Sounds of a violin, drifting out through the open windows of the Hall, suggested that the second part of the concert had begun. All the undergraduates, however, except the few who figured in the programme, had waited outside till their mistress should re-appear. The sisters and cousins of the Judas men had been escorted back to their places and hurriedly left there.
It was a hushed, tense crowd.
“The poor darlings!” murmured Zuleika, pausing to survey them. “And oh,” she exclaimed, “there won’t be room for all of them in there!”
“You might give an ‘overflow’ performance out here afterwards,” suggested the Duke, grimly.
This idea flashed on her a better. Why not give her performance here and now?—now, so eager was she for contact, as it were, with this crowd; here, by moonlight, in the pretty glow of these paper lanterns. Yes, she said, let it be here and now; and she bade the Duke make the announcement.
“What shall I say?” he asked. “‘Gentlemen, I have the pleasure to announce that Miss Zuleika Dobson, the world-renowned She-Wizard, will now oblige’? Or shall I call them ‘Gents,’ tout1 court?”
She could afford to laugh at his ill-humour. She had his promise of obedience2. She told him to say something graceful3 and simple.
The noise of the violin had ceased. There was not a breath of wind. The crowd in the quadrangle was as still and as silent as the night itself. Nowhere a tremour. And it was borne in on Zuleika that this crowd had one mind as well as one heart—a common resolve, calm and clear, as well as a common passion. No need for her to strengthen the spell now. No waverers here. And thus it came true that gratitude5 was the sole motive6 for her display.
She stood with eyes downcast and hands folded behind her, moonlit in the glow of lanterns, modest to the point of pathos8, while the Duke gracefully9 and simply introduced her to the multitude. He was, he said, empowered by the lady who stood beside him to say that she would be pleased to give them an exhibition of her skill in the art to which she had devoted10 her life—an art which, more potently11 perhaps than any other, touched in mankind the sense of mystery and stirred the faculty12 of wonder; the most truly romantic of all the arts: he referred to the art of conjuring13. It was not too much to say that by her mastery of this art, in which hitherto, it must be confessed, women had made no very great mark, Miss Zuleika Dobson (for such was the name of the lady who stood beside him) had earned the esteem15 of the whole civilised world. And here in Oxford16, and in this College especially, she had a peculiar17 claim to—might he say?—their affectionate regard, inasmuch as she was the grand-daughter of their venerable and venerated18 Warden19.
As the Duke ceased, there came from his hearers a sound like the rustling20 of leaves. In return for it, Zuleika performed that graceful act of subsidence to the verge21 of collapse22 which is usually kept for the delectation of some royal person. And indeed, in the presence of this doomed23 congress, she did experience humility24; for she was not altogether without imagination. But, as she arose from her “bob,” she was her own bold self again, bright mistress of the situation.
It was impossible for her to give her entertainment in full. Some of her tricks (notably the Secret Aquarium25, and the Blazing Ball of Worsted) needed special preparation, and a table fitted with a “servante” or secret tray. The table for to-night’s performance was an ordinary one, brought out from the porter’s lodge26. The MacQuern deposited on it the great casket. Zuleika, retaining him as her assistant, picked nimbly out from their places and put in array the curious appurtenances of her art—the Magic Canister, the Demon27 Egg-Cup, and the sundry28 other vessels29 which, lost property of young Edward Gibbs, had been by a Romanoff transmuted31 from wood to gold, and were now by the moon reduced temporarily to silver.
In a great dense32 semicircle the young men disposed themselves around her. Those who were in front squatted33 down on the gravel34; those who were behind knelt; the rest stood. Young Oxford! Here, in this mass of boyish faces, all fused and obliterated35, was the realisation of that phrase. Two or three thousands of human bodies, human souls? Yet the effect of them in the moonlight was as of one great passive monster.
So was it seen by the Duke, as he stood leaning against the wall, behind Zuleika’s table. He saw it as a monster couchant and enchanted36, a monster that was to die; and its death was in part his own doing. But remorse37 in him gave place to hostility38. Zuleika had begun her performance. She was producing the Barber’s Pole from her mouth. And it was to her that the Duke’s heart went suddenly out in tenderness and pity. He forgot her levity39 and vanity—her wickedness, as he had inwardly called it. He thrilled with that intense anxiety which comes to a man when he sees his beloved offering to the public an exhibition of her skill, be it in singing, acting40, dancing, or any other art. Would she acquit41 herself well? The lover’s trepidation42 is painful enough when the beloved has genius—how should these clods appreciate her? and who set them in judgment43 over her? It must be worse when the beloved has mediocrity. And Zuleika, in conjuring, had rather less than that. Though indeed she took herself quite seriously as a conjurer, she brought to her art neither conscience nor ambition, in any true sense of those words. Since her debut44, she had learned nothing and forgotten nothing. The stale and narrow repertory which she had acquired from Edward Gibbs was all she had to offer; and this, and her marked lack of skill, she eked45 out with the self-same “patter” that had sufficed that impossible young man. It was especially her jokes that now sent shudders46 up the spine47 of her lover, and brought tears to his eyes, and kept him in a state of terror as to what she would say next. “You see,” she had exclaimed lightly after the production of the Barber’s Pole, “how easy it is to set up business as a hairdresser.” Over the Demon Egg-Cup she said that the egg was “as good as fresh.” And her constantly reiterated48 catch-phrase—“Well, this is rather queer!”—was the most distressing49 thing of all.
