[41] [41] “I meant that the things we denominate by the rather vague term ‘coincidence’ inevitably have a direct relation between them, if you take the trouble to trace each one to its original source.” “Which means—what?” “Which means that, according to my theory, there should be something more than now appears on the surface to explain this unaccountable resemblance between the pirate and the count.” “Surely, Nick, you don’t mean to accuse the count of——” “I don’t mean to accuse anybody of anything. I am merely endeavoring to explain a circumstance which strikes me as being remarkable, to say the least.” “But, Nick——” “Wait, please. If you had been the only one to notice the resemblance, I should have paid no attention whatever to it.” “Thanks, awfully!” “I don’t mean my remark that way, Max. I do mean that your unsupported theory in that respect would not have been of sufficient importance to have attracted my attention. I should, in that case, have regarded it merely as a phantom of your own brain.” “I see what you are getting at.” “No, you don’t—yet. Not quite.” “Well, go ahead, then, and explain.” “Let us look at the thing calmly, candidly, and logically.” “Certainly.” [42] [42] “You have known—and so have I—circumstances where you have thought a child to exactly resemble its father, while another person would be equally strong in the belief that it hadn’t a trace of its father about it, but, on the contrary, was a picture of its mother.” “Hundreds of them.”
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