"Such nice manners and such a steady eye," Mrs. Soames, the matron, mentioned, too, approvingly to Devonham. "But a lot in him he doesn't understand himself, unless I'm wrong. Not much the matter with his nerves, anyhow. Once he's married—unless I'm much mistaken—eh, sir?"
He was quiet, talking little, and spent the morning over the books Fillery had placed purposely in his sitting-room, books on simple physics, natural history and astronomy. It was the latter that absorbed him most; he pored over them by the hour.
Fillery explained the situation so far as he thought wise. The young man was honesty and simple innocence, but only vaguely interested in the life of the great city he now experienced for the first time. He had in his luggage a copy of the Will by which Mason had left him everything, and he was pleased to know himself well provided for. Of Mason, however, he had only a dim, uncertain, almost an impersonal memory, as of someone encountered in a dream.
"I suppose something's happened to me," he said to Fillery, his language normal and quite ordinary again. He spoke with a slight foreign accent. "There was somebody, of course, who looked after me and lived with me, but I can't remember who or where it was. I was very happy," he added, "and yet ... I miss something."
Dr. Fillery, remembering his promise, did not press him.
"It will all come back by degrees," he remarked in a sympathetic tone. "In the meantime, you must make yourself at home here with us, for as long as you like. You are quite free in every way. I want you to be happy here."
"I live with you always," was the reply. "There are things I want to tell you, ask you too." He paused, looking thoughtful. "There was someone I told all to once."
"Come to me with everything. I'll help you always, so far as I can." He placed a hand upon his knee.
"There are feelings, big feelings I cannot reach quite, but that make me feel different"—he smiled beautifully—"from—others." Quick as lightning he had changed the sentence at the last word, substituting "others" for "you." Had he been aware of a slight uneasy emotion in his listener's heart? It had hardly betrayed itself by any visible sign, yet he had instantly divined its presence. Such evidences of a subtle, intimate, understanding were not lacking. Yet Fillery admirably restrained himself.
"There are bright places I have lost," he went on frankly, no sign of shy reserve in him. "I feel confused, lost somewhere, as if I didn't belong here. I feel"—he used an odd word—"doubled." His face shaded a little.