Page:Elmer Gantry (1927).djvu/149

 "Go on, Brother! Kiss her!" they clamored.

He did, heartily; so heartily that he felt curious stirrings.

He spent the night there, and was so full of holy affection that when the family was asleep, he crept into Lulu's bedroom. She stirred on the pillow and whispered, "Oh, my darling! And you forgave me! Oh, I do love you so!" as he kissed her fragrant hair.

It was usual for the students of Mizpah to let Dean Trosper know if they should become engaged. The dean recommended them for ministerial appointments, and the status of marriage made a difference. Bachelors were more likely to become assistants in large city churches; married men, particularly those whose wives had lively piety and a knowledge of cooking, were usually sent to small churches of their own.

The dean summoned Elmer to his gloomy house on the edge of the campus—it was a house which smelled of cabbage and wet ashes—and demanded:

"Gantry, just what is this business about you and some girl at Schoenheim?"

"Why, Dean," in hurt rectitude, "I'm engaged to a fine young lady there—daughter of one of my deacons."

"Well, that's good. It's better to marry than to burn—or at least so it is stated in the Scriptures. Now I don't want any monkey-business about this. A preacher must walk circumspectly. You must shun the very appearance of evil. I hope you'll love and cherish her, and seems to me it would be well not only to be engaged to her but even to marry her. Thaddeldo."

"Now what the devil did he mean by that?" protested Parsifal as he went home.

He had to work quickly. He had less than two months before the threatened marriage.

If he could entangle Lulu with some one? What about Floyd Naylor? The fool loved her.

He spent as much time in Schoenheim as possible, not only