PATRICIA. [_Thinking._] Yes, you did tell me a great deal of the truth. You told me hundreds and thousands of truths. But you never told me the truth that one wants to know. CONJURER. And what is that? PATRICIA. [_Turning back into the room._] You never told me the truth about yourself. You never told me you were only the Conjurer. CONJURER. I did not tell you that because I do not even know it. I do not know whether I am only the Conjurer.... PATRICIA. What do you mean? CONJURER. Sometimes I am afraid I am something worse than the Conjurer. PATRICIA. [_Seriously._] I cannot think of anything worse than a conjurer who does not call himself a conjurer. CONJURER. [_Gloomily._] There is something worse. [_Rallying himself._] But that is not what I want to say. Do you really find that very unpardonable? Come, let me put you a case. Never mind about whether it is our case. A man spends his time incessantly in going about in third-class carriages to fifth-rate lodgings. He has to make up new tricks, new patter, new nonsense, sometimes every night of his life. Mostly he has to do it in the beastly black cities of the Midlands and the North, where he can't get out into the country. Now and again he does it at some gentleman's country-house, where he can get out into the country. Well, you know that actors and orators and all sorts of people like to rehearse their effects in the open air if they can. [_Smiles._] You know that story of the great statesman who was heard by his own gardener saying, as he paced the garden, "Had I, Mr. Speaker, received the smallest intimation that I could be called upon to speak this evening...." [PATRICIA _controls a smile, and he goes on with overwhelming enthusiasm._] Well, conjurers are just the same. It takes some time to prepare an impromptu. A man like that walks about the woods and fields doing all his tricks beforehand, and talking all sorts of gibberish because he thinks he is alone. One evening this man found he was not alone. He found a very beautiful child was watching him. PATRICIA. A child? CONJURER. Yes. That was his first impression. He is an intimate friend of mine. I have known him all my life. He tells me he has since discovered she is not a child. She does not fulfil the definition. PATRICIA. What is the definition of a child? CONJURER. Somebody you can play with. PATRICIA. [_Abruptly._] Why did you wear that cloak with the hood up? CONJURER. [_Smiling._] I think it escaped your notice that it was raining. PATRICIA. [_Smiling faintly._] And what did this friend of yours do?