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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
140
There
was
no
help
for
it.
He
quickly
extricated
from
his
shirt-front
the
black
pearl
and
the
pink.
Her
thanks
had
a
special
emphasis.
The
MacQuern
placed
the
Magic
Canister
before
her
on
the
table.
She
pressed
the
outer
sheath
down
on
it.
Then
she
inverted
it
so
that
the
contents
fell
into
the
false
lid;
then
she
opened
it,
looked
into
it,
and,
exclaiming
“Well,
this
is
rather
queer!”
held
it
up
so
that
the
audience
whose
intelligence
she
was
insulting
might
see
there
was
nothing
in
it.
“Accidents,”
she
said,
“will
happen
in
the
best-regulated
canisters!
But
I
think
there
is
just
a
chance
that
I
shall
be
able
to
restore
your
property.
Excuse
me
for
a
moment.”
She
then
shut
the
canister,
released
the
false
lid,
made
several
passes
over
it,
opened
it,
looked
into
it
and
said
with
a
flourish
“Now
I
can
clear
my
character!”
Again
she
went
among
the
crowd,
attended
by
The
MacQuern;
and
the
loans--priceless
now
because
she
had
touched
them--were
in
due
course
severally
restored.
When
she
took
the
canister
from
her
acolyte,
only
the
two
studs
remained
in
it.
Not
since
the
night
of
her
flitting
from
the
Gibbs’
humble
home
had
Zuleika
thieved.
Was
she
a
back-slider?
Would
she
rob
the
Duke,
and
his
heir-presumptive,
and
Tanville-Tankertons
yet
unborn?
Alas,
yes.
But
what
she
now
did
was
proof
that
she
had
qualms.
And
her
way
of
doing
it
showed
that
for
legerdemain
she
had
after
all
a
natural
aptitude
which,
properly
trained,
might
have
won
for
her
an
honourable
place
in
at
least
the
second
rank
of
contemporary
prestidigitators.
With
a
gesture
of
her
disengaged
hand,
so
swift
as
to
be
scarcely
visible,
she
unhooked
her
ear-rings
and
“passed”
them
into
the
canister.
This
she
did
as
she
turned
away
from
the
crowd,
on
her
way
to
the
Duke.
At
the
same
moment,
in
a
manner
technically
not
less
good,
though
morally
deplorable,
she
withdrew
the
studs
and
“vanished”
them
into
her
bosom.
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