Harbinger sat down again, and drew his chair closer to that in which the other seethed, molten with impotent wrath.
"Just because there's a divorced woman in 'Love in a Cloud,'" he said, "you propose to bring a suit for libel against the author. If you will pardon me, it strikes me as uncommon nonsense."
Barnstable boiled up as a caldron of mush breaks into thick, spluttering bubbles.
"Oh, it strikes you as uncommon nonsense, does it? Damme, if it was your wife you'd look at it differently. Isn't it your business to do what your clients want done?"
"Oh, yes; but it's also my business to tell them when what they want is folly."
"Then it's folly for a man to resent an insult to his wife, is it? The divorce court didn't make a Pawnee Indian of me. My temper may be incompatible, but, damme, Harbinger, I'm human."
Harbinger began a laugh, but choked the bright little bantling as soon as it saw the light. He leaned forward, and laid his hand on the other's knee.
"I understand your feelings, Barnstable," he said, "and I honor you for them; but do consider a little. In the first place, there is no probability that you could make a jury believe that the novelist meant you and your wife at all. Think how many divorce suits there are, and how well that story would fit half of them. What you would do would be to drag to light all the old story, and give your wife the unpleasantness of having everything talked over again. You would injure yourself, and you could hardly fail to give very serious pain to her."
Barnstable stared at him with eyes which were full of confusion and of helplessness.
"I don't want to hurt her," he stammered.