“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. I'm tired of having you about the house in your suspenders.”
He viewed her silently. Bella had on a dress he had never seen before, thin red-spotted yellow silk drawn tightly over a pronounced figure, a red girdle, and high-heeled patent-leather slippers.
“If you're going to look like this,” he admitted, “I'll have to get a move on.”
When they were first in Nantbrook she had worn a denim apron, and that, too, with all the other differences had seemed to express their new life; but now in yellow silk she was back in the old. Lemuel Doret studied his wife with secret doubt; more than the dress had changed. She seemed younger; rather she was adopting a younger manner. In the presence of June Bowman it intensified.
“That idea I spoke about,” the latter advanced: “I've been sizing you up, the both of you, and you look good. Well, I've got hold of a concession on the Atlantic Boardwalk and the necessary cash is in sight.” He turned to Lemuel. “How would you like to run a bowling game? It's on the square and would give you a lead into something bigger. You're wise; why, you might turn into a shore magnate, with Bella here dressed up in stones.”
Doret shook his head. “Treasure on earth,” he thought; “moth and rust.” But it would be hopeless to attempt any explanation. “No,” he said; “we'll play it out here.”
“We will?” Bella echoed him. “Indeed! We will?” Now the emphasis was sharply on the first word. “What's going to keep me?”
“You're my wife,” he replied simply; “we have a child.”