"Oh, are you a doctor then?"
"No. N-not n-now," he stammered, and began to untie and retie his shoe lace very carefully. "I—I was going to be."
"You must be clever," she said admiringly. "What a lot of things we can talk about!"
"Rather! I'm w-wondering what m-makes you like that!—you know what I mean, without co-ordination. Babies and drunkards and that sort of thing usually are."
"Well, I'm neither of those. But I'll tell you why I think it is. It's because I've lived in the open air, where there was nothing to knock over except trees and stones; or else I've lived in an enormous house where everything was so big you couldn't knock it over if you tried. I'm not used to being among things and people."
"Been in prison?" he said, smiling for the first time.
She entered on a vivid description of Lashnagar. He seemed to think it was a fairy tale, though he listened eagerly enough, and once she saw him actually look directly at her face for an instant.
"Are you going to Sydney?" he asked at length.
"I'm booked through to Sydney, but I'm going to live with an uncle right in the backblocks somewhere, and he may meet me at Melbourne. I've never seen him yet. Where are you going?"
"Sydney."