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."