"Also," Devonham went on presently, "I must tell you that since he came here there's been a change in every patient in the building—without exception." He looked over his shoulder as though he heard a sound. He listened certainly, but his mind was sharply centred on his friend.
"For the better, yes," said Fillery at once. "Increased vitality, I've noticed too."
"Precisely," whispered the other, still listening.
There came a pause between them.
"And when we have found the real, the central self," pursued Fillery presently. "When we have found the essential being—what is it?"
"Exactly," replied Devonham with extraordinary emphasis. "What is it?" But even then he did not look up to meet the other's glance.
[CHAPTER XI]
THE meeting with Dr. Fillery and his friends, the Khilkoffs, father and daughter, had, for one reason or another, to be postponed for a week, during which brief time even, no single day wasted, LeVallon's education proceeded rapidly. He was exceedingly quick to learn the usages of civilized society in a big city, adapting himself with an ease born surely of quick intelligence to the requirements and conventions of ordinary life.
In his perception of the rights of others, particularly, he showed a natural aptitude; he had good manners, that is, instinctively; in certain houses where Fillery took him purposely, he behaved with a courtesy and tact that belong usually to what England calls a gentleman. Except to Fillery and Devonham, he talked little, but was an excellent and sympathetic listener, a quality that helped him to make his way. With Mrs. Soames, the stern and even forbidding matron, he made such headway, that it was noticed with a surprise, including laughter. He might have been her adopted son.