Magic

    [Suddenly stops speaking.

Doctor. [After a long silence, in a low voice to Smith.] How do you feel?

Smith. I feel I must have a window shut or I must have it open, and I don't know which it is.

    [Another long silence.

Smith. [Crying out suddenly in the dark.] In God's name, go!

Doctor. [Jumping up rather in a tremble.] Really, sir, I am not used to being spoken to…

Smith. It was not you whom I told to go.

Doctor. No. [Pause.] But I think I will go. This room is simply horrible.

    [He marches towards the door.

Duke. [Jumping up and bustling about, altering cards, papers, etc., on tables.] Room horrible? Room horrible? No, no, no. [Begins to run quicker round the room, flapping his hands like fins.] Only a little crowded. A little crowded. And I don't seem to know all the people. We can't like everybody. These large at-homes…

    [Tumbles on to a chair.

Conjurer. [Reappearing at the garden doors.] Go back to hell from which I called you. It is the last order I shall give.

Doctor. [Rising rather shakily.] And what are you going to do?

Conjurer. I am going to tell that poor little lad a lie. I have found in the garden what he did not find in the garden. I have managed to think of a natural explanation of that trick.

Doctor. [Warmly moved.] I think you are something like a great man. Can I take your explanation to him now?

Conjurer. [Grimly.] No thank you. I will take it myself.

    [Exit into the other room.

Duke. [Uneasily.] We all felt devilish queer just now. Wonderful things there are in the world. [After a pause.] I suppose it's all electricity.

    [Silence as usual.

Smith. I think there has been more than electricity in all this.

Enter Patricia, still pale, but radiant

Patricia. Oh, Morris is ever so much better! The Conjurer has told him such a good story of how the trick was done.

Enter Conjurer

Duke. Professor, we owe you a thousand thanks!

Doctor. Really, you have doubled your claim to originality!

Smith. It is much more marvellous to explain a miracle than to work a miracle. What was your explanation, by the way?

Conjurer. I shall not tell you.

Smith. [Starting.] Indeed? Why not?

Conjurer. Because God and the demons and that Immortal Mystery that you deny has been in this room to-night. Because you know it has been here. Because you have felt it here. Because you know the spirits as well as I do and fear them as much as I do.

Smith. Well?

Conjurer. Because all this would not avail. If I told you the lie I told Morris Carleon about how I did that trick…

Smith. Well?

Conjurer. You would believe it as he believed it. You cannot think [pointing to the lamp] how that trick could be done naturally. I alone found out how it could be done – after I had done it by magic. But if I tell you a natural way of doing it…

Smith. Well?..

Conjurer. Half an hour after I have left this house you will be all saying how it was done.

    [Conjurer buttons up his cloak and advances to Patricia.

Conjurer. Good-bye.

Patricia. I shall not say good-bye.

Conjurer. You are great as well as good. But a saint can be a temptress as well as a sinner. I put my honour in your hands … oh, yes, I have a little left. We began with a fairy tale. Have I any right to take advantage of that fairy tale? Has not that fairy tale really and truly come to an end?

Patricia. Yes. That fairy tale has really and truly come to an end. [Looks at him a little in the old mystical manner.] It is very hard for a fairy tale to come to an end. If you leave it alone it lingers everlastingly. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the only way a fairy tale can come to an end. The only way a fairy tale can leave off being a fairy tale.

Conjurer. I don't understand you.

Patricia. It has come true.

CURTAIN