ngues on a breakfast-table were they comparable.
Incomparable quite, the figure and face and vesture of him who ended in
them.

The Warden was talking to him, with all the deference of elderly
commoner to patrician boy. The other guests--an Oriel don and his
wife--were listening with earnest smile and submissive droop, at a
slight distance. Now and again, to put themselves at their ease, they
exchanged in undertone a word or two about the weather.

"The young lady whom you may have noticed with me," the Warden was
saying, "is my orphaned grand-daughter." (The wife of the Oriel don
discarded her smile, and sighed, with a glance at the Duke, who was
himself an orphan.) "She has come to stay with me." (The Duke glanced
quickly round the room.) "I cannot think why she is not down yet." (The
Oriel don fixed his eyes on the clock, as though he suspected it of
being fast.) "I must ask you to forgive her. She appears to be a bright,
pleasant young woman."

"Married?" asked the Duke.

"No," said the Warden; and a cloud of annoyance crossed the boy's face.
"No; she devotes her life entirely to good works."

"A hospital nurse?" the Duke murmured.

"No, Zuleika's appointed task is to induce delightful wonder rather than
to alleviate pain. She performs conjuring-tricks."

"Not--not Miss Zuleika Dobson?" cried the Duke.

"Ah yes. I forgot that she had achieved some fame in the outer world.
Perhaps she has already met you?"

"Never," said the young man coldly. "But of course I have heard of Miss
Dobson. I did not know she was related to you."

The Duke had an intense horror of unmarried girls. All his vacations
were spent in eluding them and their chaperons. That he should be
confronted with one of them--with such an one of them!--in Oxford,
seemed to him sheer violation of sanctuary. The tone, therefore, in
which he said "I shall be charmed," in answer to the Warden's request
that he would take Zuleika into dinner, was very glacial. So was his
gaze when, a moment later, the young lady made her entry.

"She did not look like an orphan," said the wife of the Oriel don,
subsequently, on the way home. The criticism was a just one. Zuleika
would have looked singular in one of those lowly double-files of
straw-bonnets and drab cloaks which are so steadying a feature of
our social system. Tall and lissom, she was sheathed from the bosom
downwards in flamingo silk, and she was liberally festooned with
emeralds. Her dark hair wa