wondering what the devil Mr. Wesley's doctrine of perfection might be.
It is possible that the presence of the elder Benhams, preventing too close a communion with Cleo, kept Elmer from understanding what it meant that he should not greatly have longed to embrace her. He translated his lack of urgency into virtue; and went about assuring himself that he was indeed a reformed and perfected character . . . and so went home and hung about the kitchen, chattering with little Jane Clark in pastoral jokiness.
Even when he was alone with Cleo, when she drove him in the proud Benham motor for calls in the country, even while he was volubly telling himself how handsome she was, he was never quite natural with her.
He called on an evening of late November, and both her parents were out, attending Eastern Star. She looked dreary and red-eyed. He crowed benevolently while they stood at the parlor door, "Why, Sister Cleo, what's the matter? You look kind of sad."
"Oh, it's nothing—"
"Come on now! Tell me! I'll pray for you, or beat somebody up, whichever you prefer!"
"Oh, I don't think you ought to joke about— Anyway, it's really nothing."
She was staring at the floor. He felt buoyant and dominating, so delightfully stronger than she. He lifted her chin with his forefinger, demanding, "Look up at me now!"
In her naked eyes there was such shameful, shameless longing for him that he was drawn. He could not but slip his arm around her, and she dropped her head on his shoulder, weeping, all her pride gone from her. He was so exalted by the realization of his own power that he took it for passion, and suddenly he was kissing her, conscious of the pale fineness of her skin, her flattering yielding to him; suddenly he was blurting, "I've loved you, oh, terrible, ever since the first second I saw you!"
As she sat on his knee, as she drooped against him unresisting, he was certain that she was very beautiful, altogether desirable.
