Harvey leaped to his feet with a cry of abject pain.
“Did she send you here to say this to me?” he cried, shrilly, his figure shaking with suppressed fury.
“No,” said Fairfax, involuntarily drawing back. “This is between you and me. She doesn’t know––”
“Then, damn you!” shrieked Harvey, shaking his fist in the big man’s face, “what do you 89 mean by coming here like this? What do you think I am? Get out of here! I’m a joke, am I? Well, I’ll show you and her and everybody else that I’m a hell of a joke, let me tell you that! I was good enough for her once. I won her away from every fellow in Blakeville. I can do it again. I’ll show you, you big bluffer! Now, get out! Don’t you ever come here again, and—don’t you ever go near my wife again!”
Fairfax had arisen. He was smiling, despite his astonishment.
“I fancy you will find you can’t go so far as that,” he sneered.
“Get out, or I’ll throw you out!”
“Better think it over. Twenty-five thousand and no questions asked. Take a day or two to think––”
With a shriek of rage Harvey threw himself at the big man, striking out with all his might. Taken by surprise, Fairfax fell away before the attack, which, though seemingly impotent, was as fierce as that of a wildcat.
The New Yorker was in no danger. He warded off the blows with ease, all the time imploring the infuriated Harvey to be sensible, to be calm. But with a heroism born of shame 90 and despair the little man swung his arms like windmills, clawing, scratching, until the air seemed full of them. Fairfax’s huge head was out of reach. In his blind fury Harvey did not take that into account. He struck at it with all the power in his thin little arms, always falling so far short that the efforts were ludicrous.