Page:Arrowsmith - Sinclair Lewis.pdf/113

 Bert further said, with instances and illustrations, that she was light-minded, and as for nursing— Nursing!

She said that Bert was what he was, and tried to explain to Martin the matter of Sam Petchek. (It has never yet been altogether explained.)

Ada Quist said that Leora did not care if she broke her dear parents' hearts and ruined Bert's career.

Martin said, "Look here, I—" and never got farther.

Mr. and Mrs. Tozer said they were all to be calm, and of course Bert didn't mean— But really, it was true; they had to be sensible, and how Mr. Arrowsmith could expect to support a wife—

The conference lasted till nine-thirty, which, as Mr. Tozer pointed out, was everybody's bedtime, and except for the five-minute discussion as to whether Miss Ada Quist was to stay to supper, and the debate on the saltiness of this last cornbeef, they clave faithfully to the inquiry as to whether Martin and Leora were engaged. All persons interested, which apparently did not include Martin and Leora, decided that they were not. Bert ushered Martin upstairs. He saw to it that the lovers should not have a chance for a good-night kiss; and until Mr. Tozer called down the hall, at seven minutes after ten, "You going to stay up and chew the rag the whole blessed night, Bert?" he made himself agreeable by sitting on Martin's bed, looking derisively at his shabby baggage, and demanding the details of his parentage, religion, politics, and attitude toward the horrors of card-playing and dancing.

At breakfast they all hoped that Martin would stay one more night in their home—plenty of room.

Bert stated that Martin would come down-town at ten and be shown the bank, creamery, and wheat elevator.

But at ten Martin and Leora were on the eastbound train. They got out at the county seat, Leopolis, a vast city of four thousand population, with a three-story building. At one that afternoon they were married, by the German Lutheran pastor. His study was a bareness surrounding a large, rusty woodstove, and the witnesses, the pastor's wife and an old German who had been shoveling walks, sat on the wood-box and looked drowsy. Not till they had caught the afternoon train for Wheatsylvania did Martin and Leora escape from the ghostly apprehension which had hunted them all day. In the fetid train, huddled close, hands locked, innocently free of the