The Argonauts of North Liberty | Page 4

borne down by the dull, trampling precision of the others' formal chant.
This and a certain muffled raking of the stove by the sexton brought the
temperature down still lower. A sermon, in keeping with the previous
performance, in which the chill east wind of doctrine was not tempered
to any shorn lamb within that dreary fold, followed. A spark of human
and vulgar interest was momentarily kindled by the collection and the
simultaneous movement of reluctant hands towards their owners'
pockets; but the coins fell on the baize-covered plates with a dull thud,
like clods on a coffin, and the dreariness returned. Then there was
another hymn and a prolonged moan from the harmonium, to which
mysterious suggestion the congregation rose and began slowly to file
into the aisle. For a moment they mingled; there was the silent grasping
of damp woollen mittens and cold black gloves, and the whispered
interchange of each other's names with the prefix of "Brother" or

"Sister," and an utter absence of fraternal geniality, and then the
meeting slowly dispersed.
The few who had waited until the minister had resumed his hat,
overcoat, and overshoes, and accompanied him to the door, had already
passed out; the sexton was turning out the flickering gas jets one by one,
when the cold and austere silence was broken by a sound--the
unmistakable echo of a kiss of human passion.
As the horror-stricken official turned angrily, the figure of a man glided
from the shadow of the stairs below the organ loft, and vanished
through the open door. Before the sexton could follow, the figure of a
woman slipped out of the same portal and with a hurried glance after
the first retreating figure, turned in the opposite direction and was lost
in the darkness. By the time the indignant and scandalized custodian
had reached the portal, they had both melted in the troubled sea of
tossing umbrellas already to the right and left of him, and pursuit and
recognition were hopeless.

CHAPTER II
The male figure, however, after mingling with his fellow-worshippers
to the corner of the block, stopped a moment under the lamp-post as if
uncertain as to the turning, but really to cast a long, scrutinizing look
towards the scattered umbrellas now almost lost in the opposite
direction. He was still gazing and apparently hesitating whether to
retrace his steps, when a horse and buggy rapidly driven down the side
street passed him. In a brief glance he evidently recognized the driver,
and stepping over the curbstone called in a brief authoritative voice:
"Ned!"
The occupant of the vehicle pulled up suddenly, leaned from the buggy,
and said in an astonished tone:
"Dick Demorest! Well! I declare! hold on, and I'll drive up to the curb."

"No; stay where you are."
The speaker approached the buggy, jumped in beside the occupant,
refastened the apron, and coolly taking the reins from his companion's
hand, started the horse forward. The action was that of an habitually
imperious man; and the only recognition he made of the other's
ownership was the question:
"Where were you going?"
"Home--to see Joan," replied the other. "Just drove over from
Warensboro Station. But what on earth are YOU doing here?"
Without answering the question, Demorest turned to his companion
with the same good-natured, half humorous authority. "Let your wife
wait; take a drive with me. I want to talk to you. She'll be just as glad to
see you an hour later, and it's her fault if I can't come home with you
now."
"I know it," returned his companion, in a tone of half-annoyed apology.
"She still sticks to her old compact when we first married, that she
shouldn't be obliged to receive my old worldly friends. And, see here,
Dick, I thought I'd talked her out of it as regards YOU at least, but
Parson Thomas has been raking up all the old stories about you--you
know that affair of the Fall River widow, and that breaking off of Garry
Spofferth's match--and about your horse-racing--until--you know, she's
more set than ever against knowing you."
"That's not a bad sort of horse you've got there," interrupted Demorest,
who usually conducted conversation without reference to alien topics
suggested by others. "Where did you get him? He's good yet for a spin
down the turnpike and over the bridge. We'll do it, and I'll bring you
home safely to Mrs. Blandford inside the hour."
Blandford knew little of horseflesh, but like all men he was not
superior to this implied compliment to his knowledge. He resigned
himself to his companion as he had been in the habit of doing, and
Demorest hurried the horse at a rapid gait down the street until they left

the lamps behind, and were fully on the dark turnpike. The