"Yes."
"Did you hear what they were calling?"
"Something about the Empress of Borneo being reported safe."
She nodded. Then: "That is the hopeless part of it. I can sometimes help others; never myself.... I suppose you have no idea how many, many hours I have spent looking for you.... I never could find you. I have never found you in my crystal, or in my clearer vision, or in my dreams; ... never heard your voice, never had news of you except by common report in everyday life.... Why is it, I wonder?"
His expression was inscrutable. She said, her eyes still lingering on his: "You know it makes me indignant to see so much that neither concerns nor interests me—so much that passes—in this!—" laying one hand on the crystal beside the couch ... "and never, never in the dull monotony of the drifting multitude to catch a glimpse of you.... I wonder, were I lost somewhere in the world, if you could find me, Clive?"
"I'd die, trying," he said unsmilingly.
"Oh! How romantic! I wasn't fishing for a pretty speech, dear. I meant, could you find me in the crystal. Look into it, Clive."
He turned and went over to the clear, transparent sphere, and she, resting her chin on both arms, lay gazing into it, too.
After a silence he shook his head: "I see nothing, Athalie."