V
Frank Shallard turned on Elmer in their bedroom, while they were washing for supper—their first moment alone since Lulu and Miss Baldwin had driven them to the Bains farm to spend the night before the Thanksgiving service.
“Look here, Gantry—Elmer. I don’t think it looked well, the way you took Miss Bains in the back room at the church and kept her there—must have been half an hour—and when I came in you two jumped and looked guilty.”
“Uh-huh, so our little friend Franky is a real rubbernecking old woman!”
It was a spacious dusky cavern under the eaves, the room where they were to stay the night. The pitcher on the black walnut washstand was stippled in gold, riotous with nameless buds. Elmer stood glaring, his big forearms bare and dripping, shaking his fingers over the carpet before he reached for the towel.
“I am not a ‘rubberneck,’ and you know it, Gantry. But you’re the preacher here, and it’s our duty, for the effect on others, to avoid even the appearance of evil.”
“Evil to him that evil thinks. Maybe you’ve heard that, too!”
“Oh, yes, Elmer, I think perhaps I have!”
“Suspicious, dirty-minded Puritan, that’s what you are, seeing evil where there ain’t any meant.”
“People don’t hate Puritans because they suspect unjustly, but because they suspect only too darned justly. Look here now, Elmer. I don’t want to be disagreeable—”
“Well, you are!”
“—but Miss Bains—she looks sort of cuddlesome and flirtatious, but I’m dead certain she’s straight as can be, and I’m not going to stand back and watch you try to, uh, to make love to her.”
“Well, smarty, suppose I wanted to marry her?”
“Do you?”
“You know so blame’ much, you ought to know without asking!”
“Do you?”
“I haven’t said I didn’t.”
“Your rhetoric is too complicated for me. I’ll take it that you do mean to. That’s fine! I’ll announce your intentions to Deacon Bains.”
“You will like hell! Now you look here, Shallard! I’m not going to have you poking your long nose into my business, and that’s all there is to it, see?”
“Yes, it would be if you were a layman and I had no official connection with this outfit. I don’t believe too much in going around being moral for other people. But you’re the preacher here—you’re an ordained minister—and I’m responsible with you for the welfare of this church, and I’m damned if I’m going to watch you seducing the first girl you get your big sweaty hands on—Oh, don’t go doubling up your fists. Of course you could lick me. But you won’t. Especially here in the deacon’s house. Ruin you in the ministry. … Great God, and you’re the kind we affably let into the Baptist ministry! I was saying: I don’t propose to see you trying to seduce—”
“Now, by God, if you think I’m going to stand—Let me tell you right now, you’ve got the filthiest mind I ever heard of, Shallard! Why you should think I intend for one single second to be anything but friendly and open and aboveboard with Lulu—with Miss Bains—Why, you fool, I was in there listening about how she was in love with a fellow and he’s gone off to Chicago and chucked her, and that was all, and why you should think—”
“Oh, don’t be so fatheaded, Gantry! You can’t get away with sitting in my room at the Sem boasting, you and Zenz boasting about how many affairs you’ve had—”
“Well, it’s the last time I’ll sit in your damned room!”
“Splendid!”
“Think what you want to. And go to the devil! And be sure and run tattling to Pop Trosper and the rest of the faculty!”
“Well, that’s a good comeback, Gantry. I may do just that. But this evening I’ll just watch Lulu—watch Miss Bains for you. Poor sweet kid that she is! Nice eyes!”
“Uh-huh, young Shallard, so you’ve been smelling around, too!”
“My God, Gantry, what a perfect specimen you are!”