After these meditations he would flee to the hospitality of T. J. Rigg, in whose cheerfully sloven house he could relax safely, from whom he could get the facts about the private business careers of his more philanthropic contributors. But all the time the attraction of Beryl Gilson, the vision of her dove-smooth shoulders, was churning him to insanity.
II
He had not noticed them during that Sunday morning sermon in late autumn, not noticed them among the admirers who came up afterward to shake hands. Then he startled and croaked, so that the current hand-shaker thought he was ill.
Elmer had seen, loitering behind the others, his onetime forced fiancée, Lulu Bains of Schoenheim, and her lanky, rugged, vengeful cousin, Floyd Naylor.
They strayed up only when all the others were gone, when the affable ushers had stopped pouncing on victims and pump-handling them and patting their arms, as all ushers always do after all church services. Elmer wished the ushers were staying, to protect him, but he was more afraid of scandal than of violence.
He braced himself, feeling the great muscles surge along his back, then took quick decision and dashed toward Lulu and Floyd, yammering, “Well, well, well, well, well, well—”
Floyd shambled up, not at all unfriendly, and shook hands powerfully. “Lulu and I just heard you were in town—don’t go to church much, I guess, so we didn’t know. We’re married!”
While he shook hands with Lulu, much more tenderly, Elmer gave his benign blessing with “Well, well! Mighty glad to hear it.”
“Yep, been married—gosh, must be fourteen years now—got married just after we last seen you at Schoenheim.”
By divine inspiration Elmer was led to look as though he were wounded clear to the heart at the revived memory of that unfortunate last seeing. He folded his hands in front of his beautiful morning coat, and looked noble, slightly milky and melancholy of eye. … But he was not milky. He was staring hard enough. He saw that though Floyd was still as clumsily uncouth as ever, Lulu—she must be thirty-three or -four now—had taken on the city. She wore a simple, almost smart hat, a good tweed topcoat, and she was really pretty. Her eyes were ingratiatingly soft, very inviting; she still smiled with a desire to be friendly to everyone. Inevitably, she had grown plump, but she had not yet overdone it, and her white little paw was veritably that of a kitten.
All this Elmer noted, while he looked injured but forgiving and while Floyd stammered:
“You see, Reverend, I guess you thought we played you a pretty dirty trick that night on the picnic at Dad Bains’, when you came back and I was kind of hugging Lulu.”
“Yes, Floyd, I was pretty hurt, but—Let’s forget and forgive!”
“No, but listen, Reverend! Golly, ’twas hard for me to come and explain to you, but now I’ve got going—Lulu and me, we weren’t making love. No, sir! She was just feeling blue, and I was trying to cheer her up. Honest! Then when you got sore and skipped off, Pa Bains, he was so doggone mad—got out his shotgun and cussed and raised the old Ned, yes, sir, he simply raised Cain, and he wouldn’t give me no chance to explain. Said I had to marry Lu. ‘Well,’ I says, ‘if you think that’s any hardship—’ ”
Floyd stopped to chuckle. Elmer was conscious that Lulu was studying him, in awe, in admiration, in a palpitating resurgence of affection.
“ ‘If you think that’s any hardship,’ I says, ‘let me tell you right now, Uncle,’ I says, ‘I been crazy to marry Lu ever since she was so high.’ Well, there was a lot of argument. Dad Bains says first we had to go in town and explain everything to you. But you was gone away, next morning, and what with one thing and another—well, here we are! And doing pretty good. I own a garage out here on the edge of town, and we got a nice flat, and everything going fine. But Lulu and I kind of felt maybe we ought to come around and explain, when we heard you were here. And got two fine kids, both boys!”
“Honestly, we never meant—we didn’t!” begged Lulu.
Elmer condescended, “Of course, I understand perfectly, Sister Lulu!” He shook hands with Floyd, warmly, and with Lulu more warmly. “And I can’t tell you how pleased I am that you were both so gallant and polite as to take the trouble and come and explain it to me. That was real courtesy, when I’d been such a silly idiot! That night—I suffered so over what I thought was your disloyalty that I didn’t think I’d live through the night. But come! Shall we not talk of it again? All’s understood now, and all’s right!” He shook hands all over again. “And now that I’ve found you, two old friends like you—of course I’m still practically a stranger in Zenith—I’m not going to let you go! I’m going to come out and call on you. Do you belong to any church body here in Zenith?”
“Well, no, not exactly,” said Floyd.
“Can’t I persuade you to come here, sometimes, and perhaps think of joining later?”
“Well, I’ll tell you, Reverend, in the auto business—kind of against my religion, at that, but you know how it is, in the auto business we’re awful’ busy on Sunday.”
“Well, perhaps Lulu would like to come now and then.”
“Sure. Women ought to stick by the church, that’s what I always say. Dunno just how we got out of the habit, here in the city, and we’ve always talked about starting going again, but—Oh, we just kinda never got around to it, I guess.”
“I hope, uh, I hope, Brother Floyd, that our miscomprehension, yours and mine that evening, had nothing to do with your alienation from the church! Oh, that would be a
