er loveliness had been, in some subtle way, transmuted.
Something had given to her a graver, nobler beauty. Last night's nymph
had become the Madonna of this morning. Despite her dress, which was
of a tremendous tartan, she diffused the pale authentic radiance of a
spirituality most high, most simple. The Duke wondered where lay the
change in her. He could not understand. Suddenly she turned to him, and
he understood. No longer the black pearl and the pink, but two white
pearls!... He thrilled to his heart's core.

"I hope," said Zuleika, "you aren't awfully vexed with me for coming
like this?"

"Not at all," said the Duke. "I am delighted to see you." How inadequate
the words sounded, how formal and stupid!

"The fact is," she continued, "I don't know a soul in Oxford. And
I thought perhaps you'd give me luncheon, and take me to see the
boat-races. Will you?"

"I shall be charmed," he said, pulling the bell-rope. Poor fool! he
attributed the shade of disappointment on Zuleika's face to the coldness
of his tone. He would dispel that shade. He would avow himself. He would
leave her no longer in this false position. So soon as he had told them
about the meal, he would proclaim his passion.

The bell was answered by the landlady's daughter.

"Miss Dobson will stay to luncheon," said the Duke. The girl withdrew.
He wished he could have asked her not to.

He steeled himself. "Miss Dobson," he said, "I wish to apologise to
you."

Zuleika looked at him eagerly. "You can't give me luncheon? You've got
something better to do?"

"No. I wish to ask you to forgive me for my behaviour last night."

"There is nothing to forgive."

"There is. My manners were vile. I know well what happened. Though you,
too, cannot have forgotten, I won't spare myself the recital. You were
my hostess, and I ignored you. Magnanimous, you paid me the prettiest
compliment woman ever paid to man, and I insulted you. I left the house
in order that I might not see you again. To the doorsteps down which
he should have kicked me, your grandfather followed me with words of
kindliest courtesy. If he had sped me with a kick so skilful that my
skull had been shattered on the kerb, neither would he have outstepped
those bounds set to the conduct of English gentlemen, nor would you have
garnered more than a trifle on account of your proper reckoning. I do
not say that you are the first person whom I have wantonly injured. But
it is a fact that I, in wh