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Zuleika Dobson by Max Beerbohm
Book, page 202 / 298


though, at this little resentment erect after the
cataclysm that had swept away all else. Then he
smiled to think how uneasy Zuleika would be
at his absence. What agonies of suspense she
must have had all this morning! He imagined
her silent at the luncheon, with a vacant gaze at
the door, eating nothing at all. And he became
aware that he was rather hungry. He had done
all he could to save young Oxford. Now for
some sandwiches! He went into the Junta.
      As he rang the dining-room bell, his eyes rested
on the miniature of Nellie O'Mora. And the eyes
of Nellie O'Mora seemed to meet his in re-
proach. Just as she may have gazed at Greddon
when he cast her off, so now did she gaze at him
who a few hours ago had refused to honour her
memory.
      Yes, and many other eyes than hers rebuked
him. It was around the walls of this room that
hung those presentments of the Junta as fo-
cussed, year after year, in a certain corner of
Tom Quad, by Messrs. Hills and Saunders. All
around, the members of the little hierarchy, a
hierarchy ever changing in all but youth and a
certain sternness of aspect that comes at the mo-
ment of being immortalised, were gazing forth
now with a sternness beyond their wont. Not one
of them but had in his day handed on loyally
the praise of Nellie O'Mora, in the form their
Founder had ordained. And the Duke's revolt


ZULEIKA DOBSON 243

last night had so incensed them that they would,
if they could, have come down from their frames
and walked straight out of the club, in chrono-
logical order -- first, the men of the 'sixties, almost
as near in time to Greddon as to the Duke, all so
gloriously be-whiskered and cravated, but how

 
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