f women. In the abstract, it seems
to me that every man has a right to some explanation from the woman who
has ruined his life."

"You are frightfully sorry for yourself," said Zuleika, with a bitter
laugh. "Of course it doesn't occur to you that _I_ am at all to be
pitied. No! you are blind with selfishness. You love me--I don't love
you: that is all you can realise. Probably you think you are the first
man who has ever fallen on such a plight."

Said the Duke, bowing over a deprecatory hand, "If there were to pass my
window one tithe of them whose hearts have been lost to Miss Dobson, I
should win no solace from that interminable parade."

Zuleika blushed. "Yet," she said more gently, "be sure they would all be
not a little envious of YOU! Not one of them ever touched the surface of
my heart. You stirred my heart to its very depths. Yes, you made me love
you madly. The pearls told you no lie. You were my idol--the one thing
in the wide world to me. You were so different from any man I had ever
seen except in dreams. You did not make a fool of yourself. I admired
you. I respected you. I was all afire with adoration of you. And now,"
she passed her hand across her eyes, "now it is all over. The idol has
come sliding down its pedestal to fawn and grovel with all the other
infatuates in the dust about my feet."

The Duke looked thoughtfully at her. "I thought," he said, "that you
revelled in your power over men's hearts. I had always heard that you
lived for admiration."

"Oh," said Zuleika, "of course I like being admired. Oh yes, I like all
that very much indeed. In a way, I suppose, I'm even pleased that
YOU admire me. But oh, what a little miserable pleasure that is in
comparison with the rapture I have forfeited! I had never known the
rapture of being in love. I had longed for it, but I had never guessed
how wonderfully wonderful it was. It came to me. I shuddered and wavered
like a fountain in the wind. I was more helpless and flew lightlier
than a shred of thistledown among the stars. All night long, I could not
sleep for love of you; nor had I any desire of sleep, save that it might
take me to you in a dream. I remember nothing that happened to me this
morning before I found myself at your door."

"Why did you ring the bell? Why didn't you walk away?"

"Why? I had come to see you, to be near you, to be WITH you."

"To force yourself on me."

"Yes."

"You know the meaning of the term 'effective occupati