Athalie

"It's one of those things I happen to do," he said with a slight

shrug.

They mused for a while in silence, her mind pursuing its trend back to

childhood, his idly considering the subject of prayer and wondering

whether the habit had become too mechanical with him, or whether his

less selfish petitions might possibly carry to the Source of All

Things.

Then having drifted clear of this nebulous zone of thought, and

coffee having been served, they came back to earth and to each other

with slight smiles of recognition--delicate salutes acknowledging each

other's presence and paramount importance in a world which was going

very gaily.

They discussed the play; she hummed snatches of its melodies below her

breath at intervals, her dark blue eyes always fixed on him and her

ears listening to him alone. Particularly now; for his mood had

changed and he was drifting back toward something she had said earlier

in the evening--something about her own possible capacity for good and

evil. It was a question, only partly serious; and she responded in the

same vein: "How should I know what capabilities I possess? Of course I have

capabilities. No doubt, dormant within me lies every besetting sin,

every human failing. Perhaps also the cardinal, corresponding, and

antidotic virtues to all of these."

"I suppose," he said, "every sin has its antithesis. It's like a chess

board--the human mind--with the black men ranged on one side and the

white on the other, ready to move, to advance, skirmish, threaten,

manoeuvre, attack, and check each other, and the intervening squares

represent the checkered battlefield of contending desires."

The simile striking her as original and clever, she made him a pretty

compliment. She was very young in her affections.

"If," she nodded, "a sin, represented by a black piece, dares to stir

or intrude or threaten, then there is always the better thought,

represented by a white piece, ready to block and check the black one.

Is that it?"

"Exactly," he said, secretly well pleased with himself. And as for

Athalie, she admired his elastic and eloquent imagination beyond

words.

"Do you know," she said, "you have never yet told me anything about

your business. Is it all right for me to ask, Clive?"

"Certainly. It's real estate--Bailey, Reeve, and Willis. Willis is

dead, Reeve out of it, and my father and I are the whole show."

"Reeve?" she repeated, interested.

"Yes, he lives in Paris, permanently. He has a son here, in the

banking business."