shop, next door but one
       to the Mitre. They were small rooms; but as the Junta had now, besides
       the Duke, only two members, and as no member might introduce more than
       one guest, there was ample space.
       The Duke had been elected in his second term. At that time there were
       four members; but these were all leaving Oxford at the end of the
       summer term, and there seemed to be in the ranks of the Bullingdon and
       the Loder no one quite eligible for the Junta, that holy of holies.
       Thus it was that the Duke inaugurated in solitude his second year of
       membership. From time to time, he proposed and seconded a few
       candidates, after "sounding" them as to whether they were willing to
       join. But always, when election evening--the last Tuesday of term--
       drew near, he began to have his doubts about these fellows. This one
       was "rowdy"; that one was over-dressed; another did not ride quite
       straight to hounds; in the pedigree of another a bar-sinister was more
       than suspected. Election evening was always a rather melancholy time.
       After dinner, when the two club servants had placed on the mahogany
       the time-worn Candidates' Book and the ballot-box, and had noiselessly
       withdrawn, the Duke, clearing his throat, read aloud to himself "Mr.
       So-and-So, of Such-and-Such College, proposed by the Duke of Dorset,
       seconded by the Duke of Dorset," and, in every case, when he drew out
       the drawer of the ballot-box, found it was a black-ball that he had
       dropped into the urn. Thus it was that at the end of the summer term
       the annual photographic "group" taken by Messrs. Hills and Saunders
       was a presentment of the Duke alone.
       In the course of his third year he had become less exclusive. Not
       because there seemed to be any one really worthy of the Junta; but
       because the Junta, having thriven since the eighteenth century, must
       not die. Suppose--one never knew--he were struck by lightning, the
       Junta would be no more. So, not without reluctance, but unanimously,
       he had elected The MacQuern, of Balliol, and Sir John Marraby, of
       Brasenose.
       To-night, as he, a doomed man, went up into the familiar rooms, he was
       wholly glad that he had thus relented. As yet, he was spared the
       tragic knowledge that it would make no difference.*
       * The Junta has been reconstituted. But the apostolic line was
       broken, the thread was snapped; the old magic is fled.
       The MacQuern and two other young men were already there.
       "Mr. President," said The MacQuern, "I present Mr. Trent-Garby, of
       Christ Church."
       "The Junta is honoured," said the Duke, bowing.
       Such was the ritual of the club.
       The other young man, because his host, Sir John Marraby, was not yet
       on the scene, had no locus standi, and, though a friend of The
       MacQuern, and well known to the Duke, had to be ignored.
       A moment later, Sir John arrived. "Mr. President," he said, "I present
       Lord Sayes, of Magdalen."
       "The Junta is honoured," said the Duke, bowing.
       Both hosts and both guests, having been prominent in the throng that
       vociferated around Zuleika an hour earlier, were slightly abashed in
       the Duke's presence. He, however, had not noticed any one in
       particular, and, even if he had, that fine tradition of the club--"A
       member of the Junta can do no wrong; a guest of the Junta cannot
       err"--would have prevented him from showing his displeasure.
       A Herculean figure filled the doorway.
       "The Junta is honoured," said the Duke, bowing to his guest.
       "Duke," said the newcomer quietly, "the honour is as much mine as that
       of the interesting and ancient institution which I am this night
       privileged to inspect."
       Turning to Sir John and The MacQuern, the Duke said "I present Mr.
       Abimelech V. Oover, of Trinity."
       "The Junta," they replied, "is honoured."
       "Gentlemen," said the Rhodes Scholar, "your good courtesy is just such
       as I would have anticipated from members of the ancient Junta. Like
       most of my countrymen, I am a man of few words. We are habituated out
       there to act rather than talk. Judged from the view-point of your
       beautiful old civilisation, I am aware my curtness must seem crude.
       But, gentlemen, believe me, right here--"
       "Dinner is served, your Grace."
       Thus interrupted, Mr. Oover, with the resourcefulness of a practised
       orator, brought his thanks to a quick but not abrupt conclusion. The
       little company passed into the front room.
