“ Playing doctor,” the soldier said.

“ Quite so. It must happen often, and who’d ever report it? If the two are close in age, if there’s no force or intimidation involved, where’s the abuse? It may be forbidden, they may be transgressors, but what’s the harm?”

“ I wonder how often they actually marry,” the policeman said.

“ Not too often,” the doctor said. “I can’t imagine marrying my sister, but then I can’t imagine fucking her, either. Truth to tell, I can’t imagine anyone fucking her.”

“ If you had a better-looking sister…”

“ Then it might be a different story,” the doctor allowed. “Speaking of stories, that’s a good one, Priest. How did it turn out?”

“ I don’t know that it did,” the priest said. “Two years or so after our conversation, Carolyn gave birth to a daughter. I christened the child, and she certainly looked like her parents, for all that you can tell when they’re that small.”

“ So they rolled the dice,” the soldier said. “Although I suppose someone else might have been the father. Artificial insemination and all that.”

“ Or else they’d have been swimming in the shallow end of the gene pool,” said the doctor, “and that’s dangerous, but not always disastrous. On the one hand you’ve got the Jukes and the Kallikaks, those horrible examples they tell you about in high school biology class, and on the other hand you’ve got all the crowned heads of Europe.”

“ When we have more time,” the policeman said, “you can tell me which is worse. Any more to the story, Priest?”

The priest shook his head. “I was transferred shortly thereafter,” he said, “and lost track of them. I hope things turned out well for them. I liked them.”

“ And I like your story,” the policeman said. “Lust. I could tell a story about lust.”

The others sat back, waiting.

I’m not much of a storyteller (said the policeman) and I don’t know much about sin.