Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

If Zuleika, as she paced the gravel path, had seen how transfigured--how nobly like the Tragic Muse--she was just now, she could not have gone on bothering the Duke for a keepsake of the tragedy that was to be. She was still set on having his two studs. He was still firm in his refusal to misappropriate those heirlooms. In vain she pointed out to him that the pearls he meant, the white ones, no longer existed; that the pearls he was wearing were no more “entailed” than if he had got them yesterday. “And you actually DID get them yesterday,” she said. “And from me. And I want them back.” “You are ingenious,” he admitted. “I, in my simple way, am but head of the Tanville-Tankerton family. Had you accepted my offer of marriage, you would have had the right to wear these two pearls during your life-time. I am very happy to die for you. But tamper with the property of my successor I cannot and will not. I am sorry,” he added. “Sorry!” echoed Zuleika. “Yes, and you were ‘sorry’ you couldn’t dine with me to-night. But any little niggling scruple is more to you than I am. What old maids men are!” And viciously with her fan she struck one of the cloister pillars. Her outburst was lost on the Duke. At her taunt about his not dining with her, he had stood still, clapping one hand to his brow. The events of the early evening swept back to him--his speech, its unforeseen and horrible reception. He saw again the preternaturally solemn face of Oover, and the flushed faces of the rest. He had thought, as he pointed down to the abyss over which he stood, these fellows would recoil, and pull themselves together. They had recoiled, and pulled themselves together, only in the manner of athletes about to spring. He was responsible for them. His own life was his to lose: others he must not squander. Besides, he had reckoned to die alone, unique; aloft and apart... “There is something--something I had forgotten,” he said to Zuleika, “something that will be a great shock to you”; and he gave her an outline of what had passed at the Junta.