       Through the window, from the High, fading daylight mingled with the
       candle-light. The mulberry coats of the hosts, interspersed by the
       black ones of the guests, made a fine pattern around the oval table
       a-gleam with the many curious pieces of gold and silver plate that had
       accrued to the Junta in course of years.
       The President showed much deference to his guest. He seemed to listen
       with close attention to the humorous anecdote with which, in the
       American fashion, Mr. Oover inaugurated dinner.
       To all Rhodes Scholars, indeed, his courtesy was invariable. He went
       out of his way to cultivate them. And this he did more as a favour to
       Lord Milner than of his own caprice. He found these Scholars, good
       fellows though they were, rather oppressive. They had not--how could
       they have?--the undergraduate's virtue of taking Oxford as a matter of
       course. The Germans loved it too little, the Colonials too much. The
       Americans were, to a sensitive observer, the most troublesome--as
       being the most troubled--of the whole lot. The Duke was not one of
       those Englishmen who fling, or care to hear flung, cheap sneers at
       America. Whenever any one in his presence said that America was not
       large in area, he would firmly maintain that it was. He held, too, in
       his enlightened way, that Americans have a perfect right to exist. But
       he did often find himself wishing Mr. Rhodes had not enabled them to
       exercise that right in Oxford. They were so awfully afraid of having
       their strenuous native characters undermined by their delight in the
       place. They held that the future was theirs, a glorious asset, far
       more glorious than the past. But a theory, as the Duke saw, is one
       thing, an emotion another. It is so much easier to covet what one
       hasn't than to revel in what one has. Also, it is so much easier to be
       enthusiastic about what exists than about what doesn't. The future
       doesn't exist. The past does. For, whereas all men can learn, the gift
       of prophecy has died out. A man cannot work up in his breast any real
       excitement about what possibly won't happen. He cannot very well help
       being sentimentally interested in what he knows has happened. On the
       other hand, he owes a duty to his country. And, if his country be
       America, he ought to try to feel a vivid respect for the future, and a
       cold contempt for the past. Also, if he be selected by his country as
       a specimen of the best moral, physical, and intellectual type that she
       can produce for the astounding of the effete foreigner, and
       incidentally for the purpose of raising that foreigner's tone, he
       must--mustn't he?--do his best to astound, to exalt. But then comes in
       this difficulty. Young men don't like to astound and exalt their
       fellows. And Americans, individually, are of all people the most
       anxious to please. That they talk overmuch is often taken as a sign of
       self-satisfaction. It is merely a mannerism. Rhetoric is a thing
       inbred in them. They are quite unconscious of it. It is as natural to
       them as breathing. And, while they talk on, they really do believe
       that they are a quick, businesslike people, by whom things are "put
       through" with an almost brutal abruptness. This notion of theirs is
       rather confusing to the patient English auditor.
       Altogether, the American Rhodes Scholars, with their splendid native
       gift of oratory, and their modest desire to please, and their not less
       evident feeling that they ought merely to edify, and their constant
       delight in all that of Oxford their English brethren don't notice, and
       their constant fear that they are being corrupted, are a noble, rather
       than a comfortable, element in the social life of the University. So,
       at least, they seemed to the Duke.
       And to-night, but that he had invited Oover to dine with him, he could
       have been dining with Zuleika. And this was his last dinner on earth.
       Such thoughts made him the less able to take pleasure in his guest.
       Perfect, however, the amenity of his manner.
       This was the more commendable because Oover's "aura" was even more
       disturbing than that of the average Rhodes Scholar. To-night, besides
       the usual conflicts in this young man's bosom, raged a special one
       between his desire to behave well and his jealousy of the man who had
       to-day been Miss Dobson's escort. In theory he denied the Duke's right
       to that honour. In sentiment he admitted it. Another conflict, you
       see. And another. He longed to orate about the woman who had his
       heart; yet she was the one topic that must be shirked.
       The MacQuern and Mr. Trent-Garby, Sir John Marraby and Lord Sayes,
       they too--though they were no orators--would fain have unpacked
       their hearts in words about Zuleika. They spoke of this and that,
       automatically, none listening to another--each man listening, wide-
       eyed, to his own heart's solo on the Zuleika theme, and drinking
       rather more champagne than was good for him. Maybe, these youths sowed
       in themselves, on this night, the seeds of lifelong intemperance. We
       cannot tell. They did not live long enough for us to know.
