"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."