A Modern Idyll | Page 6

right,"
repeated her husband thoughtfully. "It'll look better if he decides before
hearin' from us. There ain't no harm, though, in thinkin' the thing over
and speakin' to the other Deacons about it. I'll kinder find out what they
feel."
"Yes," she replied mechanically, almost as if she had not heard. "Yes,
that's all right." And she slowly straightened the cloth on the
centre-table, given over again to her reflections.
Mr. Letgood walked home, ate his supper, went to bed and slept that
night as only a man does whose nervous system has been exhausted by
various and intense emotions. He even said his prayers by rote. And
like a child he slept with tightly-clenched fists, for in him, as in the
child, the body's claims were predominant.
When he awoke next morning, the sun was shining in at his bedroom
window, and at once his thoughts went back to the scenes and emotions
of the day before. An unusual liveliness of memory enabled him to
review the very words which Mrs. Hooper had used. He found nothing
to regret. He had certainly gained ground by telling her of the call. The
torpor which had come upon him the previous evening formed a

complete contrast to the blithesome vigour he now enjoyed. He seemed
to himself to be a different man, recreated, as it were, and endowed
with fresh springs of life. While he lay in the delightful relaxation and
warmth of the bed, and looked at the stream of sunshine which flowed
across the room, he became confident that all would go right.
"Yes," he decided, "she cares for me, or she would never have wished
me to stay. Even the Deacon helped me--" The irony of the fact
shocked him. He would not think of it. He might get a letter from her
by two o'clock. With pleasure thrilling through every nerve, he
imagined how she would word her confession. For she had yielded to
him; he had felt her body move towards him and had seen the surrender
in her eyes. While musing thus, passion began to stir in him, and with
passion impatience.
"Only half-past six o'clock," he said to himself, pushing his watch again
under the pillow; "eight hours to wait till mail time. Eight endless hours.
What a plague!"
His own irritation annoyed him, and he willingly took up again the
thread of his amorous reverie: "What a radiant face she has, what fine
nervefulness in the slim fingers, what softness in the full throat!"
Certain incidents in his youth before he had studied for the ministry
came back to him, bringing the blood to his cheeks and making his
temples throb. As the recollections grew vivid they became a torment.
To regain quiet pulses he forced his mind to dwell upon the details of
his "conversion"--his sudden resolve to live a new life and to give
himself up to the service of the divine Master. The yoke was not easy;
the burden was not light. On the contrary. He remembered innumerable
contests with his rebellious flesh, contests in which he was never
completely victorious for more than a few days together, but in which,
especially during the first heat of the new enthusiasm, he had struggled
desperately. Had his efforts been fruitless?...
He thought with pride of his student days--mornings given to books
and to dreams of the future, and evenings marked by passionate
emotions, new companions reinspiring him continually with fresh
ardour. The time spent at college was the best of his life. He had really

striven, then, as few strive, to deserve the prize of his high calling.
During those years, it seemed to him, he had been all that an earnest
Christian should be. He recalled, with satisfaction, the honours he had
won in Biblical knowledge and in history, and the more easily gained
rewards for rhetoric. It was only natural that he should have been
immediately successful as a preacher. How often he had moved his
flock to tears! No wonder he had got on.
Those first successes, and the pleasures which they brought with them
of gratified vanity, had resulted in turning him from a Christian into an
orator. He understood this dimly, but he thrust back the unwelcome
truth with the reflection that his triumphs in the pulpit dated from the
time when he began consciously to treat preaching as an art. After all,
was he not there to win souls to Christ, and had not Christ himself
praised the wisdom of the serpent? Then came the change from
obscurity and narrow living in the country to Kansas City and luxury.
He had been wise in avoiding that girl at Pleasant Hill. He smiled
complacently as he thought of her dress, manners, and speech. Yet she
was pretty, very