ystematically ignored and neglected his wife for some one else, there
were communities where he would be tarred and feathered.

"Meaning me?" Jim demanded, apoplectic.

"The remark was a general one," Mr. Harbison retorted, "but if you wish
to make a concrete application--!"

Dal had gone up just then, and found them glaring at each other, Jim
with his hands clenched at his sides, and Mr. Harbison with his arms
folded and very erect. Dal took Jim by the elbow and led him downstairs,
muttering, and the situation was saved for the time. But Dal was not
optimistic.

"You can do a bit yourself, Kit," he finished. "Look more cheerful,
flirt a little. You can do that without trying. Take Max on for a day or
so; it would be charity anyhow. But don't let Tom Harbison take into his
head that you are grieving over Jim's neglect, or he's likely to toss
him off the roof."

"I have no reason to think that Mr. Harbison cares one way or the other
about me," I said primly. "You don't think he's--he's in love with me,
do you, Dal?" I watched him out of the corner of my eye, but he only
looked amused.

"In love with you!" he repeated. "Why bless your wicked little heart,
no! He thinks you're a married woman! It's the principle of the thing
he's fighting for. If I had as much principle as he has, I'd--I'd put it
out at interest."

Max interrupted us just then, and asked if we knew where Mr. Harbison
was.

"Can't find him," he said. "I've got the telephone together and have
enough left over to make another. Where do you suppose Harbison hides
the tools? I'm working with a corkscrew and two palette knives."

I heard nothing more of the trouble that night. Max went to Jim about
it, and Jim said angrily that only a fool would interfere between a man
and his wife--wives. Whereupon Max retorted that a fool and his wives
were soon parted, and left him. The two principals were coldly civil
to each other, and smaller issues were lost as the famine grew more and
more insistent. For famine it was.

They worked the rest of the evening, but the telephone refused to revive
and every one was starving. Individually our pride was at low ebb, but
collectively it was still formidable. So we sat around and Jim played
Grieg with the soft stops on, and Aunt Selina went to bed. The weather
had changed, and it was sleeting, but anything was better than the
drawing room. I was in a mood to battle with the elements or to cry--or
both--so I slipped out