Yes, that is how she might have seemed to a casual observer. But to
the Duke there was nothing weird about her: she was radiantly a woman;
a goddess; and his first and last love. Bitter his heart was, but only
against the mob she wooed, not against her for wooing it. She was
cruel? All goddesses are that. She was demeaning herself? His soul
welled up anew in pity, in passion.
Yonder, in the Hall, the concert ran its course, making a feeble
incidental music to the dark emotions of the quadrangle. It ended
somewhat before the close of Zuleika's rival show; and then the steps
from the Hall were thronged by ladies, who, with a sprinkling of dons,
stood in attitudes of refined displeasure and vulgar curiosity. The
Warden was just awake enough to notice the sea of undergraduates.
Suspecting some breach of College discipline, he retired hastily to
his own quarters, for fear his dignity might be somehow compromised.
Was there ever, I wonder, an historian so pure as not to have wished
just once to fob off on his readers just one bright fable for effect?
I find myself sorely tempted to tell you that on Zuleika, as her
entertainment drew to a close, the spirit of the higher thaumaturgy
descended like a flame and found in her a worthy agent.
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