There was a pause. The Duke was touched to kindness for these fellow-lovers. He would fain preserve them from the anguish that beset himself. So humanising is sorrow.
“You are in love with Miss Dobson?” he asked.
Both nodded.
“Then,” said he, “you will in time be thankful to me for not affording you further traffic with that lady. To love and be scorned—does Fate hold for us a greater inconvenience? You think I beg the question? Let me tell you that I, too, love Miss Dobson, and that she scorns me.”
To the implied question “What chance would there be for you?” the reply was obvious.
Amazed, abashed, the two youths turned on their heels.
“Stay!” said the Duke. “Let me, in justice to myself, correct an inference you may have drawn. It is not by reason of any defect in myself, perceived or imagined, that Miss Dobson scorns me. She scorns me simply because I love her. All who love her she scorns. To see her is to love her. Therefore shut your eyes to her. Strictly exclude her from your horizon. Ignore her. Will you do this?”
“We will try,” said the one, after a pause.
“Thank you very much,” added the other.
The Duke watched them out of sight. He wished he could take the good advice he had given them... Suppose he did take it! Suppose he went to the Bursar, obtained an exeat, fled straight to London! What just humiliation for Zuleika to come down and find her captive gone! He pictured her staring around the quadrangle, ranging the cloisters, calling to him. He pictured her rustling to the gate of the College, inquiring at the porter’s lodge. “His Grace, Miss, he passed through a minute ago. He’s going down this afternoon.”