And likewise she was capable of making the man talk
about anything by a power of inspiration for reasons simple or perverse.
Opera! Dresses! Yes--about Shakespeare and the musical glasses! For a
mere whim or for the deepest purpose. Women worthy of the name were like
that. They were very wonderful. They rose to the occasion and sometimes
above the occasion when things were bound to occur that would be comic
or tragic (as it happened) but generally charged with trouble even to
innocent beholders. D'Alcacer thought these thoughts without bitterness
and even without irony. With his half-secret social reputation as a man
of one great passion in a world of mere intrigues he liked all women.
He liked them in their sentiment and in their hardness, in the tragic
character of their foolish or clever impulses, at which he looked with a
sort of tender seriousness.
He didn't take a favourable view of the position but he considered Mrs.
Travers' statement about operas and dresses as a warning to keep off the
subject. For this reason he remained silent through the meal.
When the bustle of clearing away the table was over he strolled toward
Mrs. Travers and remarked very quietly:
"I think that in keeping away from us this evening the Man of Fate was
well inspired. We dined like a lot of Carthusian monks.
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