His wife was talking while Bowman listened with an air of sympathetic wisdom. “It wasn't so bad then,” she said; “I was kind of glad to get away, and Lem was certain everything would open right out. But he's awful hard to do with; he wouldn't take a dollar from parties who had every right to stake him good, and borrowed five from no more than a stranger to buy that secondhand barber chair. What he needed was chloroform to separate these farmers from their dimes and whiskers.” Bowman laughed loudly, and a corresponding color invaded Bella. “Of course no one knew Lem had done time, then. They wouldn't have either, but for the Law and Order. Oh, dear me, no, your child ain't none of your own; they lend it to you like and then sneak up whenever the idea takes them, to see if it's getting a Turkish bath. I guess the people on the street wondered who was our swell automobile friend till they found out.” “I suppose,” Bowman put in, “they all came round and offered you the helping hand, wanted to see you happy and successful.” She laughed. “Them?” she demanded. “Them? The man that owns this house said that if he'd known, Lem would never had it; they don't want convicts in this town. 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.