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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
197
In
rushed
Barrett
at
last.
From
the
tea-spoon
into
the
wine-glass
the
Duke
poured
the
draught
of
salvation,
and
then,
raising
it
aloft,
he
looked
around
at
his
fore-runners
and
in
a
firm
voice
cried
“Gentlemen,
I
give
you
Nellie
O’Mora,
the
fairest
witch
that
ever
was
or
will
be.”
He
drained
his
glass,
heaved
the
deep
sigh
of
a
double
satisfaction,
dismissed
with
a
glance
the
wondering
Barrett,
and
sat
down.
He
was
glad
to
be
able
to
face
Nellie
with
a
clear
conscience.
Her
eyes
were
not
less
sad
now,
but
it
seemed
to
him
that
their
sadness
came
of
a
knowledge
that
she
would
never
see
him
again.
She
seemed
to
be
saying
to
him
“Had
you
lived
in
my
day,
it
is
you
that
I
would
have
loved,
not
Greddon.”
And
he
made
silent
answer,
“Had
you
lived
in
my
day,
I
should
have
been
Dobson-proof.”
He
realised,
however,
that
to
Zuleika
he
owed
the
tenderness
he
now
felt
for
Miss
O’Mora.
It
was
Zuleika
that
had
cured
him
of
his
aseity.
She
it
was
that
had
made
his
heart
a
warm
and
negotiable
thing.
Yes,
and
that
was
the
final
cruelty.
To
love
and
be
loved--this,
he
had
come
to
know,
was
all
that
mattered.
Yesterday,
to
love
and
die
had
seemed
felicity
enough.
Now
he
knew
that
the
secret,
the
open
secret,
of
happiness
was
in
mutual
love--a
state
that
needed
not
the
fillip
of
death.
And
he
had
to
die
without
having
ever
lived.
Admiration,
homage,
fear,
he
had
sown
broadcast.
The
one
woman
who
had
loved
him
had
turned
to
stone
because
he
loved
her.
Death
would
lose
much
of
its
sting
for
him
if
there
were
somewhere
in
the
world
just
one
woman,
however
lowly,
whose
heart
would
be
broken
by
his
dying.
What
a
pity
Nellie
O’Mora
was
not
really
extant!
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