       While the six dined, a seventh, invisible to them, leaned moodily
       against the mantel-piece, watching them. He was not of their time. His
       long brown hair was knotted in a black riband behind. He wore a pale
       brocaded coat and lace ruffles, silken stockings, a sword. Privy to
       their doom, he watched them. He was loth that his Junta must die. Yes,
       his. Could the diners have seen him, they would have known him by his
       resemblance to the mezzotint portrait that hung on the wall above him.
       They would have risen to their feet in presence of Humphrey Greddon,
       founder and first president of the club.
       His face was not so oval, nor were his eyes so big, nor his lips so
       full, nor his hands so delicate, as they appeared in the mezzotint.
       Yet (bating the conventions of eighteenth-century portraiture) the
       likeness was a good one. Humphrey Greddon was not less well-knit and
       graceful than the painter had made him, and, hard though the lines of
       the face were, there was about him a certain air of high romance that
       could not be explained away by the fact that he was of a period not
       our own. You could understand the great love that Nellie O'Mora had
       borne him.
       Under the mezzotint hung Hoppner's miniature of that lovely and ill-
       starred girl, with her soft dark eyes, and her curls all astray from
       beneath her little blue turban. And the Duke was telling Mr. Oover her
       story--how she had left her home for Humphrey Greddon when she was but
       sixteen, and he an undergraduate at Christ Church; and had lived for
       him in a cottage at Littlemore, whither he would ride, most days, to
       be with her; and how he tired of her, broke his oath that he would
       marry her, thereby broke her heart; and how she drowned herself in a
       mill-pond; and how Greddon was killed in Venice, two years later,
       duelling on the Riva Schiavoni with a Senator whose daughter he had
       seduced.
       And he, Greddon, was not listening very attentively to the tale. He
       had heard it told so often in this room, and he did not understand the
       sentiments of the modern world. Nellie had been a monstrous pretty
       creature. He had adored her, and had done with her. It was right that
       she should always be toasted after dinner by the Junta, as in the days
       when first he loved her--"Here's to Nellie O'Mora, the fairest witch
       that ever was or will be!" He would have resented the omission of that
       toast. But he was sick of the pitying, melting looks that were always
       cast towards her miniature. Nellie had been beautiful, but, by God!
       she was always a dunce and a simpleton. How could he have spent his
       life with her? She was a fool, by God! not to marry that fool Trailby,
       of Merton, whom he took to see her.
       Mr. Oover's moral tone, and his sense of chivalry, were of the
       American kind: far higher than ours, even, and far better expressed.
       Whereas the English guests of the Junta, when they heard the tale of
       Nellie O'Mora, would merely murmur "Poor girl!" or "What a shame!" Mr.
       Oover said in a tone of quiet authority that compelled Greddon's ear
       "Duke, I hope I am not incognisant of the laws that govern the
       relations of guest and host. But, Duke, I aver deliberately that the
       founder of this fine old club; at which you are so splendidly
       entertaining me to-night, was an unmitigated scoundrel. I say he was
       not a white man."
       At the word "scoundrel," Humphrey Greddon had sprung forward, drawing
       his sword, and loudly, in a voice audible to himself alone, challenged
       the American to make good his words. Then, as this gentleman took no
       notice, with one clean straight thrust Greddon ran him through the
       heart, shouting "Die, you damned psalm-singer and traducer! And so die
       all rebels against King George!"* Withdrawing the blade, he wiped it
       daintily on his cambric handkerchief. There was no blood. Mr. Oover,
       with unpunctured shirt-front, was repeating "I say he was not a white
       man." And Greddon remembered himself--remembered he was only a ghost,
       impalpable, impotent, of no account. "But I shall meet you in Hell
       to-morrow," he hissed in Oover's face. And there he was wrong. It is
       quite certain that Oover went to Heaven.
       * As Edward VII. was at this time on the throne, it must have been
       to George III. that Mr. Greddon was referring.
