"As long as I can remember."
"And you have never tried to cultivate the power?"
"I had rather you did not call it that."
"But it is a power.... Well, call it faculty, then. Have you?"
"No. I told you once that I did not wish to see more clearly than others. It is all involuntary with me."
"Would you try to cultivate it because I ask you to?"
"Clive!"
"Will you, Athalie?"
The painful colour mantled her face and neck and she turned and looked away from him as though he had said a shameful thing.
He continued, impatiently: "Why do you feel that way about it? Why should you not cultivate such a delicate and wonderful sense of perception? Why are you reluctant? What reason is there for you to be ashamed?"