Yet taken along with that Raskoffsky business of only a few months before, and the incident of the Hotel Deming of only the day before (but of which he had thought nothing until he had seen her in the car), and the incident of the letters in the ashes, which followed on the morning after he had dashed home that day, and then that business of the closed car in Bergley Place, just three nights afterwards—well, by George! when one put such things together— It was very hard to put these things in the order of their effect on him, though it was easy to put them in their actual order as to time. The Hotel Deming incident had occurred only the day before the automobile affair and taken alone, meant nothing, just a chance encounter with her on the part of Naigly, who had chosen to speak of it. But joined afterwards with the business of the partly burned letters and after seeing her in that car or thinking he had—Well—After that, naturally his mind had gone back to that Hotel Deming business, and to the car, too. Naigly, who had been interested in Beryl before her marriage (she had been Baggott’s stenographer), came into the office about four—the day before he had seen Beryl, or thought he had, in the car, and had said to him casually: “I saw your wife just now, Stoddard.” “That so? Where?” “She was coming out of the Deming ladies’ entrance as I passed just now.” Well, taken by itself, there was nothing much in that, was there? There was an arcade of shops which made the main entrance to the Deming, and it was easy to go through that and come out of one of the other entrances. He knew Beryl had done it before, so why should he have worried about it then? Only, for some reason, when he came home that evening Beryl didn’t mention that she had been downtown that day until he asked her. “What were you doing about four to-day?” “Downtown, shopping. Why? Did you see me? I went for Mother.” “Me? No. Who do you know in the Deming?” “No one”—this without a trace of self-consciousness, which was one of the things that made him doubt whether there had been anything wrong. “Oh, yes; I remember now. I walked through to look at the hats in Anna McCarty’s window, and came out the ladies’ entrance. Why?” “Oh, nothing. Naigly said he saw you, that’s all. You’re getting to be a regular gadabout these days.” “Oh, what nonsense! Why shouldn’t I go through the Deming Arcade? I would have stopped in to see you, only I know you don’t like me to come bothering around there.” And so he had dismissed it from his mind—until the incident of the car. And then the matter of the letters ... and Raskoffsky ...