Conjurer. Oh, it's nonsense, it's nonsense. How can a man marry an archangel, let alone a lady. My mother was a lady and she married a dying fiddler who tramped the roads; and the mixture plays the cat and banjo with my body and soul. I can see my mother now cooking food in dirtier and dirtier lodgings, darning socks with weaker and weaker eyes when she might have worn pearls by consenting to be a rational person.
Patricia. And she might have grown pearls, by consenting to be an oyster.
Conjurer. [Seriously.] There was little pleasure in her life.
Patricia. There is little, a very little, in everybody's. The question is, what kind? We can't turn life into a pleasure. But we can choose such pleasures as are worthy of us and our immortal souls. Your mother chose and I have chosen.
Conjurer. [Staring.] Immortal souls!... And I suppose if I knelt down to worship you, you and every one else would laugh.
Patricia. [With a smile of perversity.] Well, I think this is a more comfortable way. [She sits down suddenly beside him in a sort of domestic way and goes on talking.] Yes. I'll do everything your mother did, not so well, of course; I'll darn that conjurer's hat—does one darn hats?—and cook the Conjurer's dinner. By the way, what is a Conjurer's dinner? There's always the goldfish, of course....
Conjurer. [With a groan.] Carrots.
Patricia. And, of course, now I come to think of it, you can always take rabbits out of the hat. Why, what a cheap life it must be! How do you cook rabbits? The Duke is always talking about poached rabbits. Really, we shall be as happy as is good for us. We'll have confidence in each other at least, and no secrets. I insist on knowing all the tricks.
Conjurer. I don't think I know whether I'm on my head or my heels.
Patricia. And now, as we're going to be so confidential and comfortable, you'll just tell me the real, practical, tricky little way you did that last trick.