Page:Zuleika Dobson.djvu/87

 a woebegone stare at the clock. "What is to be done in the meantime?"

"Am not I sufficiently diverting?" asked the Duke bitterly.

"Quite candidly, no. Have you any friend lodging with you here?"

"One, overhead. A man named Noaks."

"A small man, with spectacles?"

"Very small, with very large spectacles."

"He was pointed out to me yesterday, as I was driving from the Station No, I don't think I want to meet him. What can you have in common with him?"

"One frailty, at least: he, too, Miss Dobson, loves you."

"But of course he does. He saw me drive past. Very few of the others," she said, rising and shaking herself, "have set eyes on me. Do let us go out and look at the Colleges. I do need change of scene. If you were a doctor, you would have prescribed that long ago. It is very bad for me to be here, a kind of Cinderella, moping over the ashes of my love for you. Where is your hat?"

Looking round, she caught sight of herself in the glass. "Oh," she cried, "what a fright I do look! I must never be seen like this!"

"You look very beautiful."

"I don't. That is a lover's illusion. You yourself told me that this tartan was perfectly hideous. There was no need to tell me that. I came thus