A Modern Idyll | Page 2

she stopped and smiled--waiting perhaps for him to take his leave. As he did not speak she shook out her frock and then pulled down her bodice at the waist and drew herself up, thus throwing into relief the willowy outlines of her girlish form. The provocative grace, unconscious or intentional, of the attitude was not lost on her admirer. For an instant he stood irresolute, but when she stepped forward to pass him, he seemed to lose his self-control, and, putting his arms round her, tried to kiss her. With serpent speed and litheness she bowed her head against his chest, and slipped out of the embrace. On reaching the door she paused to say, over her shoulder: "If you'll wait, I'll be back right soon;" then, as if a new thought had occurred to her, she added turning to him: "The Deacon told me he was coming home early to-day, and he'd be real sorry to miss you."
As she disappeared, he took up his hat, and left the house.
It was about four o'clock on a day in mid-June. The sun was pouring down rays of liquid flame; the road, covered inches deep in fine white dust, and the wooden side-walks glowed with the heat, but up and down the steep hills went the minister unconscious of physical discomfort.
"Does she care for me, or not? Why can't she tell me plainly? The teasing creature! Did she give me the hint to go because she was afraid her husband would come in? Or did she want to get rid of me in order not to answer?... She wasn't angry with me for putting my arms round her, and yet she wouldn't let me kiss her. Why not? She doesn't love him. She married him because she was poor, and he was rich and a deacon. She can't love him. He must be fifty-five if he's a day. Perhaps she doesn't love me either--the little flirt! But how seductive she is, and what a body, so round and firm and supple--not thin at all. I have the feel of it on my hands now--I can't stand this."
Shaking himself vigorously, he abandoned his meditation, which, like many similar ones provoked by Mrs. Hooper, had begun in vexation and ended in passionate desire. Becoming aware of the heat and dust, he stood still, took off his hat, and wiped his forehead.
The Rev. John Letgood was an ideal of manhood to many women. He was largely built, but not ungainly--the coarseness of the hands being the chief indication of his peasant ancestry. His head was rather round, and strongly set on broad shoulders; the nose was straight and well formed; the dark eyes, however, were somewhat small, and the lower part of the face too massive, though both chin and jaw were clearly marked. A long, thick, brown moustache partly concealed the mouth; the lower lip could just be seen, a little heavy, and sensual; the upper one was certainly flexile and suasive. A good-looking man of thirty, who must have been handsome when he was twenty, though even then, probably, too much drawn by the pleasures of the senses to have had that distinction of person which seems to be reserved for those who give themselves to thought or high emotions. On entering his comfortable house, he was met by his negro "help," who handed him his "mail": "I done brot these, Massa; they's all." "Thanks, Pete," he replied abstractedly, going into his cool study. He flung himself into an armchair before the writing-table, and began to read the letters. Two were tossed aside carelessly, but on opening the third he sat up with a quick exclamation. Here at last was the "call" he had been expecting, a "call" from the deacons of the Second Baptist Church in Chicago, asking him to come and minister to their spiritual wants, and offering him ten thousand dollars a year for his services.
For a moment exultation overcame every other feeling in the man. A light flashed in his eyes as he exclaimed aloud: "It was that sermon did it! What a good thing it was that I knew their senior deacon was in the church on purpose to hear me! How well I brought in the apostrophe on the cultivation of character that won me the prize at college! Ah, I have never done anything finer than that, never! and perhaps never shall now. I had been reading Channing then for months, was steeped in him; but Channing has nothing as good as that in all his works. It has more weight and dignity--dignity is the word--than anything he wrote. And to think of its bringing me this! Ten thousand dollars a year and the second church in Chicago, while here they think me well paid