"Good heavens!" Mrs. Harbinger broke in, "don't make another blunder. Jack Neligage couldn't—"
"I see it all!" Barnstable cried, not heeding her. "Mr. Neligage was in Chicago just after my divorce. I heard him say he was there that winter. Oh, of course he's the man."
"But he isn't a writer," Mrs. Harbinger protested.
She rose to face Barnstable, whose inflammable temper had evidently blazed up again with a suddenness entirely absurd.
"That's why he wrote anonymously," declared the other; "and that's why he had to put in real things instead of making them up! Oh, of course it was Mr. Neligage."
"Mr. Barnstable," she said with seriousness, "be reasonable, and stop this nonsense. I tell you Mr. Neligage couldn't have written that book."
He glared at her with eyes which were wells of obstinacy undiluted.
"I'll see about that," he said.
Without other salutation than a nod he walked away, and left her.
She gazed after him with the look which studies a strange animal.