s not even strained back from her forehead and
behind her ears, as an orphan's should be. Parted somewhere at the side,
it fell in an avalanche of curls upon one eyebrow. From her right
ear drooped heavily a black pearl, from her left a pink; and their
difference gave an odd, bewildering witchery to the little face between.

Was the young Duke bewitched? Instantly, utterly. But none could
have guessed as much from his cold stare, his easy and impassive bow.
Throughout dinner, none guessed that his shirt-front was but the screen
of a fierce warfare waged between pride and passion. Zuleika, at the
foot of the table, fondly supposed him indifferent to her. Though he
sat on her right, not one word or glance would he give her. All his
conversation was addressed to the unassuming lady who sat on his other
side, next to the Warden. Her he edified and flustered beyond measure
by his insistent courtesy. Her husband, alone on the other side of
the table, was mortified by his utter failure to engage Zuleika in
small-talk. Zuleika was sitting with her profile turned to him--the
profile with the pink pearl--and was gazing full at the young Duke. She
was hardly more affable than a cameo. "Yes," "No," "I don't know,"
were the only answers she would vouchsafe to his questions. A vague "Oh
really?" was all he got for his timid little offerings of information.
In vain he started the topic of modern conjuring-tricks as compared with
the conjuring-tricks performed by the ancient Egyptians. Zuleika did not
even say "Oh really?" when he told her about the metamorphosis of the
bulls in the Temple of Osiris. He primed himself with a glass of sherry,
cleared his throat. "And what," he asked, with a note of firmness, "did
you think of our cousins across the water?" Zuleika said "Yes;" and
then he gave in. Nor was she conscious that he ceased talking to her. At
intervals throughout the rest of dinner, she murmured "Yes," and "No,"
and "Oh really?" though the poor little don was now listening silently
to the Duke and the Warden.

She was in a trance of sheer happiness. At last, she thought, her hope
was fulfilled--that hope which, although she had seldom remembered it in
the joy of her constant triumphs, had been always lurking in her, lying
near to her heart and chafing her, like the shift of sackcloth which
that young brilliant girl, loved and lost of Giacopone di Todi, wore
always in secret submission to her own soul, under the fair soft robes