Page:The Sacred Fount (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1901).djvu/225

 "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 219