"Since we've come here to live we have to mind the customs.
The women'll never take to you smoking cigarettes."
"Ah, hell, what do I care! We came here, but it ain't living. It makes
me sick, and you make me sick I Can't you sing and pray in the city as
well as among these hicks?"
"I'm afraid of it," he said, brief and somber. "And I don't want
Flavilla brought up with any of the gang we knew. Where is she?"
"I sent her to bed. She fussed round till she got me nervous."
"Did she feel good?"
"If she didn't a smack would have cured her."
He passed Bella, rocking sharply, into the dank interior.
On the right was the bare room where he had his dilapidated barber's
chair and shelf with a few mugs, brushes and other scant necessities.
There had been no customers to-day nor yesterday; still, it was the
middle of the week and what trade there was generally concentrated on
Saturday. Beyond he went upstairs to Flavilla's bed. She was awake,
twisting about in a fragmentary nightgown, dark against the disordered
sheet.
"It's dreadful hot," she complained shortly; "my head's hot too. The
window won't go up."
Lemuel Doret crossed the narrow bare floor and dragged the sash open;
then he moved his daughter while he smoothed the bed and freshened a
harsh pillow. She whimpered.
"You're too big to cry without any reason," he informed her, leaving to
fetch a glass of water from the tap in the kitchen.
Usually she responded to his intimations of her increasing age and
wisdom, but to-night she was listless.
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