The blue vapor from the three burning cigarettes rose and mingled.
Bella was quiet, reflective; Bowman sat with half-shut speculative
eyes; Lemuel Doret was again lost in visions.
"How long are you taking the milk cure?" Bowman asked.
Lemuel made no reply, but his wife smiled bitterly.
"I had an idea," the other continued; "but it's a little soon to spring
anything. And I don't know but you might prefer it here."
"Try me," Bella proclaimed; "that's all I want!"
Doret still said nothing of his determination to conquer life in
Nantbrook. A swift impulse seized him to take June Bowman by the collar
and fling him into the street.
"Just try me!" Bella repeated.
He would be helpless in his, Doret's, hands. It was hard enough to be
upright without an insinuating crook in the place. There was a heavy
movement of feet in the front of the house, and he went out to meet a
customer.
Sliding the sensitive razor blade over a young tanned cheek he pondered
moodily on the undesirable fact of June Bowman.
Returning from this exercise of his trade he saw Bella descending the
stair with a plate.
"With all your going on over Flavilla," she told him, "it never came to
you that she'd like a piece of steak."
"But Doctor Frazee told us nothing solid. I took her up two eggs in the
morning."
"Yes, and you'd had two dollars to pay as well if I hadn't showed you
different. Flavilla's probably as well as any of us. I wish you would
fix yourself a little, Lem.
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