Zuleika Dobson - Max Beerbohm (good e books to read txt) 📗

only in the doorway, where one of the club servants, carrying a decanter in each hand, walked straight through him, did he realise that he had not spoilt the Duke’s evening. With a volley of the most appalling eighteenth-century oaths, he passed back into the nether world.

To the Duke, Nellie O’Mora had never been a very vital figure. He had often repeated the legend of her. But, having never known what love was, he could not imagine her rapture or her anguish. Himself the quarry of all Mayfair’s wise virgins, he had always⁠—so far as he thought of the matter at all⁠—suspected that Nellie’s death was due to thwarted ambition. But tonight, while he told Oover about her, he could see into her soul. Nor did he pity her. She had loved. She had known the one thing worth living for⁠—and dying for. She, as she went down to the millpond, had felt just that ecstasy of self-sacrifice which he himself had felt today and would feel tomorrow. And for a while, too⁠—for a full year⁠—she had known the joy of being loved, had been for Greddon “the fairest witch that ever was or will be.” He could not agree with Oover’s long disquisition on her sufferings. And, glancing at her well-remembered miniature, he wondered just what it was in her that had captivated Greddon. He was in that blest state when a man cannot believe the earth has been trodden by any really beautiful or desirable lady save the lady of his own heart.

The moment had come for the removal of the tablecloth. The mahogany of the Junta was laid bare⁠—a clear dark lake, anon to reflect in its still and ruddy depths the candelabras and the fruit-cradles, the slender glasses and the stout old decanters, the forfeit-box and the snuffbox, and other paraphernalia of the dignity of dessert. Lucidly, and unwaveringly inverted in the depths these good things stood; and, so soon as the wine had made its circuit, the Duke rose and with uplifted glass proposed the first of the two toasts traditional to the Junta. “Gentlemen, I give you Church and State.”

The toast having been honoured by all⁠—and by none with a richer reverence than by Oover, despite his passionate mental reservation in favour of Pittsburg-Anabaptism and the Republican Ideal⁠—the snuffbox was handed round, and fruit was eaten.

Presently, when the wine had gone round again, the Duke rose and with uplifted glass said, “Gentlemen, I give you⁠—” and there halted. Silent, frowning, flushed, he stood for a few moments, and then, with a deliberate gesture, tilted his glass and let fall the wine to the carpet. “No,” he said, looking round the table, “I cannot give you Nellie O’Mora.”

“Why not?” gasped Sir John Marraby.

“You have a right to ask that,” said the Duke, still standing. “I can only say that my conscience is stronger than my sense of what is due to the customs of the club. Nellie O’Mora,” he said, passing his hand over his brow, “may have been in her day the fairest witch that ever was⁠—so fair that our founder had good reason to suppose her the fairest witch that ever would be. But his prediction was a false one. So at least it seems to me. Of course I cannot both hold this view and remain President of this club. MacQuern⁠—Marraby⁠—which of you is Vice-President?”

“He is,” said Marraby.

“Then, MacQuern, you are hereby President, vice myself resigned. Take the chair and propose the toast.”

“I would rather not,” said The MacQuern after a pause.

“Then, Marraby, you must.”

“Not I!” said Marraby.

“Why is this?” asked the Duke, looking from one to the other.

The MacQuern, with Scotch caution, was silent. But the impulsive Marraby⁠—Madcap Marraby, as they called him in B.N.C.⁠—said, “It’s because I won’t lie!” and, leaping up, raised his glass aloft and cried, “I give you Zuleika Dobson, the fairest witch that ever was or will be!”

Mr. Oover, Lord Sayes, Mr. Trent-Garby, sprang to their feet; The MacQuern rose to his. “Zuleika Dobson!” they cried, and drained their glasses.

Then, when they had resumed their seats, came an awkward pause. The Duke, still erect beside the chair he had vacated, looked very grave and pale. Marraby had taken an outrageous liberty. But “a member of the Junta can do no wrong,” and the liberty could not be resented. The Duke felt that the blame was on himself, who had elected Marraby to the club.

Mr. Oover, too, looked grave. All the antiquarian in him deplored the sudden rupture of a fine old Oxford tradition. All the chivalrous American in him resented the slight on that fair victim of the feudal system, Miss O’Mora. And, at the same time, all the Abimelech V. in him rejoiced at having honoured by word and act the one woman in the world.

Gazing around at the flushed faces and heaving shirtfronts of the diners, the Duke forgot Marraby’s misdemeanour. What mattered far more to him was that here were five young men deeply under the spell of Zuleika. They must be saved, if possible. He knew how strong his influence was in the University. He knew also how strong was Zuleika’s. He had not much hope of the issue. But his newborn sense of duty to his fellows spurred him on. “Is there,” he asked with a bitter smile, “any one of you who doesn’t with his whole heart love Miss Dobson?”

Nobody held up a hand.

“As I feared,” said the Duke, knowing not that if a hand had been held up he would have taken it as a personal insult. No man really in love can forgive another for not sharing his ardour. His jealousy for himself when his beloved prefers another man is hardly a stronger passion than his jealousy for her when she is not preferred to all other women.

“You know her only by sight⁠—by repute?” asked the Duke. They signified that this was so. “I wish you would introduce me to her,” said Marraby.

“You are all coming to the Judas