"Nothing.... Don't ask me." Presently he saw her very slowly move her head and look back at the empty corner of the room; and remain so, motionless for a moment. Then she turned with a sigh, came quietly to him; and he drew her hand through his arm. "Of what were you thinking, Athalie?" "Of nothing." "Did you think you saw something over there?" She was silent. "What were you looking at?" he insisted. "Nothing.... I don't care to talk just now--" "Tell me, Athalie!" "No.... No, I don't want to, Clive--" "I wish to know!" "I can't--there is nothing to tell you--" she laid one hand on his coat, almost pleadingly, and looked up at him out of eyes so dark that only the starry light in them betrayed that they were blue and not velvet black. "That same thing has happened before," he said, looking at her, deeply perplexed. "Several times since I have known you the same expression has come into your face--as though you were looking at something which--" "Please don't, Clive!--" "--Which," he insisted, "I did not see.... _Could_ not see!" "Clive!" He stared at her rather blankly: "Why don't you tell me?" "I--can't!" "_Is_ there anything--" "Don't! Don't!" she begged; but he went on, still staring at her: "Is there any reason for you to--not to be frank with me? _Is_ there, Athalie?" "No; no reason.... I'll tell you ... if you will understand. _Must_ I tell you?" "Yes." Her head fell; she stood plucking nervously at his fur coat for a while in silence. Then: "Clive, I--I _see clearly_." "What?" "I mean that I see a--a little more clearly than--some do. Do you understand?" "No." She sighed, stood twisting her white-gloved fingers, looking away from him. "I am clairvoyant," she breathed. "Athalie! _You?_" She nodded. For a second or two he stood silent in his astonishment; then, taking her hand, he drew her around facing the light, and she looked up at him in her lovely abashed way, yet so honestly, that anybody who could recognise truth and candour, could never have mistaken such eyes as hers. "Who told you that you are clairvoyant?" he asked. "My mother." "Then--" "It was not necessary for anybody to tell me that I saw--more clearly--than other people.... Mother knew it.... She merely explained and gave a name to this--this--whatever it is--this quality--this ability to see clearly.... That is all, Clive." He was evidently trying to comprehend and digest what she had said. She watched him, saw surprise and incredulity in conflict with uneasiness and with the belief he could not avoid from lips that were not fashioned for lies, and from eyes never made to even look untruths. "I had never supposed there was such a thing as real clairvoyance," he said at last. She remained silent, her candid gaze on him. "I believe that _you_ believe it, of course." She smiled, then sighed: "There is no pleasure in it to me. I wish it were not so." "But, if it is so, you ought to find it--interesting--" "No."