"'Women don't matter much to you,' she observed, quietly, and fell silent again.
"And here again," said Mr. Spenlove, "was a picture which comes back to me now--the scene in that little _kiosque_, a circular chamber crowded with the brilliant and disturbing reflections of the sunlight on the surface of the sea, shadow and gleam moving in complex rhythm across our faces and figures as we sat there, two beings destined to be forever strangers. She came into view for a little space, and vanished again, a mysterious, alluring, and magical presence, yet conveying no hint of any misfortune. She gave the impression of an easy and felicitous balance of forces, a complex of resilient strength, to which we poor Anglo-Saxons rarely attain. And sitting in the dancing reflections of the sunlights, she seemed a veritable emanation of the spirit of enchanted desire. I see her now, confronting the obscure motives of my behaviour in good-humoured sadness, while an ancient person in baggy black trousers and dingy scarlet sash tottered forward with a copper tray bearing tiny cups and a brass pot with a long handle.
"And in direct sequence, not very clear but clear compared with the shadowy oblivion that intervened, comes a picture of him whom I have called more than once a master of illusion. And I suppose he has a right to the title for he maintained the pose to the end of the chapter. I had imagined that it would be a painful duty to break the news of his daughter's death to him. I saw myself offering my condolences and soothing a father's anguish. I pictured an old man bowed with grief. But it did not happen that way at all. I forgot that masters of illusion have no use for facts, not even for such facts as grief or death, until they have been transmuted into some strange emotional freaks which will inspire the spectator with awe. And Fate, who is something of an illusionist herself, plays into the hands of such as he.