"I haven't a wife; that's just the trouble. She left me four years ago; but I don't see that that makes any difference. I'm fond of her just the same; and I won't have her put into an anonymous book." 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. "What do you want to do?" The client cast down his eyes, and into his sallow cheeks came a dull flush. "I wanted to protect her," he answered slowly; "and I wanted--I wanted to prove to her that--that I'd do what I could for her, if we were divorced." The face of the other man softened; he took the limp hand of his companion and shook it warmly. "There are better ways of doing it than dragging her name before the court," he said. "I tell you fairly that the suit you propose would be ridiculous. It would make you both a laughing-stock, and in the end come to nothing." The square jaw was still firmly set, but the small eyes were more wistful than ever. "But I must do something," Barnstable said. "I can't stand it not to do anything." Harbinger rose with the air of a man who considers the interview ended. "There is nothing that you can do now," he replied. "Just be quiet, and wait. Things will come round all right if you have patience; but don't be foolish. A lawyer learns pretty early in his professional life that there are a good many things that must be left to right themselves."