I can see again now the long look that, on this, he gave me. I made out already much of what was in it. "So then do I!" "But how in the world----? I know, for myself, _how_ I know." "So then do I," he after a moment repeated. "And can you tell me?" "Certainly. But what I've already named to you--the torch of your analogy." I turned this over. "You've made evidently an admirable use of it. But the wonderful thing is that you seem to have done so without having all the elements." He on his side considered. "What do you call all the elements?" "Oh, it would take me long to tell you!" I couldn't help laughing at the comparative simplicity with which he asked it. "That's the sort of thing we just now spoke of taking a day for. At any rate, such as they are, these elements," I went on, "I believe myself practically in possession of them. But what I don't quite see is how _you_ can be." Well, he was able to tell me. "Why in the world shouldn't your analogy have put me?" He spoke with gaiety, but with lucidity. "I'm not an idiot either." "I see." But there was so much! "Did you think I _was_?" he amiably asked. "No. I see," I repeated. Yet I didn't, really, fully; which he presently perceived. "You made me think of your view of the Brissenden pair till I could think of nothing else." "Yes--yes," I said. "Go on." "Well, as you had planted the theory in me, it began to bear fruit. I began to watch them. I continued to watch them. I did nothing but watch them." The sudden lowering of his voice in this confession--as if it had represented a sort of darkening of his consciousness--again amused me. "You too? How then we've been occupied! For I, you see, have watched--or had, until I found you just now with Mrs. Server--everyone, everything _but_ you." "Oh, I've watched _you_," said Ford Obert as if he had then perhaps after all the advantage of me. "I admit that I made you out for myself to be back on the scent; for I thought I made you out baffled." To learn whether I really had been was, I saw, what he would most have liked; but I also saw that he had, as to this, a scruple about asking me. What I most saw, however, was that to tell him I should have to understand. "What scent do you allude to?" He smiled as if I might have fancied I could fence. "Why, the pursuit of the identification that's none of our business--the identification of her lover." "Ah, it's as to that," I instantly replied, "you've judged me baffled? I'm afraid," I almost as quickly added, "that I must admit I _have_ been. Luckily, at all events, it _is_ none of our business." "Yes," said my friend, amused on his side, "nothing's our business that we can't find out. I saw you hadn't found him. And what," Obert continued, "does he matter now?"