He acquired a habit of going to their parties. He was hungry for brisk companionship, and it was altogether depressing now to be with Cleo. She could never learn, not after ten efforts a day, that she could not keep him from saying “Damn!” by looking hurt and murmuring, “Oh, Elmer, how can you?”
He told her, regarding the parties, that he was going out to call on parishioners. And he was not altogether lying. His ambition was more to him now than any exalted dissipation, and however often he yearned for the mechanical pianos and the girls in pink kimonos of whom he so lickerishly preached, he violently kept away from them.
But the jolly wives of the Young Married Set—— Particularly this Mrs. Gilson, Beryl Gilson, a girl of twenty-five, born for cuddling. She had a bleached and whining husband, who was always quarreling with her in a weakly violent sputtering; and she was obviously taken by Elmer’s confident strength. He sat by her in “cozy-corners,” and his arm was tense. But he won glory by keeping from embracing her. Also, he wasn’t so sure that he could win her. She was flighty, fond of triumphs, but cautious, a city girl used to many suitors. And if she did prove kind—— She was a member of his church, and she was talkative. She might go around hinting.
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 one-time 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!”