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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
193
Two
other
undergraduates
approached.
The
Duke
asked
them
simply
as
a
personal
favour
to
himself
not
to
throw
away
their
lives.
They
said
they
were
very
sorry,
but
in
this
particular
matter
they
must
please
themselves.
In
vain
he
pled.
They
admitted
that
but
for
his
example
they
would
never
have
thought
of
dying.
They
wished
they
could
show
him
their
gratitude
in
any
way
but
the
one
which
would
rob
them
of
it.
The
Duke
drifted
further
down
the
High,
bespeaking
every
undergraduate
he
met,
leaving
untried
no
argument,
no
inducement.
For
one
man,
whose
name
he
happened
to
know,
he
invented
an
urgent
personal
message
from
Miss
Dobson
imploring
him
not
to
die
on
her
account.
On
another
man
he
offered
to
settle
by
hasty
codicil
a
sum
of
money
sufficient
to
yield
an
annual
income
of
two
thousand
pounds--three
thousand--any
sum
within
reason.
With
another
he
offered
to
walk,
arm
in
arm,
to
Carfax
and
back
again.
All
to
no
avail.
He
found
himself
in
the
precincts
of
Magdalen,
preaching
from
the
little
open-air
pulpit
there
an
impassioned
sermon
on
the
sacredness
of
human
life,
and
referring
to
Zuleika
in
terms
which
John
Knox
would
have
hesitated
to
utter.
As
he
piled
up
the
invective,
he
noticed
an
ominous
restiveness
in
the
congregation--murmurs,
clenching
of
hands,
dark
looks.
He
saw
the
pulpit
as
yet
another
trap
laid
for
him
by
the
gods.
He
had
walked
straight
into
it:
another
moment,
and
he
might
be
dragged
down,
overwhelmed
by
numbers,
torn
limb
from
limb.
All
that
was
in
him
of
quelling
power
he
put
hastily
into
his
eyes,
and
manoeuvred
his
tongue
to
gentler
discourse,
deprecating
his
right
to
judge
“this
lady,”
and
merely
pointing
the
marvel,
the
awful
though
noble
folly,
of
his
resolve.
He
ended
on
a
note
of
quiet
pathos.
“To-night
I
shall
be
among
the
shades.
There
be
not
you,
my
brothers.”
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