Oh, somehow, she did not stir him. Was he afraid of being married and settled and monogamic? Was it simply that she needed awakening? How could he awaken her when her father was always in the way?
Whenever he called on her, old Benham insisted on staying in the parlor. He was, strictly outside of business hours, an amateur of religion, fond of talking about it. Just as Elmer, shielded by the piano, was ready to press Cleo’s hand, Benham would lumber up and twang, “What do you think, Brother? Do you believe salvation comes by faith or works?”
Elmer made it all clear—muttering to himself, “Well, you, you old devil, with that cut-throat store of yours, you better get into Heaven on faith, for God knows you’ll never do it on works!”
And when Elmer was about to slip out to the kitchen with her to make lemonade, Benham held him by demanding, “What do you think of John Wesley’s doctrine of perfection?”
“Oh, it’s absolutely sound and proven,” admitted Elmer, wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley’s doctrine of perfection might be.
It is possible that the presence of the elder Benhams, preventing too close a communion with Cleo, kept Elmer from understanding what it meant that he should not greatly have longed to embrace her. He translated his lack of urgency into virtue; and went about assuring himself that he was indeed a reformed and perfected character . . . and so went home and hung about the kitchen, chattering with little Jane Clark in pastoral jokiness.
Even when he was alone with Cleo, when she drove him in the proud Benham motor for calls in the country, even while he was volubly telling himself how handsome she was, he was never quite natural with her.
II
He called on an evening of late November, and both her parents were out, attending Eastern Star. She looked dreary and red-eyed. He crowed benevolently while they stood at the parlor door, “Why, Sister Cleo, what’s the matter? You look kind of sad.”
“Oh, it’s nothing—”