Creep-mouse rustle on the stairs, reluctant tiptoe in the hall.
His whole torso swelled with longing. He threw back his arms, fists down by his side, chin up, like the statue of Nathan Hale. But when she edged in he was enacting the kindly burly pastor, an elbow on the corner of the parlor-organ, two fingers playing with his massy watch-chain, his expression benevolent and amused.
She was not in a dressing-gown; she wore her blue frock unaltered. But she had let down her hair and its pale silkiness shone round her throat. She looked at him beseechingly.
Instantly he changed his pose and dashed at her with a little boyish cry:
“Oh, Lu! I can’t tell you how Frank hurt me!”
“What? What?”
Very naturally, as with unquestioning intimacy, he put his arm about her shoulder, and his fingertips rejoiced in her hair.
“It’s terrible! Frank ought to know me, but what do you think he said? Oh, he didn’t dare come right out and say it—not to me—but he hinted around and insinuated and suggested that you and I were misbehaving there in the church when we were talking. And you remember what we were talking about—about my moth‑er! And how beautiful and lovely she used to be and how much you’re like her! Don’t you think that’s rotten of him?”
“Oh, I do! I think it’s just dreadful. I never did like him!”
In her sympathy she had neglected to slip out from under his arm.
“Come sit down beside me on the couch, dear.”
“Oh, I mustn’t.” Moving with him toward the couch. “I’ve got to go right back upstairs. Cousin Adeline, she’s suspicious.”
“We’ll both go up, right away. But this thing upset me so! Wouldn’t think a big clumsy like me could be such a sensitive chump, would you!”
He drew her close. She snuggled beside him, unstruggling, sighing:
“Oh, I do understand, Elmer, and I think it’s dandy, I mean it’s lovely when a man can be so big and strong and still have fine feelings. But, honest, I must go.”
“Must go, dear.”
“No.”
“Yes. Won’t let you, ’less you say it.”
“Must go, dear!”
She had sprung up, but he held her hand, kissed her fingertips, looked up at her with plaintive affection.
“Poor boy! Did I make it all well?”
She had snatched away her hand, she had swiftly kissed his temple and fled. He tramped the floor quite daft, now soaringly triumphant, now blackly longing.
IX
During their handcar return to Babylon and the Seminary, Elmer and Frank had little to say.
“Don’t be such a grouch. Honest, I’m not trying to get funny with little Lulu,” Elmer grumbled, panting as he pumped the handcar, grotesque in cap and muffler.
“All right. Forget it,” said Frank.
Elmer endured it till Wednesday. For two days he had been hag-ridden by plans to capture Lulu. They became so plain to him that he seemed to be living them, as he slumped on the edge of his cot, his fists clenched, his eyes absent. … In his dream he squandered a whole two dollars and a half for a “livery rig” for the evening, and drove to Schoenheim. He hitched it at that big oak, a quarter of a mile from the Bains farmhouse. In the moonlight he could see the rounded and cratered lump on the oak trunk where a limb had been cut off. He crept to the farmyard, hid by the corncrib, cold but excited. She came to the door with a dishpan of water—stood sidewise in the light, her gingham work-dress molded to the curve from shoulder to breast. He whistled to her; she started; came toward him with doubtful feet, cried with gladness when she saw who it was.
She could not stay with him till the work was done, but she insisted that he wait in the stable. There was the warmth of the cows, their sweet odor, and a scent of hay. He sat on a manger-edge in the darkness, enraptured yet so ardent that he trembled as with fear. The barn door edged open with a flash of moonlight; she came toward him, reluctant, fascinated. He did not stir. She moved, entranced, straight into his arms; they sat together on a pile of hay, taut with passion, unspeaking, and his hand smoothed her ankle. And again, in his fancies, it was at the church that she yielded; for some reason not quite planned, he was there without Frank, on a weekday evening, and she sat beside him on a pew. He could hear himself arguing that she was to trust him, that their love partook of the divine, even while he was fondling her.
But—Suppose it were Deacon Bains who came to his whistle, and found him sneaking in the barnyard? Suppose she declined to be romantic in cow-barns? And just what excuse had he for spending an evening with her at the church?
But—Over and over, sitting on his cot, lying half-asleep with the covers clutched desperately, he lived his imaginings till he could not endure it.
Not till Wednesday morning did it occur to the Reverend Elmer Gantry that he need not sneak and prowl, not necessarily, no matter what his custom had been, and that there was nothing to prevent his openly calling on her.
Nor did he spend any two dollars and a half for a carriage. Despite his florid magnificence, he was really a very poor young man. He walked to Schoenheim (not in vision now, but in reality), starting at five in the afternoon, carrying a ham sandwich for his supper; walked the railroad track, the cold ties echoing under his heavy tread.
He arrived at eight. He was certain that, coming so very late, her parents would not stay up to annoy him for more than an hour. They were likely to ask him to remain for the night, and there would be no snooping Cousin Adeline Baldwin about.
Mr. Bains opened to his knock.
“Well, well, well, Brother Gantry! What brings you down to this part of the world this time of night? Come in! Come in!”
“I