The Duke blushed to think what these men thought of her. Would love were blind! These her lovers were doubtless judging her. They forgave her—confound their impudence50!—because of her beauty. The banality51 of her performance was an added grace. It made her piteous. Damn them, they were sorry for her. Little Noaks was squatting52 in the front row, peering up at her through his spectacles. Noaks was as sorry for her as the rest of them. Why didn’t the earth yawn and swallow them all up?
Our hero’s unreasoning rage was fed by a not unreasonable53 jealousy54. It was clear to him that Zuleika had forgotten his existence. To-day, as soon as he had killed her love, she had shown him how much less to her was his love than the crowd’s. And now again it was only the crowd she cared for. He followed with his eyes her long slender figure as she threaded her way in and out of the crowd, sinuously55, confidingly56, producing a penny from one lad’s elbow, a threepenny-bit from between another’s neck and collar, half a crown from another’s hair, and always repeating in that flute-like voice of hers “Well, this is rather queer!” Hither and thither57 she fared, her neck and arms gleaming white from the luminous58 blackness of her dress, in the luminous blueness of the night. At a distance, she might have been a wraith59; or a breeze made visible; a vagrom breeze, warm and delicate, and in league with death.
Yes, that is how she might have seemed to a casual observer. But to the Duke there was nothing weird60 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 thronged61 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 breach62 of College discipline, he retired63 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 fable64 for effect? I find myself sorely tempted65 to tell you that on Zuleika, as her entertainment drew to a close, the spirit of the higher thaumaturgy descended66 like a flame and found in her a worthy67 agent. Specious68 Apollyon whispers to me “Where would be the harm? Tell your readers that she cast a seed on the ground, and that therefrom presently arose a tamarind-tree which blossomed and bore fruit and, withering69, vanished. Or say she conjured70 from an empty basket of osier a hissing71 and bridling72 snake. Why not? Your readers would be excited, gratified. And you would never be found out.” But the grave eyes of Clio are bent73 on me, her servant. Oh pardon, madam: I did but waver for an instant. It is not too late to tell my readers that the climax74 of Zuleika’s entertainment was only that dismal75 affair, the Magic Canister.
It she took from the table, and, holding it aloft, cried “Now, before I say good night, I want to see if I have your confidence. But you mustn’t think this is the confidence trick!” She handed the vessel30 to The MacQuern, who, looking like an overgrown acolyte76, bore it after her as she went again among the audience. Pausing before a man in the front row, she asked him if he would trust her with his watch. He held it out to her. “Thank you,” she said, letting her fingers touch his for a moment before she dropped it into the Magic Canister. From another man she borrowed a cigarette-case, from another a neck-tie, from another a pair of sleeve-links, from Noaks a ring—one of those iron rings which are supposed, rightly or wrongly, to alleviate77 rheumatism78. And when she had made an ample selection, she began her return-journey to the table.
On her way she saw in the shadow of the wall the figure of her forgotten Duke. She saw him, the one man she had ever loved, also the first man who had wished definitely to die for her; and she was touched by remorse. She had said she would remember him to her dying day; and already... But had he not refused her the wherewithal to remember him—the pearls she needed as the clou of her dear collection, the great relic79 among relics80?
“Would you trust me with your studs?” she asked him, in a voice that could be heard throughout the quadrangle, with a smile that was for him alone.
There was no help for it. He quickly extricated81 from his shirt-front the black pearl and the pink. Her thanks had a special emphasis.
The MacQuern placed the Magic Canister before her on the table. She pressed the outer sheath down on it. Then she inverted82 it so that the contents fell into the false lid; then she opened it, looked into it, and, exclaiming “Well, this is rather queer!” held it up so that the audience whose intelligence she was insulting might see there was nothing in it.
“Accidents,” she said, “will happen in the best-regulated canisters! But I think there is just a chance that I shall be able to restore your property. Excuse me for a moment.” She then shut the canister, released the false lid, made several passes over it, opened it, looked into it and said with a flourish “Now I can clear my character!” Again she went among the crowd, attended by The MacQuern; and the loans—priceless now because she had touched them—were in due course severally restored. When she took the canister from her acolyte, only the two studs remained in it.
N............