Zuleika Dobson; Or, An Oxford Love Story

“You looked, I am bound to say, nobler, more spiritual.” “More spiritual?” she exclaimed. “Do you mean I looked tired or ill?” “No, you seemed quite fresh. But then, you are singular. You are no criterion.” “You mean you can’t judge those two young men by me? Well, I am only a woman, of course. I have heard of women, no longer young, wasting away because no man loved them. I have often heard of a young woman fretting because some particular young man didn’t love her. But I never heard of her wasting away. Certainly a young man doesn’t waste away for love of some particular young woman. He very soon makes love to some other one. If his be an ardent nature, the quicker his transition. All the most ardent of my past adorers have married. Will you put my cup down, please?” “Past?” echoed the Duke, as he placed her cup on the floor. “Have any of your lovers ceased to love you?” “Ah no, no; not in retrospect. I remain their ideal, and all that, of course. They cherish the thought of me. They see the world in terms of me. But I am an inspiration, not an obsession; a glow, not a blight.” “You don’t believe in the love that corrodes, the love that ruins?” “No,” laughed Zuleika. “You have never dipped into the Greek pastoral poets, nor sampled the Elizabethan sonneteers?” “No, never. You will think me lamentably crude: my experience of life has been drawn from life itself.”