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Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story
·
Sir Max Beerbohm
8
Zuleika
was
not
strictly
beautiful.
Her
eyes
were
a
trifle
large,
and
their
lashes
longer
than
they
need
have
been.
An
anarchy
of
small
curls
was
her
chevelure,
a
dark
upland
of
misrule,
every
hair
asserting
its
rights
over
a
not
discreditable
brow.
For
the
rest,
her
features
were
not
at
all
original.
They
seemed
to
have
been
derived
rather
from
a
gallimaufry
of
familiar
models.
From
Madame
la
Marquise
de
Saint-Ouen
came
the
shapely
tilt
of
the
nose.
The
mouth
was
a
mere
replica
of
Cupid’s
bow,
lacquered
scarlet
and
strung
with
the
littlest
pearls.
No
apple-tree,
no
wall
of
peaches,
had
not
been
robbed,
nor
any
Tyrian
rose-garden,
for
the
glory
of
Miss
Dobson’s
cheeks.
Her
neck
was
imitation-marble.
Her
hands
and
feet
were
of
very
mean
proportions.
She
had
no
waist
to
speak
of.
Yet,
though
a
Greek
would
have
railed
at
her
asymmetry,
and
an
Elizabethan
have
called
her
“gipsy,”
Miss
Dobson
now,
in
the
midst
of
the
Edwardian
Era,
was
the
toast
of
two
hemispheres.
Late
in
her
‘teens
she
had
become
an
orphan
and
a
governess.
Her
grandfather
had
refused
her
appeal
for
a
home
or
an
allowance,
on
the
ground
that
he
would
not
be
burdened
with
the
upshot
of
a
marriage
which
he
had
once
forbidden
and
not
yet
forgiven.
Lately,
however,
prompted
by
curiosity
or
by
remorse,
he
had
asked
her
to
spend
a
week
or
so
of
his
declining
years
with
him.
And
she,
“resting”
between
two
engagements--one
at
Hammerstein’s
Victoria,
N.Y.C.,
the
other
at
the
Folies
Bergeres,
Paris--and
having
never
been
in
Oxford,
had
so
far
let
bygones
be
bygones
as
to
come
and
gratify
the
old
man’s
whim.
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