Page:Elmer Gantry (1927).djvu/26

 Rarely did Elmer seem more deft than Jim Lefferts. But now he was feeling his command over women—certain sorts of women. Silent, yearning at Juanita, commanding her with hot eyes, he sank on the temporarily Oriental couch, touched her pale hand with his broad finger-tips, and murmured, "Why, you poor kid, you look so tired!"

"I am and— You hadn't ought to of come here this afternoon. Nell's aunt threw a conniption fit the last time you were here."

"Hurray for aunty! But you ' re glad to see me?"

She would not answer.

"Aren't you?"

Bold eyes on hers that turned uneasily away, looked back, and sought the safety of the blank wall.

"Aren't you?"

She would not answer.

"Juanita! And I've longed for you something fierce, ever since I saw you!" His fingers touched her throat, but softly. "Aren't you a little glad?"

As she turned her head, for a second she looked at him with embarrassed confession. She sharply whispered, "No—don't!" as he caught her hand, but she moved nearer to him, leaned against his shoulder.

"You're so big and strong," she sighed.

"But, golly, you don't know how I need you! The president, old Quarles—quarrels is right, by golly, ha, ha, ha!—'member I was telling you about him?—he's laying for me because he thinks it was me and Jim that let the bats loose in chapel. And I get so sick of that gosh-awful Weekly Bible Study—all about these holy old gazebos. And then I think about you, and gosh, if you were just sitting on the other side of the stove from me in my room there, with your cute lil red slippers cocked up on the nickel rail—gee, how happy I'd be! You don't think I'm just a bonehead, do you?"

Jim and Nellie were at the stage now of nudging each other and bawling, "Hey, quit, will yuh!" as they stood over the coffee.

"Say, you girls change your shirts and come on out and we'll blow you to dinner, and maybe we'll dance a little," proclaimed Jim.

"We can't," said Nellie. "Aunty's sore as a pup because