       Unable to avenge himself, Greddon had looked to the Duke to act for
       him. When he saw that this young man did but smile at Oover and make a
       vague deprecatory gesture, he again, in his wrath, forgot his
       disabilities. Drawing himself to his full height, he took with great
       deliberation a pinch of snuff, and, bowing low to the Duke, said "I am
       vastly obleeged to your Grace for the fine high Courage you have
       exhibited in the behalf of your most Admiring, most Humble Servant."
       Then, having brushed away a speck of snuff from his jabot, he turned
       on his heel; and only in the doorway, where one of the club servants,
       carrying a decanter in each hand, walked straight through him, did he
       realise that he had not spoilt the Duke's evening. With a volley of
       the most appalling eighteenth-century oaths, he passed back into the
       nether world.
       To the Duke, Nellie O'Mora had never been a very vital figure. He had
       often repeated the legend of her. But, having never known what love
       was, he could not imagine her rapture or her anguish. Himself the
       quarry of all Mayfair's wise virgins, he had always--so far as he
       thought of the matter at all--suspected that Nellie's death was due to
       thwarted ambition. But to-night, while he told Oover about her, he
       could see into her soul. Nor did he pity her. She had loved. She had
       known the one thing worth living for--and dying for. She, as she went
       down to the mill-pond, had felt just that ecstasy of self-sacrifice
       which he himself had felt to-day and would feel to-morrow. And for a
       while, too--for a full year--she had known the joy of being loved, had
       been for Greddon "the fairest witch that ever was or will be." He
       could not agree with Oover's long disquisition on her sufferings. And,
       glancing at her well-remembered miniature, he wondered just what it
       was in her that had captivated Greddon. He was in that blest state
       when a man cannot believe the earth has been trodden by any really
       beautiful or desirable lady save the lady of his own heart.
       The moment had come for the removal of the table-cloth. The mahogany
       of the Junta was laid bare--a clear dark lake, anon to reflect in its
       still and ruddy depths the candelabras and the fruit-cradles, the
       slender glasses and the stout old decanters, the forfeit-box and the
       snuff-box, and other paraphernalia of the dignity of dessert. Lucidly,
       and unwaveringly inverted in the depths these good things stood; and,
       so soon as the wine had made its circuit, the Duke rose and with
       uplifted glass proposed the first of the two toasts traditional to the
       Junta. "Gentlemen, I give you Church and State."
       The toast having been honoured by all--and by none with a richer
       reverence than by Oover, despite his passionate mental reservation in
       favour of Pittsburg-Anabaptism and the Republican Ideal--the snuff-box
       was handed round, and fruit was eaten.
       Presently, when the wine had gone round again, the Duke rose and with
       uplifted glass said "Gentlemen, I give you--" and there halted.
       Silent, frowning, flushed, he stood for a few moments, and then, with
       a deliberate gesture, tilted his glass and let fall the wine to the
       carpet. "No," he said, looking round the table, "I cannot give you
       Nellie O'Mora."
       "Why not?" gasped Sir John Marraby.
       "You have a right to ask that," said the Duke, still standing. "I can
       only say that my conscience is stronger than my sense of what is due
       to the customs of the club. Nellie O'Mora," he said, passing his hand
       over his brow, "may have been in her day the fairest witch that ever
       was--so fair that our founder had good reason to suppose her the
       fairest witch that ever would be. But his prediction was a false one.
       So at least it seems to me. Of course I cannot both hold this view and
       remain President of this club. MacQuern--Marraby--which of you is
       Vice-President?"
       "He is," said Marraby.
       "Then, MacQuern, you are hereby President, vice myself resigned. Take
       the chair and propose the toast."
       "I would rather not," said The MacQuern after a pause.
       "Then, Marraby, YOU must."
       "Not I!" said Marraby.
       "Why is this?" asked the Duke, looking from one to the other.
       The MacQuern, with Scotch caution, was silent. But the impulsive
       Marraby--Madcap Marraby, as they called him in B.N.C.--said "It's
       because I won't lie!" and, leaping up, raised his glass aloft and
       cried "I give you Zuleika Dobson, the fairest witch that ever was or
       will be!"
