Part 16

“So be it!” he cried into Zuleika’s ear--cried loudly, for it seemed as though all the Wagnerian orchestras of Europe, with the Straussian ones thrown in, were here to clash in unison the full volume of right music for the glory of the reprieve.

The fact was that the Judas boat had just bumped Univ., exactly opposite the Judas barge. The oarsmen in either boat sat humped, panting, some of them rocking and writhing, after their wholesome exercise. But there was not one of them whose eyes were not upcast at Zuleika. And the vocalisation and instrumentation of the dancers and stampers on the towing-path had by this time ceased to mean aught of joy in the victors or of comfort for the vanquished, and had resolved itself into a wild wordless hymn to the glory of Miss Dobson. Behind her and all around her on the roof of the barge, young Judasians were venting in like manner their hearts through their lungs. She paid no heed. It was as if she stood alone with her lover on some silent pinnacle of the world. It was as if she were a little girl with a brand-new and very expensive doll which had banished all the little other old toys from her mind.

She simply could not, in her naive rapture, take her eyes off her companion. To the dancers and stampers of the towing-path, many of whom were now being ferried back across the river, and to the other youths on the roof of the barge, Zuleika’s air of absorption must have seemed a little strange. For already the news that the Duke loved Zuleika, and that she loved him not, and would stoop to no man who loved her, had spread like wild-fire among the undergraduates. The two youths in whom the Duke had deigned to confide had not held their peace. And the effect that Zuleika had made as she came down to the river was intensified by the knowledge that not the great paragon himself did she deem worthy of her. The mere sight of her had captured young Oxford. The news of her supernal haughtiness had riveted the chains.

“Come!” said the Duke at length, staring around him with the eyes of one awakened from a dream. “Come! I must take you back to Judas.”

“But you won’t leave me there?” pleaded Zuleika. “You will stay to dinner? I am sure my grandfather would be delighted.”

“I am sure he would,” said the Duke, as he piloted her down the steps of the barge. “But alas, I have to dine at the Junta to-night.”

“The Junta? What is that?”

“A little dining-club. It meets every Tuesday.”

“But--you don’t mean you are going to refuse me for that?”

“To do so is misery. But I have no choice. I have asked a guest.”

“Then ask another: ask me!” Zuleika’s notions of Oxford life were rather hazy. It was with difficulty that the Duke made her realise that he could not--not even if, as she suggested, she dressed herself up as a man--invite her to the Junta. She then fell back on the impossibility that he would not dine with her to-night, his last night in this world. She could not understand that admirable fidelity to social engagements which is one of the virtues implanted in the members of our aristocracy. Bohemian by training and by career, she construed the Duke’s refusal as either a cruel slight to herself or an act of imbecility. The thought of being parted from her for one moment was torture to him; but “noblesse oblige,” and it was quite impossible for him to break an engagement merely because a more charming one offered itself: he would as soon have cheated at cards.

And so, as they went side by side up the avenue, in the mellow light of the westering sun, preceded in their course, and pursued, and surrounded, by the mob of hoarse infatuate youths, Zuleika’s face was as that of a little girl sulking. Vainly the Duke reasoned with her. She could NOT see the point of view.

With that sudden softening that comes to the face of an angry woman who has hit on a good argument, she turned to him and asked “How if I hadn’t saved your life just now? Much you thought about your guest when you were going to dive and die!”

“I did not forget him,” answered the Duke, smiling at her casuistry. “Nor had I any scruple in disappointing him. Death cancels all engagements.”

And Zuleika, worsted, resumed her sulking. But presently, as they neared Judas, she relented. It was paltry to be cross with him who had resolved to die for her and was going to die so on the morrow. And after all, she would see him at the concert to-night. They would sit together. And all to-morrow they would be together, till the time came for parting. Hers was a naturally sunny disposition. And the evening was such a lovely one, all bathed in gold. She was ashamed of her ill-humour.

“Forgive me,” she said, touching his arm. “Forgive me for being horrid.” And forgiven she promptly was. “And promise you will spend all to-morrow with me.” And of course he promised.

As they stood together on the steps of the Warden’s front-door, exalted above the level of the flushed and swaying crowd that filled the whole length and breadth of Judas Street, she implored him not to be late for the concert.

“I am never late,” he smiled.

“Ah, you’re so beautifully brought up!”

The door was opened.

“And--oh, you’re beautiful besides!” she whispered; and waved her hand to him as she vanished into the hall.

VIII

A few minutes before half-past seven, the Duke, arrayed for dinner, passed leisurely up the High. The arresting feature of his costume was a mulberry-coloured coat, with brass buttons. This, to any one versed in Oxford lore, betokened him a member of the Junta. It is awful to think that a casual stranger might have mistaken him for a footman. It does not do to think of such things.

The tradesmen, at the doors of their shops, bowed low as he passed, rubbing their hands and smiling, hoping inwardly that they took no liberty in sharing the cool rosy air of the evening with his Grace. They noted that he wore in his shirt-front a black pearl and a pink. “Daring, but becoming,” they opined.

The rooms of the Junta were over a stationer’s shop, next door but one to the Mitre. They were small rooms; but as the Junta had now, besides the Duke, only two members, and as no member might introduce more than one guest, there was ample space.

The Duke had been elected in his second term. At that time there were four members; but these were all leaving Oxford at the end of the summer term, and there seemed to be in the ranks of the Bullingdon and the Loder no one quite eligible for the Junta, that holy of holies. Thus it was that the Duke inaugurated in solitude his second year of membership. From time to time, he proposed and seconded a few candidates, after “sounding” them as to whether they were willing to join. But always, when election evening--the last Tuesday of term--drew near, he began to have his doubts about these fellows. This one was “rowdy”; that one was over-dressed; another did not ride quite straight to hounds; in the pedigree of another a bar-sinister was more than suspected. Election evening was always a rather melancholy time. After dinner, when the two club servants had placed on the mahogany the time-worn Candidates’ Book and the ballot-box, and had noiselessly withdrawn, the Duke, clearing his throat, read aloud to himself “Mr. So-and-So, of Such-and-Such College, proposed by the Duke of Dorset, seconded by the Duke of Dorset,” and, in every case, when he drew out the drawer of the ballot-box, found it was a black-ball that he had dropped into the urn. Thus it was that at the end of the summer term the annual photographic “group” taken by Messrs. Hills and Saunders was a presentment of the Duke alone.

In the course of his third year he had become less exclusive. Not because there seemed to be any one really worthy of the Junta; but because the Junta, having thriven since the eighteenth century, must not die. Suppose--one never knew--he were struck by lightning, the Junta would be no more. So, not without reluctance, but unanimously, he had elected The MacQuern, of Balliol, and Sir John Marraby, of Brasenose.

To-night, as he, a doomed man, went up into the familiar rooms, he was wholly glad that he had thus relented. As yet, he was spared the tragic knowledge that it would make no difference.*