How much her coming was beginning to mean to him, to others! Both were silent a while. Then it was Kenneth who spoke.
"Do you know, Miss Bright, it never occurred to me before you came, that I had any obligations to these people? Now I know I have. I was indifferent to the fact that I had a soul myself until you came."
She looked up questioningly.
"Yes, I mean it," he said. "To all intents and purposes I had no soul. A man forgets he has a soul when he lives in the midst of vice, and no one cares whether he goes to the devil or not."
"Is it the environment, or the feeling that no one cares?" she asked.
"Both." He buried his face in his hands.
"Did you feel that no one cared? I'm sure your mother cared."
She had touched a sore spot.
"My mother?" he said, bitterly. "My mother is a woman of the world." Here he lifted his head. "She is engrossed in society. She has no interest whatever in me, and never did have, although I am her only child."
"Perhaps you are mistaken," she said softly. "I am sure you must be mistaken."