“I know all that, Look. But how are you going to prove that I’ve been married? Where are you going to hunt for witnesses? Professional people are like wild geese--roosting on air and moulting their names like feathers. You two are going to seem like a couple of old frauds standing up in court against me! You haven’t got the first elements of acting to you! Observe how I take my cue! Jury a-listening! I’ve been hunting the world over for you. You hid here. Here I find you--I, a poor, deserted woman, whose life has been wrecked by your faithlessness. Me with a crape veil, a sniff in my nose, crushed-creature face make-up and a smart lawyer, such as I have in mind this very minute. And the jury knowing that you’ve got the money! Why, Look, you can save thousands by handing me your bankbook!” In his fury Hiram grabbed her chair and tipped it forward violently in order to dump her off his sacred porch. She flew out into space with a flutter of skirts, landed as lightly as a cat, and pirouetted on one toe, crooking her arms in the professional pose that invites applause. “This is the first time Signora Rosyelli, champion bareback rider, ever tried to ride a mule,” she chirped, “but you see she can do it and make her graceful dismount to the music of the band. I’ll be at the tavern down here two days, ready to listen to any kind of talk that combines pleasure and profit. After that you take your own chances.” She tossed to each of them a kiss from her finger-tips and went switching jauntily down the road. “That beats Tophet and repeat!” remarked Simon after a time. He had watched her nearly out of sight. Hiram held his peace. “What are you goin’ to do?” his friend inquired falteringly at last. “Fight her!” roared Hiram, leaping to his feet and striding up and down the porch. “Fight her clear’n to the high, consolidated Supreme Court aggregation of the United States, or whatever they call it!” “Nobody has ever beat her out yit, except Delly-bunko, and we ain’t in his class,” sighed Simon, with much despondency. “You don’t think, do you, that I’m goin’ to set down and lap my thumb and finger and peel her off ten thousand dollars?’” “Well, it’s lucky that you’ve got a brother that’s the smartest lawyer in the county,” said Peak, with an attempt at consolation. “He has showed that much out pretty plain, even to me. I never see him manage anywhere, except in town meetin’, but I----” Hiram had been sunk in reverie, but this unfortunate remark brought him out of it. “Hain’t I told you never to mention my brother to me except when I ask you to?” he demanded fiercely. “I don’t want any man that I ain’t spoke to for four weeks slung into my face. Hain’t I goin’ to take to the ro’d again to get rid of him? If he was the last lawyer on God’s footstool he couldn’t take a case for me.” He resumed his striding.