He sprawled and tilted back his chair good-naturedly. "O, I'll bet you a box of candy or a bunch of violets." "A five-pound box of candy--I don't like violets. Agreed?" He nodded. "It's a clipping from the Club Window...." "Then you've seen it?" "Of course I've seen it, silly man--hasn't everybody seen it? And wasn't my Willy furiously angry? He wanted to take the first train back to Chicago and clear out the whole establishment. It was all Fannie and I could do to calm him.... He said he was going to see you about it because he thought you and he should get together and take some kind of action against the slanderous sheet. I tell him he's foolish to pay any attention to it; just let it die of inanition. Don't you think so?" "Well, I was a little upset myself when I read it. I didn't know what the devil to think...." "Well, I know you've got too much sense to believe anything wrong about your wife.... I can appreciate how you and Will feel about it and that you'd like to make them retract--but--isn't it best to ignore it?--so long as _we_ know it's a malicious lie.... It's a shocking thing the way the press in this country construes license for freedom.... The libel laws are wholly inadequate. They manage that sort of thing much better in England.... There are so many evil-minded people in the world--don't you find it so?" "Well, I confess, there's always somebody hanging around anxious to disseminate gossip, though I've never observed any of them helping along the nice things you hear." "Now that we are on the subject, I'll tell you how this happened; the woman who concocted that libellous attack is an ugly perverted creature--she must be perverted or she would not be earning her livelihood in such a questionable way, don't you think so? Several years ago when she met my husband she volunteered to write some nice little personalia about him. He wasn't as well known then as now and every little bit helps, you know.... Well, Will kept up a desultory acquaintance with the woman and saw her from time to time. She was in New York when Fannie was there last winter, by the way. I don't know just how it came about, but the spinster scribbler developed a jealous streak and upbraided Will for being ungrateful for all she had done for him. I'm sure she could not have done a great deal for anyone in a wretched paper like the Club Window. To tell you the truth she was infatuated with Will. To use his own words--she made a play for him and he threw her down hard! Mr. Hartley is not given to that sort of thing--and if he were--you may be sure I should have something to say about it." I nodded sententiously.