Zuleika Dobson Part 21

Softly she stroked the carpet with the palms of her hands. "Happy carpet!" she crooned. "Aye, happy the very women that wove the threads that are trod by the feet of my beloved master. But hark! he bids his slave rise and stand before him!"

Just after she had risen, a figure appeared in the doorway.

"I beg pardon, your Grace; Mother wants to know, will you be lunching in?"

"Yes," said the Duke. "I will ring when I am ready." And it dawned on him that this girl, who perhaps loved him, was, according to all known standards, extraordinarily pretty.

"Will--" she hesitated, "will Miss Dobson be--"

"No," he said. "I shall be alone." And there was in the girl's parting half-glance at Zuleika that which told him he was truly loved, and made him the more impatient of his offensive and accursed visitor.

"You want to be rid of me?" asked Zuleika, when the girl was gone.

"I have no wish to be rude; but--since you force me to say it--yes."

"Then take me," she cried, throwing back her arms, "and throw me out of the window."

He smiled coldly.

"You think I don't mean it? You think I would struggle? Try me." She let herself droop sideways, in an att.i.tude limp and portable. "Try me," she repeated.

"All this is very well conceived, no doubt," said he, "and well executed. But it happens to be otiose."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean you may set your mind at rest. I am not going to back out of my promise."

Zuleika flushed. "You are cruel. I would give the world and all not to have written you that hateful letter. Forget it, forget it, for pity's sake!"

The Duke looked searchingly at her. "You mean that you now wish to release me from my promise?"

"Release you? As if you were ever bound! Don't torture me!"

He wondered what deep game she was playing. Very real, though, her anguish seemed; and, if real it was, then--he stared, he gasped--there could be but one explanation. He put it to her. "You love me?"

"With all my soul."

His heart leapt. If she spoke truth, then indeed vengeance was his! But "What proof have I?" he asked her.

"Proof? Have men absolutely NO intuition? If you need proof, produce it.

Where are my ear-rings?"

"Your ear-rings? Why?"

Impatiently she pointed to two white pearls that fastened the front of her blouse. "These are your studs. It was from them I had the great first hint this morning."

"Black and pink, were they not, when you took them?"

"Of course. And then I forgot that I had them. When I undressed, they must have rolled on to the carpet. Melisande found them this morning when she was making the room ready for me to dress. That was just after she came back from bringing you my first letter. I was bewildered. I doubted. Might not the pearls have gone back to their natural state simply through being yours no more? That is why I wrote again to you, my own darling--a frantic little questioning letter. When I heard how you had torn it up, I knew, I knew that the pearls had not mocked me. I telescoped my toilet and came rus.h.i.+ng round to you. How many hours have I been waiting for you?"

The Duke had drawn her ear-rings from his waistcoat pocket, and was contemplating them in the palm of his hand. Blanched, both of them, yes.

He laid them on the table. "Take them," he said.

"No," she shuddered. "I could never forget that once they were both black." She flung them into the fender. "Oh John," she cried, turning to him and falling again to her knees, "I do so want to forget what I have been. I want to atone. You think you can drive me out of your life. You cannot, darling--since you won't kill me. Always I shall follow you on my knees, thus."

He looked down at her over his folded arms,

"I am not going to back out of my promise," he repeated.

She stopped her ears.

With a stern joy he unfolded his arms, took some papers from his breast-pocket, and, selecting one of them, handed it to her. It was the telegram sent by his steward.

She read it. With a stern joy he watched her reading it.

Wild-eyed, she looked up from it to him, tried to speak, and swerved down senseless.

He had not foreseen this. "Help!" he vaguely cried--was she not a fellow-creature?--and rushed blindly out to his bedroom, whence he returned, a moment later, with the water-jug. He dipped his hand, and sprinkled the upturned face (Dew-drops on a white rose? But some other, sharper a.n.a.logy hovered to him). He dipped and sprinkled. The water-beads broke, mingled--rivulets now. He dipped and flung, then caught the horrible a.n.a.logy and rebounded.

It was at this moment that Zuleika opened her eyes. "Where am I?" She weakly raised herself on one elbow; and the suspension of the Duke's hatred would have been repealed simultaneously with that of her consciousness, had it not already been repealed by the a.n.a.logy. She put a hand to her face, then looked at the wet palm wonderingly, looked at the Duke, saw the water-jug beside him. She, too, it seemed, had caught the a.n.a.logy; for with a wan smile she said "We are quits now, John, aren't we?"

Her poor little jest drew to the Duke's face no answering smile, did but make hotter the blush there. The wave of her returning memory swept on--swept up to her with a roar the instant past. "Oh," she cried, staggering to her feet, "the owls, the owls!"

Vengeance was his, and "Yes, there," he said, "is the ineluctable hard fact you wake to. The owls have hooted. The G.o.ds have spoken. This day your wish is to be fulfilled."

"The owls have hooted. The G.o.ds have spoken. This day--oh, it must not be, John! Heaven have mercy on me!"

"The unerring owls have hooted. The dispiteous and humorous G.o.ds have spoken. Miss Dobson, it has to be. And let me remind you," he added, with a glance at his watch, "that you ought not to keep The MacQuern waiting for luncheon."

"That is unworthy of you," she said. There was in her eyes a look that made the words sound as if they had been spoken by a dumb animal.

"You have sent him an excuse?"

"No, I have forgotten him."

"That is unworthy of you. After all, he is going to die for you, like the rest of us. I am but one of a number, you know. Use your sense of proportion."

"If I do that," she said after a pause, "you may not be pleased by the issue. I may find that whereas yesterday I was great in my sinfulness, and to-day am great in my love, you, in your hate of me, are small. I may find that what I had taken to be a great indifference is nothing but a very small hate... Ah, I have wounded you? Forgive me, a weak woman, talking at random in her wretchedness. Oh John, John, if I thought you small, my love would but take on the crown of pity. Don't forbid me to call you John. I looked you up in Debrett while I was waiting for you.

That seemed to bring you nearer to me. So many other names you have, too. I remember you told me them all yesterday, here in this room--not twenty-four hours ago. Hours? Years!" She laughed hysterically. "John, don't you see why I won't stop talking? It's because I dare not think."

"Yonder in Balliol," he suavely said, "you will find the matter of my death easier to forget than here." He took her hat and gloves from the arm-chair, and held them carefully out to her; but she did not take them.

"I give you three minutes," he told her. "Two minutes, that is, in which to make yourself tidy before the mirror. A third in which to say good-bye and be outside the front-door."

"If I refuse?"

"You will not."