Page:Elmer Gantry (1927).djvu/191

 "If it cost me my job!"

"Then— I'll wire you when to come after I get there: Hanning Hall, Broughton, Virginia. Now I think I'd better go to bed, dear. Sweet dreams."

"Can't I tuck you into bed?"

"No, dear. I might forget to be Sister Falconer! Good night!"

Her kiss was like a swallow's flight, and he went out obediently, marveling that Elmer Gantry could for once love so much that he did not insist on loving.

In New York he had bought a suit of Irish homespun and a heather cap. He looked bulky but pleasantly pastoral as he gaped romantically from the Pullman window at the fields of Virginia. "Ole Virginny—ole Virginny" he hummed happily. Worm fences, negro cabins, gallant horses in rocky pastures, a longing to see the gentry who rode such horses, and ever the blue hills. It was an older world than his baking Kansas, older than Mizpah Seminary, and he felt a desire to be part of this traditional age to which Sharon belonged. Then, as the miles which still separated him from the town of Broughton crept back of him, he forgot the warm-tinted land in anticipation of her.

He was recalling that she was the aristocrat, the more formidable here in the company of F. F. V. friends. He was more than usually timid. . . and more than usually proud of his conquest.

For a moment, at the station, he thought that she had not come to meet him. Then he saw a girl standing by an old country buggy.

She was young, veritably a girl, in middy blouse deep cut at the throat, pleated white skirt, white shoes. Her red tam-o'-shanter was rakish, her smile was a country grin as she waved to him. And the girl was Sister Falconer.

"God, you're adorable!" he murmured to her, as he plumped down his suit-case, and she was fragrant and soft in his arms as he kissed her.

"No more," she whispered. "You're supposed to be my cousin, and even very nice cousins don't kiss quite so intelligently!"