Page:Zuleika Dobson.djvu/114

 is horrid; and what good will it do them?"

She laid a hand on his arm. "Cast them into the furnace for their own sake, dear Duke! Or cast one of them, or," she added, glancing round at the throng, "any one of these others!"

"For their own sake?" he echoed, withdrawing his arm. "If you were not, as the whole world knows you to be, perfectly respectable, there might be something in what you say. But as it is, you can but be an engine for mischief; and your sophistries leave me unmoved. I shall certainly keep you to myself."

"I hate you," said Zuleika, with an ugly petulance that crowned the irony.

"So long as I live," uttered the Duke, in a level voice, "you will address no man but me."

"If your prophecy is to be fulfilled," laughed Zuleika, rising from her chair, "your last moment is at hand."

"It is," he answered, rising too.

"What do you mean?" she asked, awed by something in his tone.

"I mean what I say: that my last moment is at hand." He withdrew his eyes from hers, and, leaning his elbows on the balustrade, gazed thoughtfully at the river. "When I am dead," he added, over his shoulder, "you will find these fellows rather coy of your advances."

For the first time since his avowal of his love for her, Zuleika found herself genuinely interested