"Natural enough," he put in. "You'd hardly be human yourself if you felt nothing at such a sight."
"The loneliness, too, increased the effect," went on the other, "for there was no one nearer than the peasants who had directed me a thousand feet below, nor was there another building of any sort in sight. Anyhow, it seemed, I managed my strange emotions all right, for the young man took to me at once. He left the fire, if reluctantly, singing to himself a sort of low chanting melody, with perhaps five or six notes at most in it, and far from unmusical——"
"He explained the fire? Was he actually worshipping, I mean?"
"It was certainly worship, judging by the expression of his face and his gestures of reverence and happiness. But I asked no questions. I thought it best just to accept, or appear to accept, the whole thing as natural. He said something about the Equinox, but I did not catch it properly and did not ask. This had evidently been taught him. It was, however, the 22nd of September, oddly enough, though the gales had not yet come."
"So you got into the châlet next?" asked the other, noticing the gaps, the incoherence.
"He put his coat on, sat down with me to a meal of bread and milk and cheese—meat there seemed none in the building anywhere. This meal was, if you understand me, obeying a mere habit automatically. He did just what it had been his habit to do with Mason all these years. He got the stuff himself—quickly, effectively, no fumbling anywhere—and, from that moment, hardly spoke again until we left two days later. I mean that literally. All he said, when I tried to make him talk, was, 'You are not Fillery,' or 'Take me to Fillery. I need him.'
"I almost felt that I was living with some marvellously trained animal, of extraordinary intelligence, gentle, docile, friendly, but unhappy because it had lost its accustomed master. But on the other hand—I admit it—I was conscious of a certain power in his personality beyond me to explain. That, really, is the best description I can give you."
"You mentioned the name of Mason?" asked Fillery, avoiding a dozen more obvious and natural questions.
"Several times. But his only reply was a smile, while he repeated the name himself, adding your own after it: 'Mason Fillery, Mason Fillery,' he would say, smiling with quiet happiness. "I like Fillery!'"
"The nights?"