how the tricks were done, and assumed
their prettiest airs of wonder and delight. One of them even pretended
to be frightened, and was led howling from the room. In fact, the whole
thing went off splendidly. The hostess was charmed, and told Zuleika
that a glass of lemonade would be served to her in the hall. Other
engagements soon followed. Zuleika was very, very happy. I cannot claim
for her that she had a genuine passion for her art. The true conjurer
finds his guerdon in the consciousness of work done perfectly and for
its own sake. Lucre and applause are not necessary to him. If he were
set down, with the materials of his art, on a desert island, he would
yet be quite happy. He would not cease to produce the barber's-pole from
his mouth. To the indifferent winds he would still speak his patter, and
even in the last throes of starvation would not eat his live rabbit or
his gold-fish. Zuleika, on a desert island, would have spent most of her
time in looking for a man's foot-print. She was, indeed, far too human
a creature to care much for art. I do not say that she took her work
lightly. She thought she had genius, and she liked to be told that this
was so. But mainly she loved her work as a means of mere self-display.
The frank admiration which, into whatsoever house she entered, the
grown-up sons flashed on her; their eagerness to see her to the door;
their impressive way of putting her into her omnibus--these were the
things she revelled in. She was a nymph to whom men's admiration was the
greater part of life. By day, whenever she went into the streets,
she was conscious that no man passed her without a stare; and this
consciousness gave a sharp zest to her outings. Sometimes she was
followed to her door--crude flattery which she was too innocent to fear.
Even when she went into the haberdasher's to make some little purchase
of tape or riband, or into the grocer's--for she was an epicure in her
humble way--to buy a tin of potted meat for her supper, the homage of
the young men behind the counter did flatter and exhilarate her. As the
homage of men became for her, more and more, a matter of course, the
more subtly necessary was it to her happiness. The more she won of it,
the more she treasured it. She was alone in the world, and it saved her
from any moment of regret that she had neither home nor friends. For
her the streets that lay around her had no squalor, since she paced them
always in the gold nimbus of her