"I've certainly spoiled you," he said with a groan; "you've tasted adulation; you prefer it to your dinner." "The question is do _you_ prefer my company to the dinner and the show? _Do_ you! If so why mention me last in the catalogue of your blessings?" "I always mention you last in my prayers--so that whoever listens will more easily remember," he said gaily. The laughter still made the dark blue eyes brilliant but they grew more serious when she said: "You don't really ever _pray_ for me, Clive. Do you?" "Yes. Why not?" The smile faded in her eyes and in his. "I didn't know you prayed at all," she remarked, looking down at her wine glass. "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?"