“He said he only cared for one woman, and that was Bella; that he never had really cared for you and never would, and that divorce courts were not unmitigated evils if they showed people the way to real happiness.  Which wouldn’t amount to anything if Harbison had not been in the tent, trying to sleep!”

Dal did not know all the particulars, but it seems that relations between Jim and Mr. Harbison were rather strained.  Bella had left the roof and Jim and the Harbison man came face to face in the door of the tent.  According to Dal, little had been said, but Jim, bound by his promise to me, could not explain, and could only stammer something about being an old friend of Miss Knowles.  And Tom had replied shortly that it was none of his business, but that there were some things friendship hardly justified, and tried to pass Jim.  Jim was instantly enraged; he blocked the door to the roof and demanded to know what the other man meant.  There were two or three versions of the answer he got.  The general purport was that Mr. Harbison had no desire to explain further, and that the situation was forced on him.  But if he insisted—­when a man systematically 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.