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

her rays with the candlelight shed forth from Zuleika’s bedroom? Nothing, that she had cleansed the lawn of all its colour, and made of it a platform of silver-grey, fit for fairies to dance on?

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 lifetime. 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 tonight. 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.

“And you are sure they really meant it?” she asked in a voice that trembled.

“I fear so. But they were overexcited. They will recant their folly. I shall force them to.”

“They are not children. You yourself have just been calling them ‘men.’ Why should they obey you?”

She turned at sound of a footstep, and saw a young man approaching. He wore a coat like the Duke’s, and in his hand he dangled a handkerchief. He bowed awkwardly, and, holding out the handkerchief, said to her “I beg your pardon, but I think you dropped this. I have just picked it up.”

Zuleika looked at the handkerchief, which was obviously a man’s, and smilingly shook her head.

“I don’t think you know The MacQuern,” said the Duke, with sulky grace. “This,” he said to the intruder, “is Miss Dobson.”

“And is it really true,” asked Zuleika, retaining The MacQuern’s hand, “that you want to die for me?”

Well, the Scots are a self-seeking and a resolute, but a shy, race; swift to act, when swiftness is needed, but seldom knowing quite what to say. The MacQuern, with native reluctance to give something for nothing, had determined to have the pleasure of knowing the young lady for whom he was to lay down his life; and this purpose he had, by the simple stratagem of his own handkerchief, achieved. Nevertheless, in answer to Zuleika’s question, and with the pressure of her hand to inspire him, the only word that rose to his lips was “Ay” (which may be roughly translated as “Yes”).

“You will do nothing of the sort,” interposed the Duke.

“There,” said Zuleika, still retaining The MacQuern’s hand, “you see, it is forbidden. You must not defy our dear little Duke. He is not used to it. It is not done.”

“I don’t know,” said The MacQuern, with a stony glance at the Duke, “that he has anything to do with the matter.”

“He is older and wiser than you. More a man of the world. Regard him as your tutor.”

“Do you want me not to die for you?” asked the young man.

“Ah, I should not dare to impose my wishes on you,” said she, dropping his hand. “Even,” she added, “if I knew what my wishes were. And I don’t. I know only that I think it is very, very beautiful of you to think of dying for me.”

“Then that settles it,” said The MacQuern.

“No, no! You must not let yourself be influenced by me. Besides, I am not in a mood to influence anybody. I am overwhelmed. Tell me,” she said, heedless of the Duke, who stood tapping his heel on the ground, with every manifestation of disapproval and impatience, “tell me, is it true that some of the other men love me too, and⁠—feel as you do?”

The MacQuern said cautiously that he could answer for no one but himself. “But,” he allowed, “I saw a good many men whom I know, outside the Hall here, just now, and they seemed to have made up their minds.”

“To die for me? Tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow. After the Eights, I suppose; at the same time as the Duke. It wouldn’t do to leave the races undecided.”

“Of course not. But the poor dears! It is too touching! I have done nothing, nothing to deserve it.”

“Nothing whatsoever,” said the Duke drily.

“Oh he,” said Zuleika, “thinks me an unredeemed brute; just because I don’t love him. You, dear Mr. MacQuern⁠—does one call you ‘Mr.’? ‘The’ would sound so odd in the vocative. And I can’t very well call you ‘MacQuern’⁠—you don’t think me unkind, do you? I simply can’t bear to think