“No,” said I; “I don’t, and it doesn’t trouble me much. I rather enjoy Magnus’s lordly airs. He can come off his perch when he thinks proper. Perhaps we do it because we know he doesn’t take it seriously; it’s part of a game. If he insisted, we’d rebel.”

“And when you rebelled, you would see a very different side of his nature,” said Liesl.

“You play the game with him, I observe,” said Ingestree. “You stand up when His Supreme Self-Assurance leaves the company. Yet you are mistress here, and we are your guests. Now why is that?”

“Because I am not quite sure who he is,” said Liesl.

“You don’t believe this story he’s telling us?”

“Yes. I think that he has come to the time of his life when he feels the urge to tell. Many people feel it. It is the impulse behind a hundred bad autobiographies every year. I think he is being as honest as he can. I hope that when he finishes his story—if he does finish it—I shall know rather more. But I may not have my answer then.”

“I don’t follow; you hope to hear his story out, but you don’t think it certain that you will know who he is even then, although you think he is being honest. What is this mystery?”

“Who is anybody? For me, he is whatever he is to me. Biographical facts may be of help, but they don’t explain that. Are you married, Mr. Ingestree?”

“Well, no, actually, I’m not.”

“The way you phrase your reply speaks volumes. But suppose you were married; do you think that your wife would be to you precisely what she was to her women friends, her men friends, her doctor, lawyer, and hairdresser? Of course not. To you she would be something special, and to you that would be the reality of her. I have not yet found out what Magnus is to me, although we have been business associates and friendly intimates for a long time. If I had been the sort of person who is somebody’s mistress, I would have been his mistress, but I’ve never cared for the mistress role. I am too rich for it. Mistresses have incomes, and valuable possessions, but not fortunes. Nor can I say we have been lovers, because that is a messy expression people use when they are having sexual intercourse on fairly regular terms, without getting married. But I have had many a jolly night with Magnus, and many an exciting day with him. I still have to decide what he is to me. If humouring his foible for royal treatment helps me to come to a conclusion, I have no objection.”

“Well, what about you, Ramsay? He keeps referring to you as his first teacher of magic. You knew him from childhood, then? You could surely say who he was?”

“I was almost present at his birth. But does that mean anything? An infant is a seed. Is it an oak seed or a cabbage seed? Who knows? All mothers think their children are oaks, but the world never lacks for cabbages. I would be the last man to pretend that knowing somebody as a child gave any real clue to who he is as a man. I can tell you this: he jokes about the lessons I gave him when he was a child, but he didn’t think them funny then; he had a great gift for something I couldn’t do at all, or could do with absurd effort. He was deadly serious during our lessons, and for a good reason. I could read the books and he couldn’t. I think that may throw some light on what we have been hearing about the World of Wonders, which he presents as a kind of joke. I am perfectly certain it wasn’t a joke at the time.”