       Mr. Oover, Lord Sayes, Mr. Trent-Garby, sprang to their feet; The
       MacQuern rose to his. "Zuleika Dobson!" they cried, and drained their
       glasses.
       Then, when they had resumed their seats, came an awkward pause. The
       Duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave
       and pale. Marraby had taken an outrageous liberty. But "a member of
       the Junta can do no wrong," and the liberty could not be resented. The
       Duke felt that the blame was on himself, who had elected Marraby to
       the club.
       Mr. Oover, too, looked grave. All the antiquarian in him deplored the
       sudden rupture of a fine old Oxford tradition. All the chivalrous
       American in him resented the slight on that fair victim of the feudal
       system, Miss O'Mora. And, at the same time, all the Abimelech V. in
       him rejoiced at having honoured by word and act the one woman in the
       world.
       Gazing around at the flushed faces and heaving shirt-fronts of the
       diners, the Duke forgot Marraby's misdemeanour. What mattered far more
       to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of
       Zuleika. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his
       influence was in the University. He knew also how strong was
       Zuleika's. He had not much hope of the issue. But his new-born sense
       of duty to his fellows spurred him on. "Is there," he asked with a
       bitter smile, "any one of you who doesn't with his whole heart love
       Miss Dobson?"
       Nobody held up a hand.
       "As I feared," said the Duke, knowing not that if a hand had been held
       up he would have taken it as a personal insult. No man really in love
       can forgive another for not sharing his ardour. His jealousy for
       himself when his beloved prefers another man is hardly a stronger
       passion than his jealousy for her when she is not preferred to all
       other women.
       "You know her only by sight--by repute?" asked the Duke. They
       signified that this was so. "I wish you would introduce me to her,"
       said Marraby.
       "You are all coming to the Judas concert tonight?" the Duke asked,
       ignoring Marraby. "You have all secured tickets?" They nodded. "To
       hear me play, or to see Miss Dobson?" There was a murmur of "Both--
       both." "And you would all of you, like Marraby, wish to be presented
       to this lady?" Their eyes dilated. "That way happiness lies, think
       you?"
       "Oh, happiness be hanged!" said Marraby.
       To the Duke this seemed a profoundly sane remark--an epitome of his
       own sentiments. But what was right for himself was not right for all.
       He believed in convention as the best way for average mankind. And so,
       slowly, calmly, he told to his fellow-diners just what he had told a
       few hours earlier to those two young men in Salt Cellar. Not knowing
       that his words had already been spread throughout Oxford, he was
       rather surprised that they seemed to make no sensation. Quite flat,
       too, fell his appeal that the syren be shunned by all.
       Mr. Oover, during his year of residence, had been sorely tried by the
       quaint old English custom of not making public speeches after private
       dinners. It was with a deep sigh of satisfaction that he now rose to
       his feet.
       "Duke," he said in a low voice, which yet penetrated to every corner
       of the room, "I guess I am voicing these gentlemen when I say that
       your words show up your good heart, all the time. Your mentality, too,
       is bully, as we all predicate. One may say without exaggeration that
       your scholarly and social attainments are a by-word throughout the
       solar system, and be-yond. We rightly venerate you as our boss. Sir,
       we worship the ground you walk on. But we owe a duty to our own free
       and independent manhood. Sir, we worship the ground Miss Z. Dobson
       treads on. We have pegged out a claim right there. And from that
       location we aren't to be budged--not for bob-nuts. We asseverate we
       squat--where--we--squat, come--what--will. You say we have no chance
       to win Miss Z. Dobson. That--we--know. We aren't worthy. We lie prone.
       Let her walk over us. You say her heart is cold. We don't pro-fess we
       can take the chill off. But, Sir, we can't be diverted out of loving
       her--not even by you, Sir. No, Sir! We love her, and--shall, and--
       will, Sir, with--our--latest breath."
       This peroration evoked loud applause. "I love her, and shall, and
       will," shouted each man. And again they honoured in wine her image.
