"Quite unnatural," confessed the one.

"Twin stars," interpolated the other.

"Did she, in fact, seem to be consumed by some inward rapture?"

Yes, now they came to think of it, this was exactly how she HAD seemed.

It was sweet, it was bitter, for the Duke. "I remember," Zuleika had
said to him, "nothing that happened to me this morning till I found
myself at your door." It was bitter-sweet to have that outline filled in
by these artless pencils. No, it was only bitter, to be, at his time of
life, living in the past.

"The purpose of your tattle?" he asked coldly.

The two youths hurried to the point from which he had diverted them.
"When she went by with you just now," said the one, "she evidently
didn't know us from Adam."

"And I had so hoped to ask her to luncheon," said the other.

"Well?"

"Well, we wondered if you would re-introduce us. And then perhaps..."

There was a pause. The Duke was touched to kindness for these
fellow-lovers. He would fain preserve them from the anguish that beset
himself. So humanising is sorrow.

"You are in love with Miss Dobson?" he asked.

Both nodded.

"Then," said he, "you will in time be thankful to me for not affording
you further traffic with that lady. To love and be scorned--does Fate
hold for us a greater inconvenience? You think I beg the question? Let
me tell you that I, too, love Miss Dobson, and that she scorns me."

To the implied question "What chance would there be for you?" the reply
was obvious.

Amazed, abashed, the two youths turned on their heels.

"Stay!" said the Duke. "Let me, in justice to myself, correct an
inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in
myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns me
simply because I love her. All who love her she scorns. To see her is
to love her. Therefore shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her from
your horizon. Ignore her. Will you do this?"

"We will try," said the one, after a pause.

"Thank you very much," added the other.

The Duke watched them out of sight. He wished he could take the good
advice he had given them... Suppose he did take it! Suppose he went
to the Bursar, obtained an exeat, fled straight to London! What just
humiliation for Zuleika to come down and find her captive gone! He
pictured her staring around the quadrangle, ranging the cloisters,
calling to him. He pictured her rustling to the gate of the College,
inquiring at the por