“ Four spades bid, five spades made,” the policeman said, gathering the final trick. The priest took up his pencil and wrote down the score. The policeman shuffled the cards. Ther soldier cut them, and the policeman scooped them up and began to deal. He opened the bidding with a diamond, and the doctor doubled. The priest looked at his cards for a long moment.

“ Lust,” he said.

The others stared at him. “Is that your bid?” his partner said. “Lust?”

The priest stroked his chin. “Did I actually say that?” he said, bemused. “I meant to pass.”

“ Which made you think of making a pass,” the doctor suggested, “and so you spoke as you did.”

“ Hardly that,” the priest said. “I was thinking of lust, but I assure you I entertained no lustful thoughts. I was thinking of lust in the abstract, the sin of lust.”

“ Lust is a sin, is it?” said the soldier.

“ One of the seven cardinal sins,” the priest said.

“ Lust is desire, isn’t it?”

“ A form of desire,” the priest said. “A perversion of desire, perhaps. Desire raised to sinful proportions.”

“ But it’s a desire all the same,” the soldier insisted. “It’s not an act, and a sin ought to be an act. Lust may prompt a sinful act, but it’s not a sin in and of itself.”

“ One can sin in the mind,” the policeman pointed out. “On the other hand, you can’t hang a man for his thoughts.”

“ Hanging him is one thing,” said the doctor. “Sending him to Hell is another.”

“ The seven deadly sins are all in the mind,” the priest explained. “Pride, avarice, jealousy, anger, gluttony, sloth, and lust.”

“ Quite a menu,” the soldier said.

“ Sin is error,” the priest went on. “A mistake, a tragic mistake, if you will. Out of pride, out of anger, out of gluttony, one commits an action which is sinful, or, if you will, entertains a sinful thought. Thus any sinful act a man might commit can be assigned to one of these seven categories.”