       Sir John Marraby uttered a cry familiar in the hunting-field. The
       MacQuern contributed a few bars of a sentimental ballad in the dialect
       of his country. "Hurrah, hurrah!" shouted Mr. Trent-Garby. Lord Sayes
       hummed the latest waltz, waving his arms to its rhythm, while the wine
       he had just spilt on his shirt-front trickled unheeded to his
       waistcoat. Mr. Oover gave the Yale cheer.
       The genial din was wafted down through the open window to the passers-
       by. The wine-merchant across the way heard it, and smiled pensively.
       "Youth, youth!" he murmured.
       The genial din grew louder.
       At any other time, the Duke would have been jarred by the disgrace to
       the Junta. But now, as he stood with bent head, covering his face with
       his hands, he thought only of the need to rid these young men, here
       and now, of the influence that had befallen them. To-morrow his tragic
       example might be too late, the mischief have sunk too deep, the agony
       be life-long. His good breeding forbade him to cast over a dinner-
       table the shadow of his death. His conscience insisted that he must.
       He uncovered his face, and held up one hand for silence.
       "We are all of us," he said, "old enough to remember vividly the
       demonstrations made in the streets of London when war was declared
       between us and the Transvaal Republic. You, Mr. Oover, doubtless heard
       in America the echoes of those ebullitions. The general idea was that
       the war was going to be a very brief and simple affair--what was
       called 'a walk-over.' To me, though I was only a small boy, it seemed
       that all this delirious pride in the prospect of crushing a trumpery
       foe argued a defect in our sense of proportion. Still, I was able to
       understand the demonstrators' point of view. To 'the giddy vulgar' any
       sort of victory is pleasant. But defeat? If, when that war was
       declared, every one had been sure that not only should we fail to
       conquer the Transvaal, but that IT would conquer US--that not only
       would it make good its freedom and independence, but that we should
       forfeit ours--how would the cits have felt then? Would they not have
       pulled long faces, spoken in whispers, wept? You must forgive me for
       saying that the noise you have just made around this table was very
       like to the noise made on the verge of the Boer War. And your
       procedure seems to me as unaccountable as would have seemed the
       antics of those mobs if England had been plainly doomed to disaster
       and to vassalage. My guest here to-night, in the course of his very
       eloquent and racy speech, spoke of the need that he and you should
       preserve your 'free and independent manhood.' That seemed to me an
       irreproachable ideal. But I confess I was somewhat taken aback by my
       friend's scheme for realising it. He declared his intention of lying
       prone and letting Miss Dobson 'walk over' him; and he advised you to
       follow his example; and to this counsel you gave evident approval.
       Gentlemen, suppose that on the verge of the aforesaid war, some orator
       had said to the British people 'It is going to be a walk-over for our
       enemy in the field. Mr. Kruger holds us in the hollow of his hand.
       In subjection to him we shall find our long-lost freedom and
       independence'--what would have been Britannia's answer? What, on
       reflection, is yours to Mr. Oover? What are Mr. Oover's own second
       thoughts?" The Duke paused, with a smile to his guest.
       "Go right ahead, Duke," said Mr. Oover. "I'll re-ply when my turn
       comes."
       "And not utterly demolish me, I hope," said the Duke. His was the
       Oxford manner. "Gentlemen," he continued, "is it possible that
       Britannia would have thrown her helmet in the air, shrieking 'Slavery
       for ever'? You, gentlemen, seem to think slavery a pleasant and an
       honourable state. You have less experience of it than I. I have been
       enslaved to Miss Dobson since yesterday evening; you, only since this
       afternoon; I, at close quarters; you, at a respectful distance. Your
       fetters have not galled you yet. MY wrists, MY ankles, are excoriated.
       The iron has entered into my soul. I droop. I stumble. Blood flows
       from me. I quiver and curse. I writhe. The sun mocks me. The moon
       titters in my face. I can stand it no longer. I will no more of it.
       Tomorrow I die."
       The flushed faces of the diners grew gradually pale. Their eyes lost
       lustre. Their tongues clove to the roofs of their mouths.
       At length, almost inaudibly, The MacQuern asked "Do you mean you are
       going to commit suicide?"
