The shot told. For a minute they looked again fixedly at each other.
"You had my answer," said Barnaby, "when I spoke of her as my wife."
"You stick to that then?" said Rackham. "Though she has found it unsupportable, though she's gone—you still hold to that pretence? What's the good? You don't care a straw for the girl. Oh, I've seen you together; I know the terms you were on.—It's sheer obstinacy makes you play the dog-in-the-manger——"
"Take care," said Barnaby, breathing hard.
"Let's drop that humbug," said Rackham. "I'm no gossip.—But I've had an inkling from the first. I've guessed all along that it was a plant of your mother's.—Infernally inconvenient of you to turn up and spoil it—! But I held my tongue. Nobody else had any idea of how the land lay but Julia.—There's a devilish instinct sometimes in a jealous woman—"
He laughed shortly. Something in Barnaby's look amused him.
"What? She's been reproaching you, has she, after all?" he said. "Well, I did you one service there. If I hadn't kept her quiet, she'd have shrieked it all out on the house-tops on the night of the Melton Ball. You owe me something for that, Barnaby. There 'ud always have been a few who wouldn't have put her down as a raving lunatic. Mind, I didn't muzzle her for your sake—I did that for Susan. I wasn't going to stand by and see that woman hounding 'em on—!"
"Have you done?" said Barnaby. He had got back some measure of self-control.
"I'm done if you are reasonable," said Rackham. "Why not own up and tell me what you can, and let me look for her. I swear I'll find her—but not for you."
Barnaby took one step towards him, and he stood back quickly, smiling at his own involuntary precaution. He could afford to smile, to stave off a scuffle that would summon all the rabble in the hotel.