The feeling of it was with him next day, but he could not get back to the fact or the words which had given rise to it. Something the old man had said had caused him a momentary surprise and discomfort, and then had come the abiding surprise, from which the momentary discomfort had worn off, of that enormous bank-note, and after that the hasty exit over the roofs and the tumultuous supper at Merlin's, with much merriment and wine and smoke. It was not easy to get back through all that fog to the actual words of a casual conversation.
But there certainly was something. What, in Heaven's name, was it, that it should haunt him in this fashion?
And then, as he did his best for the tenth time, in his thick-headed, blundering way, to cover the ground again step by step, it suddenly flashed upon him.
"And which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?"
That was it! "Which of you is Lady Susan Sandys's boy?" the old man had asked quite casually, as though expecting a perfectly commonplace answer.
Were they not, then, both Lady Susan Sandys's boys?
To be suddenly confronted with a question such as that--to come upon even the suggestion of a flaw in the fundamental facts of one's life, is a facer indeed.
What could the old boy mean? There was no sign of decrepitude about him. That he was in fullest possession of very unusual powers of brain and nerve, his prowess at the tables had shown. What could he mean?
Twin brothers must surely have the same mother. And yet from Lord Deseret's question, and the way he put it, and the searching look of the kindly keen eyes, one might have supposed that he knew, and every one else knew, something to the contrary.
To one of Jim's simple nature, there was only one thing to be done, and that was to go to Lord Deseret and ask him plainly what he meant.