       "Yes," said the Duke, "if you choose to put it in that way. Yes. And
       it is only by a chance that I did not commit suicide this afternoon."
       "You--don't--say," gasped Mr. Oover.
       "I do indeed," said the Duke. "And I ask you all to weigh well my
       message."
       "But--but does Miss Dobson know?" asked Sir John.
       "Oh yes," was the reply. "Indeed, it was she who persuaded me not to
       die till to-morrow."
       "But--but," faltered Lord Sayes, "I saw her saying good-bye to you in
       Judas Street. And--and she looked quite--as if nothing had happened."
       "Nothing HAD happened," said the Duke. "And she was very much pleased
       to have me still with her. But she isn't so cruel as to hinder me from
       dying for her to-morrow. I don't think she exactly fixed the hour. It
       shall be just after the Eights have been rowed. An earlier death would
       mark in me a lack of courtesy to that contest . . . It seems strange
       to you that I should do this thing? Take warning by me. Muster all
       your will-power, and forget Miss Dobson. Tear up your tickets for the
       concert. Stay here and play cards. Play high. Or rather, go back to
       your various Colleges, and speed the news I have told you. Put all
       Oxford on its guard against this woman who can love no lover. Let all
       Oxford know that I, Dorset, who had so much reason to love life--I,
       the nonpareil--am going to die for the love I bear this woman. And let
       no man think I go unwilling. I am no lamb led to the slaughter. I am
       priest as well as victim. I offer myself up with a pious joy. But
       enough of this cold Hebraism! It is ill-attuned to my soul's mood.
       Self-sacrifice--bah! Regard me as a voluptuary. I am that. All my
       baffled ardour speeds me to the bosom of Death. She is gentle and
       wanton. She knows I could never have loved her for her own sake. She
       has no illusions about me. She knows well I come to her because not
       otherwise may I quench my passion."
       There was a long silence. The Duke, looking around at the bent heads
       and drawn mouths of his auditors, saw that his words had gone home. It
       was Marraby who revealed how powerfully home they had gone.
       "Dorset," he said huskily, "I shall die too."
       The Duke flung up his hands, staring wildly.
       "I stand in with that," said Mr. Oover.
       "So do I!" said Lord Sayes. "And I!" said Mr. Trent-Garby; "And I!"
       The MacQuern.
       The Duke found voice. "Are you mad?" he asked, clutching at his
       throat. "Are you all mad?"
       "No, Duke," said Mr. Oover. "Or, if we are, you have no right to be at
       large. You have shown us the way. We--take it."
       "Just so," said The MacQuern, stolidly.
       "Listen, you fools," cried the Duke. But through the open window came
       the vibrant stroke of some clock. He wheeled round, plucked out his
       watch--nine!--the concert!--his promise not to be late!--Zuleika!
       All other thoughts vanished. In an instant he dodged beneath the sash
       of the window. From the flower-box he sprang to the road beneath. (The
       facade of the house is called, to this day, Dorset's Leap.) Alighting
       with the legerity of a cat, he swerved leftward in the recoil, and was
       off, like a streak of mulberry-coloured lightning, down the High.
       The other men had rushed to the window, fearing the worst. "No," cried
       Oover. "That's all right. Saves time!" and he raised himself on to the
       window-box. It splintered under his weight. He leapt heavily but well,
       followed by some uprooted geraniums. Squaring his shoulders, he threw
       back his head, and doubled down the slope.
       There was a violent jostle between the remaining men. The MacQuern
       cannily got out of it, and rushed downstairs. He emerged at the front-
       door just after Marraby touched ground. The Baronet's left ankle had
       twisted under him. His face was drawn with pain as he hopped down the
       High on his right foot, fingering his ticket for the concert. Next
       leapt Lord Sayes. And last of all leapt Mr. Trent-Garby, who, catching
       his foot in the ruined flower-box, fell headlong, and was, I regret to
       say, killed. Lord Sayes passed Sir John in a few paces. The MacQuern
       overtook Mr. Oover at St. Mary's and outstripped him in Radcliffe
       Square. The Duke came in an easy first.
       Youth, youth! _