almost got into the scattered jam. Even at such
a moment as that I felt how glad old Rene would have been to have given
such a nice man as the doctor a treat like that blue silk
chef-d'oeuvre of hers. I was glad myself.

"Don't I, Peaches?" he asked again in a still softer voice. Again I had
that sensation of being against something warm and great and good like
your own mother's breast and I don't know how I controlled it enough not
to--to--

"Well, have some jam then," I managed to say with a little laugh as I
turned away and picked up the silver spoon.

"Thank you, I will, all of it and the bread and butter, too," he
answered, in that detestable friendly tone of voice as he drew himself
up and sat in the window. "Hustle, Peaches, if you are going to feed me,
for I'm ravenous. It took Sam Benson's wife the longest time to have the
shortest baby I ever experienced and I haven't had any supper. You have;
so I don't mind taking it all away from you."

"Supper," I sniffed as I spread the jam on those lovely, lovely slices
of bread and thick butter that I had fixed for my own self. "That
apple-toast combination tires me so now that I forget it if I can." As I
handed him the first slice of drippy lusciousness I turned my head away.
He thought it was from the expression of that jam, but it was from his
eyes.

"Slice up the whole loaf, Peaches, and let's get on a jam jag! Come with
me just this once and forget--forget--" He didn't finish his sentence
and I'm glad. We neither of us said anything more as I fed him that
whole loaf. I found that the bite I took off of each piece I had ready
for him when he finished with the one he had in hand satisfied me as
nothing I had ever eaten in all my life before had done, while at the
same time my nibbles soothed his conscience about robbing me.

His teeth are big and strong and white and his jaws work like machinery.
He is the strongest man I ever saw, and his gauntness is all muscle.
What is that glow a woman gets from feeding a hungry man whom she likes
with her own hands; and why should I want to be certain that he kissed
the lace on my sleeve as it brushed his face when I reached across him
to catch an inquisitive rose that I saw peeping in the window at us?

LEAF FIFTH

BLUE ABSINTHE

"The juice of a lemon in two glasses of cold water, to be drunk
immediately on wakening!" Page eleven! I've handed myself that lemon
every morning now until I am sensitive with mysel