“Despise it! Why, that sort of thing is the very breath of his nostrils.”
“You seem to understand him, Mrs. Travers. Women have a singular capacity for understanding. I mean subjects that interest them; because when their imagination is stimulated they are not afraid of letting it go. A man is more mistrustful of himself, but women are born much more reckless. They push on and on under the protection of secrecy and silence, and the greater the obscurity of what they wish to explore the greater their courage.”
“Do you mean seriously to tell me that you consider me a creature of darkness?”
“I spoke in general,” remonstrated d'Alcacer. “Anything else would have been an impertinence. Yes, obscurity is women's best friend. Their daring loves it; but a sudden flash of light disconcerts them. Generally speaking, if they don't get exactly at the truth they always manage to come pretty near to it.”
Mrs. Travers had listened with silent attention and she allowed the silence to continue for some time after d'Alcacer had ceased. When she spoke it was to say in an unconcerned tone that as to this subject she had had special opportunities. Her self-possessed interlocutor managed to repress a movement of real curiosity under an assumption of conventional interest. “Indeed,” he exclaimed, politely. “A special opportunity. How did you manage to create it?”
This was too much for Mrs. Travers. “I! Create it!” she exclaimed, indignantly, but under her breath. “How on earth do you think I could have done it?”
Mr. d'Alcacer, as if communing with himself, was heard to murmur unrepentantly that indeed women seldom knew how they had “done it,” to which Mrs. Travers in a weary tone returned the remark that no two men were dense in the same way. To this Mr. d'Alcacer assented without difficulty. “Yes, our brand presents more varieties. This, from a certain point of view, is obviously to our advantage. We interest. . . . Not that I imagine myself interesting to you, Mrs. Travers. But what about the Man of Fate?”
“Oh, yes,” breathed out Mrs. Travers.
“I see! Immensely!” said d'Alcacer in a tone of mysterious understanding. “Was his stupidity so colossal?”
“It was indistinguishable from great visions that were in no sense mean and made up for him a world of his own.”