Athalie. Chambers Robert William
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, manœuvre, 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."
"Cecil Reeve?"
"Yes. Do you know him?"
"No. My sister Catharine does."
Clive seemed interested and curious: "Cecil Reeve and I were at Harvard together. I haven't seen much of him since."
"What sort is he, Clive?"
"Nice – Oh, very nice. A good sport; – a good deal of a sport… Which sister did you say?"
"Catharine."
"That's the cunning little one with the baby stare and brown curls?"
"Yes."
There was a silence. Clive sat absently fidgeting with his glass, and Athalie watched him. Presently without looking up he said: "Yes, Cecil Reeve is a very decent sport… Rather gay. Good-looking chap. Nice sort… But rather a sport, you know."
The girl nodded.
"Catharine mustn't believe all he says," he added with a laugh. "Cecil has a way – I'm not knocking him, you understand – but a young – inexperienced girl – might take him a little bit too seriously… Of course your sister wouldn't."
"No, I don't think so… Are you that way, too?"
He raised his eyes: "Do you think I am, Athalie?"
"No… But I can't help wondering – a little uneasily at times – how you can find me as – as companionable as you say you do… I can't help wondering how long it will last."
"It will last as long as you do."
"But you are sure to find me out sooner or later, Clive."
"Find you out?"
"Yes – discover my limits, exhaust my capacity for entertaining you, extract the last atom of amusement out of me. And – what then?"
"Athalie! What nonsense!"
"Is it?"
"Certainly it's nonsense. How can I possibly tire of such a girl as you? I scarcely even know you yet. I don't begin to know you. Why you are a perfectly unexplored, undiscovered girl to me, yet!"
"Am I?" she asked, laughing. "I supposed you had discovered about all there is to me."
He shook his head, looking at her curiously perplexed: "Every time we meet you are different. You always have interesting views on any subject. You stimulate my imagination. How could I tire?
"Besides, somehow I am always aware of reserved and hidden forces in you – of a character which I only partly know and admire – capabilities, capacities of which I am ignorant except that, intuitively, I seem to know they are part of you."
"Am I as complex as that to you?"
"Sometimes," he admitted. "You are just now for example. But usually you are only a wonderfully interesting and charming girl who brings out the best side of me and keeps me amused and happy every moment that I am with you."
"There really is not much more to me than that," she said in a low voice. "You sum me up – a gay source of amusement: nothing more."
"Athalie, you know you are more vital than that to me."
"No, I don't know it."
"You do! You know it in your own heart. You know that it is a straight, clean, ardent friendship that inspires me and – " she looked up, serious, and very quiet.
– "You know," he continued impulsively, "that it is not only your beauty, your loveliness and grace and that inexplicable charm you seem to radiate, that brings me to seek you every time that I have a moment to do so.
"Why, if it were that alone, it would all have been merely a matter of sentiment. Have I ever been sentimental with you?"
"No."
"Have I ever made love to you?"
She did not reply. Her eyes were fixed on her glass.
"Have I, Athalie?" he repeated.
"No, Clive," she said gently.
"Well then; is there not on my part a very deep, solidly founded, and vital friendship for you? Is there not a – "
"Don't let's talk about it," she interrupted in a low voice. "You always make me very happy; you say I please you – interest and amuse you. That is enough – more than enough – more than I ever hoped or asked – "
"I said you make me happy; – happier than I have ever been," he explained with emphasis. "Do you suppose for a moment that your regard for me is warmer, deeper, more enduring, than is mine for you? Do you, Athalie?"
She lifted her eyes to his. But she had nothing more to say on the subject.
However, he began to insist, – a little impatiently, – on a direct answer. And finally she said:
"Clive, you came into a rather empty life when you came into mine. Judge how completely you have filled it… And what it would be if you went out of it. Your own life has always been full. If I should disappear from it – " she ceased.
The quiet, accentless, almost listless dignity of the