Sedate as a long married couple, intimate and secure, were Elmer and Sharon on most days, and always he was devoted. It was Sharon who was incalculable. Sometimes she was a priestess and a looming disaster, sometimes she was intimidating in grasping passion, sometimes she was thin and writhing and anguished with chagrined doubt of herself, sometimes she was pale and nun-like and still, sometimes she was a chilly business woman, and sometimes she was a little girl. In the last, quite authentic rôle, Elmer loved her fondly—except when she assumed it just as she was due to go out and hypnotize three thousand people.
He would beg her, "Oh, come on now, Shara, please be good! Please stop pouting, and go out and lambaste 'em."
She would stamp her foot, while her face changed to a round childishness. "No! Don't want to evangel. Want to be bad. Bad! Want to throw things. Want to go out and spank a bald man on the head. Tired of souls. Want to tell 'em all to go to hell!"
"Oh, gee, please, Shara! Gosh all fishhooks! They're waiting for you! Adelbert has sung that verse twice now."
"I don't care! Sing it again! Sing songs, losh songs! Going to be bad! Going out and drop mice down Adelbert's fat neck—fat neck—fat hooooooly neck!"
But suddenly: "I wish I could. I wish they'd let me be bad. Oh, I get so tired—all of them reaching for me, sucking my blood, wanting me to give them the courage they're too flabby to get for themselves!"
And a minute later she was standing before the audience, rejoicing, "Oh, my beloved, the dear Lord has a message for you tonight!"
And in two hours, as they rode in a taxi to the hotel, she
