"Say, when did you get this idea into your head?" he demanded harshly. "What put it there? You were loving me hard enough a while ago,—couldn't get along without me, you claimed. Now you're singing another tune. Look here! Is—is there some one else?"
"You know there isn't," she cried indignantly. "Who else could there be? Don't be foolish, Barry."
"By God, if some one else has cut me out, I'll—I'll—"
"There is no one else, I tell you! I don't love anybody,—I swear it."
He eyed her narrowly. "Has Kenny Gwynne anything to do with all this?"
She started. "Kenny? Why,—no,—of course not. What on earth could he have to do with my loving or not loving you?"
"It would be just like him to turn you against me because he thinks I'm not fit to—Say, if I find out that he's been sticking his nose into my affairs, I'll make it so hot for him,—brother or no brother,—that he'll wish he'd never been born. Wait a minute! I'll tell you what I think of him while I'm about it—and you can run and tell him as quick as you please. He's a G— d—— snake in the grass, that's what he is. He's a conceited, sanctimonious, white-livered—"
"Stop that!" she cried, springing to her feet, white with fury, her eyes blazing. "You are forgetting yourself, Barry Lapelle. Not another word! How dare you speak like that about my brother?"
He sat staring up at her in a sort of stupefaction.
"How dare you?" she repeated furiously.