Cleo looked tired, and toward the end of the journey, in the winter evening, with the gale desolate, she seemed scarce to be listening to his observations on graded Sunday School lessons, the treatment of corns, his triumphs at Sister Falconer's meetings, and the inferiority of the Reverend Clyde Tippey.
"Well, you might pay a little attention to me, anyway!" he snarled.
"Oh, I'm sorry! I really was paying attention. I'm just tired—all the preparations for the wedding and everything." She looked at him beseechingly. "Oh, Elmer, you must take care of me! I'm giving myself to you entirely—oh, completely."
"Huh! So you look at it as a sacrifice to marry me, do you!"
"Oh, no, I didn't mean it that way—"
"And I suppose you think I don't intend to take care of you! Sure! Prob'ly I stay out late nights and play cards and gamble and drink and run around after women! Of course! I'm not a minister of the gospel—I'm a saloon-keeper!"
"Oh, dear, dear, dear, oh, my dearest, I didn't mean to hurt you! I just meant— You're so strong and big, and I'm—oh, of course I'm not a tiny little thing, but I haven't got your strength."
He enjoyed feeling injured, but he was warning himself, "Shut up, you chump! You'll never educate her to make love if you go bawling her out."
He magnanimously comforted her: "Oh, I know. Of course, you poor dear. Fool thing anyway, your mother having this big wedding, and all the eats and the relatives coming in and everything."
And with all this, she still seemed distressed.
But he patted her hand, and talked about the cottage they were going to furnish in Banjo Crossing; and as he thought of the approaching Zenith, of their room at the O'Hearn House (there was no necessity for a whole suite, as formerly, when he had had to impress his Prosperity pupils), he became more ardent, whispered to her that she was beautiful, stroked her arm till she trembled.
