This last she had learned recently, after several bitter experiences. Europeans seemed firmly persuaded that a character existed not in yourself but in the minds of other people, or rather in their handwriting. In the United States a good presence was worth a thousand good characters and your own opinion of yourself, expressed with imaginative brilliance, went much further than other people’s opinion of you, expressed with dullness. In Europe, the reverse was true. Would he make out a good character for her, and have it on tap within easy reach in case she referred employers to him? She was sure that any testimonial coming from him—yes, from him— "Oh, I know you’re a mystery," she said, in answer to his deprecatory gesture. "But not an ordinary mystery. A mystery linked to the pink of propriety is a sublime mystery. Like Mrs. Grundy’s husband, whom you remind me of. No one has ever identified that mysterious man. Yet who’d have the courage to turn down a character made out by Mr. Grundy?" She told him of her break with Claude, of her situation as the companion of Henriette, and of her experience with M. St. Hilaire as a result of Burley’s interference. "I left Brussels the very next day." "For Coblenz?" "Via Coblenz, for Munich, to see you, if possible. It was a Munich address you gave me, on board the ’Baronia’." "I left Munich some time ago." "So I learned. You see, I followed you here. But how do you know I went to Coblenz?" "On the seventh of October?" "On the seventh of October. How _did_ you know it?" "I didn’t know it. The information just drifted my way." "You are a detective then, Sherlock Holmes and M. Gaboriau rolled into one." "Janet, disabuse yourself of that idea. If I _were_ a detective I’d be a very sorry one. Let me prove it to you. In the course of my duties (whatever they are), I had occasion to look up Mr. Burley. I located him in Brussels on the sixth of October. I had scarcely found him before he slipped through my fingers." "Slipped through your fingers?" "Yes. Slipped through my fingers. You see, I’m trying to live up to the detective role to oblige you. Well, I got on to Mr. Burley’s movements again on the seventh of October, just in time to follow him to Coblenz. _Why Coblenz?_ I asked myself again and again. By the way, did you ever hear of a real, live detective asking _himself_ a question?" "No. But what is the answer?" "_You_ are the answer, of course. And I’ve only just discovered the fact. Fancy Sherlock Holmes following Hutchins Burley all the way from Brussels to Coblenz and from Coblenz to London and not discovering a quintessential answer, until the answer had crossed the Channel and stationed itself under his very nose." "Do you mean to tell me that that odious Hutchins Burley is also in London at this very minute?"