This is a moral burg. That's more than the women
said to me though--the starved buzzards; if they've spoke a word to me
since I never heard it." Her voice rose in sharp mimicry: "You, Katie,
come right up on the porch, child! Don't you know--! See, I'm going
by."
"I could have warned you of all that," June Bowman asserted; "for the
reason they're narrow, don't know anything about living or affairs;
hypocritical too; long on churchgoing----"
Doret regarded him solemnly. How blind he was, a mound of corruptible
flesh! He put the beer down and turned abruptly away, going up to
Flavilla. She seemed better; her face was white but most of the fever
had gone. He listened to her harsh breathing with the conviction that
she had caught a cold; and immediately after he was back from the store
with a bottle of cherry pectoral. She liked the sweet taste of the
thick bright-pink sirup and was soon quiet. Lemuel sniffed the mouth of
the bottle suspiciously. It was doped, he finally decided, but not
enough to hurt her; tasting it, a momentary desire for stinging liquor
ran like fire through his nerves. He laughed at it, crushing and
throwing aside the longing with a sense of contempt and triumph.
He could hear occasionally Bowman's smooth periods and his wife's eager
enjoyment of the discourse. His sense of worldly loneliness deepened;
Flavilla seemed far away. All life was inexplicable--yes, and
profitless, ending in weariness and death.
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