ed his foot. "I beg your pardon," he said hastily. "I
ought not to have done that. But--you seem to have entirely missed the
point of what I was saying."

"No, I haven't," said Zuleika.

"Then what," cried the Duke, standing over her, "what is your reply?"

Said Zuleika, looking up at him, "My reply is that I think you are an
awful snob."

The Duke turned on his heel, and strode to the other end of the room.
There he stood for some moments, his back to Zuleika.

"I think," she resumed in a slow, meditative voice, "that you are, with
the possible exception of a Mr. Edelweiss, THE most awful snob I have
ever met."

The Duke looked back over his shoulder. He gave Zuleika the stinging
reprimand of silence. She was sorry, and showed it in her eyes. She felt
she had gone too far. True, he was nothing to her now. But she had loved
him once. She could not forget that.

"Come!" she said. "Let us be good friends. Give me your hand!" He came
to her, slowly. "There!"

The Duke withdrew his fingers before she unclasped them. That
twice-flung taunt rankled still. It was monstrous to have been called
a snob. A snob!--he, whose readiness to form what would certainly be
regarded as a shocking misalliance ought to have stifled the charge, not
merely vindicated him from it! He had forgotten, in the blindness of his
love, how shocking the misalliance would be. Perhaps she, unloving, had
not been so forgetful? Perhaps her refusal had been made, generously,
for his own sake. Nay, rather for her own. Evidently, she had felt that
the high sphere from which he beckoned was no place for the likes of
her. Evidently, she feared she would pine away among those strange
splendours, never be acclimatised, always be unworthy. He had thought to
overwhelm her, and he had done his work too thoroughly. Now he must try
to lighten the load he had imposed.

Seating himself opposite to her, "You remember," he said, "that there is
a dairy at Tankerton?"

"A dairy? Oh yes."

"Do you remember what it is called?"

Zuleika knit her brows.

He helped her out. "It is called 'Her Grace's'."

"Oh, of course!" said Zuleika.

"Do you know WHY it is called so?"

"Well, let's see... I know you told me."

"Did I? I think not. I will tell you now... That cool out-house dates
from the middle of the eighteenth century. My great-great-grandfather,
when he was a very old man, married en troisiemes noces a dairy-maid
on the Tankerton estate. Meg Speedwell w