"I was hasty," admitted Barnstable, an expression of mingled penitence and woe in his face. "I'm afraid I was all wrong about the Count. But the book has so many things in it that fit, things that were particular, why, of course when Mrs.--that lady yesterday--" "Mrs. Neligage." "When she said the Count wrote it, I didn't stop to think." "That was only mischief on her part. You might much better say her son wrote it than the Count." "Her son?" repeated Barnstable, starting to his feet. "That's who it is! Why, of course it was to turn suspicion away from him that his mother--" "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. "Well," she said softly, aloud, "of all the fools--" XIV THE CONCEALING OF SECRETS Where a number of persons are in the same place, all interested in the same matter, yet convinced that affairs must be arranged not by open discussion but by adroit management, the result is inevitable. Each will be seeking to speak to some other alone; there will be a constant shifting and rearranging of groups as characters are moved on and off the stage in the theatre. Life for the time being, indeed, takes on an artificial air not unlike that which results from the studied devices of the playwright. The most simple and accurate account of what takes place must read like the arbitrary conventions of the boards; and the reader is likely to receive an impression of unreality from the very closeness with which the truth has been followed. At the County Club that April afternoon there were so many who were in one way or another interested in the fate of the letter which in a moment of wild fun Mrs. Neligage had handed over to the Count, that it was natural that the movements of the company should have much the appearance of a contrived comedy. No sooner, for instance, had Barnstable hastened away with a new bee in his bonnet, than Mrs. Harbinger was joined by Fairfield. He had come on in advance of the girls, and now at once took advantage of the situation to speak about the matter of which the air was full.