Duke,” the Warden repeated, “that you have been persuaded to play to-morrow evening at the Judas concert?”
“Ah yes, I am going to play something.”
Zuleika bent suddenly forward, addressed him. “Oh,” she cried, clasping her hands beneath her chin, “will you let me come and turn over the leaves for you?”
He looked her full in the face. It was like seeing suddenly at close quarters some great bright monument that one has long known only as a sun-caught speck in the distance. He saw the large violet eyes open to him, and their lashes curling to him; the vivid parted lips; and the black pearl, and the pink.
“You are very kind,” he murmured, in a voice which sounded to him quite far away. “But I always play without notes.”
Zuleika blushed. Not with shame, but with delirious pleasure. For that snub she would just then have bartered all the homage she had hoarded. This, she felt, was the climax. She would not outstay it. She rose, smiling to the wife of the Oriel don. Every one rose. The Oriel don held open the door, and the two ladies passed out of the room.
The Duke drew out his cigarette case. As he looked down at the cigarettes, he was vaguely conscious of some strange phenomenon somewhere between them and his eyes. Foredone by the agitation of the past hour, he did not at once realise what it was that he saw. His impression was of something in bad taste, some discord in his costume ... a black pearl and a pink pearl in his shirt-front!
Just for a moment, absurdly over-estimating poor Zuleika’s skill, he supposed himself a victim of legerdemain. Another moment, and the import of the studs revealed itself. He staggered up from his chair, covering his breast with one arm, and murmured that he was faint. As he hurried from the room, the Oriel don was pouring out a tumbler of water and suggesting burnt feathers. The Warden, solicitous, followed him into the hall. He snatched up his hat, gasping that he had spent a delightful evening—was very sorry—was subject to these attacks. Once outside, he took frankly to his heels.
At the corner of the Broad, he looked back over his shoulder. He had half expected a scarlet figure skimming in
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