A cigarette soothed, it gave an
attitude. Was this the fitting occasion for one of the remaining two?
D'Alcacer, a true Latin, was not afraid of a little introspection. In
the pause he descended into the innermost depths of his being, then
glanced up at the night sky. Sportsman, traveller, he had often looked
up at the stars before to see how time went. It was going very slowly.
He took out a cigarette, snapped-to the case, bent down to the embers.
Then he sat up and blew out a thin cloud of smoke. The man by his side
looked with his bowed head and clasped knee like a masculine rendering
of mournful meditation. Such attitudes are met with sometimes on the
sculptures of ancient tombs. D'Alcacer began to speak:

"She is a representative woman and yet one of those of whom there are
but very few at any time in the world. Not that they are very rare but
that there is but little room on top. They are the iridescent gleams on
a hard and dark surface. For the world is hard, Captain Lingard, it is
hard, both in what it will remember and in what it will forget. It
is for such women that people toil on the ground and underground and
artists of all sorts invoke their inspiration."

Lingard seemed not to have heard a word. His chin rested on his breast.
D'Alcacer appraised the remaining length of his cigarette and went on in
an equable tone through which pierced a certain sadness:

"No, there are not many of them. And yet they are all. They decorate our
life for us. They are the gracious figures on the drab wall which lies
on this side of our common grave. They lead a sort of ritual dance, that
most of us have agreed to take seriously. It is a very binding agreement
with which sincerity and good faith and honour have nothing to do.
Very binding. Woe to him or her who breaks it. Directly they leave the
pageant they get lost."

Lingard turned his head sharply and discovered d'Alcacer looking at him
with profound attention.

"They get lost in a maze," continued d'Alcacer, quietly. "They wander in
it lamenting over themselves. I would shudder at that fate for anything
I loved. Do you know, Captain Lingard, how people lost in a maze end?"
he went on holding Lingard by a steadfast stare. "No? . . . I will
tell you then. They end by hating their very selves, and they die in
disillusion and despair."

As if afraid of the force of his words d'Alcacer laid a soothing hand
lightly on Lingard's shoulder. But Lingard continued to look into