QUOTE : There was something different about Severin today, Devon thought. A look of being stranded in some foreign place without a map. “How are you, Tom?” he asked with a touch of concern. “Why are you really here?”<br /><br />Severin’s usual response would have been something flippant and amusing. Instead, he said distractedly, “I don’t know.”<br /><br />“Is there a problem with one of your businesses?”<br /><br />“No, no,” Severin said with a touch of impatience. “All that’s fine.”<br /><br />“Your health, then?”<br /><br />“No. It’s only that lately … I seem to want something I don’t have. But I don’t know what it is. And that’s impossible. I have everything.”<br /><br />Devon bit back a wry smile. The conversation always became somewhat tortured whenever Severin, who was habitually detached from his emotions, tried to identify one of them. “Do you think it could be loneliness?” he suggested.<br /><br />“No, it’s not that.” Severin looked pensive. “What do you call it when everything seems boring and pointless, and even the people you know well are like strangers?”<br /><br />“Loneliness,” Devon said flatly.<br /><br />“Damn it. That makes six.”<br /><br />“Six what?” Devon asked in bewilderment.<br /><br />“Feelings. I’ve never had more than five feelings, and they’re hard enough to manage as it is. I’ll be damned if I’ll add another.”<br /><br />Shaking his head, Devon went to retrieve his glass of brandy. “I don’t want to know what your five feelings are,” he said. “I’m sure the answer would worry me.