Mr. Heard, on rising, gave him a critical glance. He remembered his trip in the boat, and the suicide's rock—that black, ominous cliff; he remembered the thoughts which had passed through his mind at the time. Was this the kind of boy to kill himself? Surely not. Keith must have been mistaken. And Count Caloveglia—was he mistaken too? Evidently. There was nothing tragic about Denis. He was brimming over with life. His troubles, whatever they were, must have been forgotten.
"I've been lunching with Keith," he began. "He made me tell him a fairy-tale."
"Sit down and have some coffee! You came away very early."
"He told me he wanted to go to sleep after luncheon. And one or two other nice things."
Ah, thought Mr. Heard, Keith was acting up to what he had said in the boat; he was being good to the boy; that was right of him.
"I'm sure," he said, "that Keith has been speaking kindly to you."
"Kindly? It's like talking to an earthquake. He told me to dominate my reflexes. He called me a perambulating echo. He said I was a human amoeba—"
"Amoeba. What's that?"
"A sort of animal that floats about trying to attach itself to something which it can't find."
"I think I see what he means. Anything else?"