She was silent. He heard only Art Nichols’ twanging, “What do you think about us using some of these nigger songs—hand ’em a jolt?” and her drowsy, “Oh, let’s not talk about it tonight.” Presently, from Art, “Guess I’ll skip out on the platform and get a breath of air,” and the sacred haunt beside her was free to the exalted Elmer.
He slipped in, very nervous.
She was slumped low in the seat, but she sat up, peered at him in the dimness, and said, with a grave courtesy which shut him out more than any rudeness, “I’m so sorry, but this place is taken.”
“Yes, I know, Sister Falconer. But the car’s crowded, and I’ll just sit down and rest myself while Brother Nichols is away—that is, if you’ll let me. Don’t know if you remember me. I’m—I met you at the tent in Sautersville. Reverend Gantry.”
“Oh,” indifferently. Then quickly: “Oh, yes, you’re the Presbyterian preacher who was fired for drinking.”
“That’s absolutely—!” He saw that she was watching him, and he realized that she was not being her saintly self nor her efficient self but a quite new, private, mocking self. Delightedly he went on, “—absolutely incorrect. I’m the Christian Scientist that was fired for kissing the choir-leader on Saturday.”
“Oh, that was careless of you!”
“So you’re really human?”
“Me? Good Heavens, yes! Too human.”
“And you get tired of it?”
“Of what?”
“Of being the great Miss Falconer, of not being able to go into a drugstore to buy a toothbrush without having the clerk holler, ‘Praise God, we have some dandy two-bit brushes, hallelujah!’ ”
Sharon giggled.
“Tired,” and his voice was lulling now, “of never daring to be tired, which same is what you are tonight, and of never having anybody to lean on!”
“I suppose, my dear reverend Brother, that this is a generous offer to let me lean on you!”
“No. I wouldn’t have the nerve! I’m scared to death of you. You haven’t only got your beauty—no! please let me tell you how a fellow preacher looks at you—and your wonderful platform-presence, but I kind of guess you’ve got brains.”
“No, I haven’t. Not a brain. All emotion. That’s the trouble with me.” She sounded awake now, and friendly.
“But think of all the souls you’ve brought to repentance. That makes up for everything, doesn’t it?”
“Oh, yes, I suppose it—Oh, of course it does. It’s the only thing that counts. Only—Tell me: What really did happen to you? Why did you get out of the church?”
Gravely, “I was a senior in Mizpah Theological Seminary, but I had a church of my own. I fell for a girl. I won’t say she lured me on. After all, a man ought to face the consequences of his own foolishness. But she certainly did—Oh, it amused her to see a young preacher go mad over her. And she was so lovely! Quite a lot like you, only not so beautiful, not near, and she let on like she was mad about church work—that’s what fooled me. Well! Make a long story short: We were engaged to be married, and I thought of nothing but her and our life together, doing the work of the Lord, when one evening I walked in and there she was in the arms of another fellow! It broke me up so that I—Oh, I tried, but I simply couldn’t go on preaching, so I quit for a while. And I’ve done well in business. But now I’m ready to go back to the one job I’ve ever cared about. That’s why I wanted to talk to you there at the tent. I needed your woman’s sympathy as well as your experience—and you turned me down!”
“Oh, I am so, so sorry!” Her hand caressed his arm.
Cecil Aylston came up and looked at them with a lack of sanctity.
When they reached Lincoln, he was holding her hand and saying, “You poor, dear, tired child!” and, “Will you have breakfast with me? Where are you staying in Lincoln?
“Now see here, Brother Gantry—”
“Elmer!”
“Oh, don’t be ridiculous! Just because I’m so fagged out that it’s nice to play at being a human being, don’t try to take advantage—”
“Sharon Falconer, will you quit being a chump? I admire your genius, your wonderful work for God, but it’s because you’re too big to just be a professional gospel-shouter every minute that I most admire you. You know mighty good and well that you like to be simple and even slangy for a while. And you’re too sleepy just now to know whether you like me or not. That’s why I want us to meet at breakfast, when the sleepiness is out of the wonderful eyes—”
“Um. It all sounds pretty honest except that last stuff—you’ve certainly used that before. Do you know, I like you! You’re so completely brazen, so completely unscrupulous, and so beatifically ignorant! I’ve been with sanctimonious folks too much lately. And it’s interesting to see that you honestly think you can captivate me. You funny thing! I’m staying at the Antlers Hotel in Lincoln—no use, by the way, your trying to get a room near my suite, because I have practically the whole floor engaged—and I’ll meet you at breakfast there at nine-thirty.”
III
Though he did not sleep well, he was up early and at his toilet; he shaved, he touched up his bluff handsomeness with lilac water and talcum, he did his nails, sitting in athletic underwear, awaiting his new suit, sent down for pressing. The new purpose in a life recently
