"Afraid of you, Fran?"
"Awfully, I'm going to show you—let go, so I can show you. No, I'm in earnest—you can have me, afterwards….Remember that evangelist? There he stood, waving his hands—as I'm doing now—moving his arms with his eyes fastened upon the congregation—this way—look, Abbott."
"Fran! As if I were not already looking."
"Look—just so; not saying a word—only waving this way and that… And it made me think of our Hypnotizer—the man that waves people into our biggest tent—he seems to pick 'em up bodily and carry them in his arms. Well! And if the people are to be waved into a church, it won't take much of a breeze to blow them out. I don't believe in soul- waving. But that doesn't mean that I don't believe in the church—does it?—do you think?"
"You believe in convictions, Fran. And since you've come into the church, you don't have to say that you believe in it."
"Yes—there's nothing on the outside, and oh, sometimes there's so little, so little under the roof—what do you think of me, Abbott?"
"Fran, I think you are the most—"
"But do you!" she interposed, still unsteadily. "In the superlative? I don't see how you can, after that exhibition behind the bars. Anyway, I want you to talk about yourself. What made you go away from town? But that's not the worst: what made you stay away? And what were you doing off there wherever it was, while poor little girls were wondering themselves sick about you? But wait!—the wheel's going down—down—down….Good thing I have you to hold to—poor Miss Sapphira, she can't come, now! Listen at all the street-criers, getting closer, and the whistle-sounds—I wish we had whistles; the squawky kind. See my element, Abbott, the air I've breathed all my life—the carnival. Here we are, just above the clouds of confetti….Now we're riding through….pretty damp, these clouds are, don't you think! Those ribbons of electric lights have been the real world for me. Abbott—they were home….No, Bill, we don't want to get out. We intend to ride until you take this wheel to pieces. And oh, by the way, Bill—just stop this wheel, every once in a while, will you?—when we're up at the very tiptop. All right—good-by."
And Abbott called gaily, "Good-by, Mr. Smookins!"
"I'm glad you did that, Abbott. You think you're somebody, when somebody else thinks so, too. Now we're rising in the world." Fran was so excited that she could not keep her body from quivering. In spite of this, she fastened her eyes upon Abbott to ask, suddenly, "'Most'— what?"