"If you mean the bouquet from the spring, you get to like it after a while," I said grimly. "Ordinary air hasn't got any snap for me now."
"Humph!" She looked at me suspiciously, but I was busy wiping off the tables. "Well," she said, holding up the glass Doctor Barnes had brought her, "it doesn't cost me anything, so here goes. But think of paying money for it!"
She drank it down in a gulp and settled herself in her chair.
"What'll it do to me?" she asked. "Mixed drinks always play the deuce with me, Barnes, and you know it."
"If you'll cut down your diet and take some exercise it will make you thin," I began. "'The process is painless and certain: kindly nature in her benevolent plan—'"
"Give me another!" she interrupted, and Doctor Barnes filled her glass again. "Some women spell fate f-a-t-e," she said, looking at the water, "but I spell it without the e."
She took half of it and then put down the glass. "Honestly," she declared, "I'd rather be fat."
Mr. Pierce met them there a few minutes later and they had a three-cornered chat. But Miss Summers evidently didn't know just how much I knew and was careful of what she said. Once, however, when I was in the pantry she thought I was beyond ear-shot.
"Good heavens, Pierce," she said, "if they could put THAT in a play!"
"Cut it out, Julia," Doctor Barnes snapped, and it wasn't until they had gone that I knew she'd meant me. I looked through the crack of the door and she was leaning over taking a puff at Doctor Barnes' cigarette.