She looked distressed, almost frightened.
“Whoa up!” he counseled himself. “You’ve got the wrong track. Golly, I don’t believe she’s as much of a fusser as I thought she was. Really is kinda innocent. Poor kid, shame to get her all excited. Oh, thunder, won’t hurt her a bit to have a little educated love-making!”
He hastily removed any possible blots on his clerical reputation:
“Oh, I was joking. I just meant—be a shame if as lovely a girl as you weren’t engaged. I suppose you are engaged, of course?”
“No. I liked a boy here awfully, but he went to Cleveland to work, and I guess he’s kind of forgotten me.”
“Oh, that is really too bad!”
Nothing could be stronger, more dependable, more comforting, than the pressure of his fingers on her arm. She looked grateful; and when she came to the sick-room and heard Brother Gantry pray, long, fervently, and with the choicest words about death not really mattering nor really hurting (the old woman had cancer) then Lulu also looked worshipful.
On their way back he made his final probe:
“But even if you aren’t engaged, Sister Lulu, I’ll bet there’s a lot of the young fellows here that’re crazy about you.”
“No, honest there aren’t. Oh, I go round some with a second cousin of mine—Floyd Naylor—but, my! he’s so slow, he’s no fun.”