"It must be a dreadful thing to lose one's memory," put in Nita.
"It makes everything very difficult," I said with a shrug. It did.
"And yet you can remember everything that's happened since, can't you?" she persisted.
"Perfectly. As perfectly as if I had never had that shock."
"It is odd."
Her mother took up the running again then. "My husband thinks you must have been a very long time in England," she said.
"That's very interesting. Why does he?"
"I don't know exactly. Of course it can only be a guess. But he declares you are much more like an Englishman than one of us. I fancy it's your reserved manner; the way he said you pronounced English to him; and then your knowing something of the English words of command. In fact he took you for an Englishman at first; and he questioned me ever so closely, almost cross-examined me indeed, as I told him, about your fighting yesterday, the way you used your fists, and so on. I was quite amused."
My feeling was anything but amusement, however. "It's a thousand pities I can't tell him anything."
To my surprise this seemed to make her laugh, and I thought it prudent to join in the laugh. But it was something else which had tickled her. "There was one thing he insisted upon worrying us both about. You remember, Nita?"