what the devil are you for, if you don't believe
in a miracle? What does your coat mean if it
doesn't mean that there is such a thing as the
supernatural? What does your cursed collar mean if
it doesn't mean that there is such a thing as a
spirit? [_Exasperated._] Why the devil do you
dress up like that if you don't believe in it?
[_With violence._] Or perhaps you don't believe in
devils?

SMITH. I believe . . . [_After a pause._] I wish
I could believe.

CONJUROR. Yes. I wish I could disbelieve.

Here Patricia enters. She wants to speak to the Conjuror, with whom she
is left alone. A little love scene takes place: rather the result of two
slightly sentimental and rather tired persons of different sexes being
left alone than anything else. But they return to realities, with an
effort. Patricia, too, wants to know how the trick was done, in order to
tell her brother. He tells her, but she is of the world which cannot
believe in devils, even although it may manage to accept fairies as an
inevitable adjunct to landscape scenery by moonlight. In order to
convince her the Conjuror tells her how he fell, how after dabbling in
spiritualism he found he had lost control over himself. But he had
resisted the temptation to make the devils his servants, until the
impudence of Morris had made him lose his temper. Then he goes out into
the garden to see if he can find some explanation to give Morris. The
Duke, Smith, the Doctor, and the Secretary drift into the room, which is
now tenanted by something impalpable but horrible. The Conjuror returns
and clears the air with an exorcism. He has invented an explanation,
which he goes out to give to Morris. Patricia announces that her brother
immediately took a turn for the better. The Conjuror refuses to repeat
the explanation he gave Morris, because if he did, "Half an hour after
I have left this house you will all be saying how it was done." He turns
to go.

PATRICIA. Our fairy tale has come to an end in the
only way a fairy tale can come to an end. The only
way a fairy tale can leave off being a fairy tale.

CONJUROR. I don't understand you.

PATRICIA. It has come true.

And the curtain falls for the last time.

No doubt _Magic_ owed a great deal of its success to the admirable
production of Mr. Kenelm Foss and the ex