Zuleika Dobson, or, an Oxford love story

by Max Beerbohm

"You will stay to dinner? I am sure my grandfather would be delighted." "I am sure he would," said the Duke, as he piloted her down the steps of the barge. "But alas, I have to dine at the Junta to-night." "The Junta? What is that?" "A little dining-club. It meets every Tuesday." "But—you don't mean you are going to refuse me for that?" "To do so is misery. But I have no choice. I have asked a guest." "Then ask another: ask me!" Zuleika's notions of Oxford life were rather hazy. It was with difficulty that the Duke made her realise that he could not—not even if, as she suggested, she dressed herself up as a man—invite her to the Junta. She then fell back on the impossibility that he would not dine with her to-night, his last night in this world. She could not understand that admirable fidelity to social engagements which is one of the virtues implanted in the members of our aristocracy. Bohemian by training and by career, she construed the Duke's refusal as either a cruel slight to herself or an act of imbecility. The thought of being parted from her for one moment was torture to him; but "noblesse oblige," and it was quite impossible for him to break an engagement merely because a more charming one offered itself: he would as soon have cheated at cards.