Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

It she took from the table, and, holding it aloft, cried “Now, before I say good night, I want to see if I have your confidence. But you mustn’t think this is the confidence trick!” She handed the vessel to The MacQuern, who, looking like an overgrown acolyte, bore it after her as she went again among the audience. Pausing before a man in the front row, she asked him if he would trust her with his watch. He held it out to her. “Thank you,” she said, letting her fingers touch his for a moment before she dropped it into the Magic Canister. From another man she borrowed a cigarette-case, from another a neck-tie, from another a pair of sleeve-links, from Noaks a ring--one of those iron rings which are supposed, rightly or wrongly, to alleviate rheumatism. And when she had made an ample selection, she began her return-journey to the table. On her way she saw in the shadow of the wall the figure of her forgotten Duke. She saw him, the one man she had ever loved, also the first man who had wished definitely to die for her; and she was touched by remorse. She had said she would remember him to her dying day; and already... But had he not refused her the wherewithal to remember him--the pearls she needed as the clou of her dear collection, the great relic among relics? “Would you trust me with your studs?” she asked him, in a voice that could be heard throughout the quadrangle, with a smile that was for him alone.