"Come on," he said and gave her a brutal yank.
"You two there—you boy and girl"
Paul could bear it no longer. Pushing Gritty through the opening in the tent he stepped outside, then thrust back his head and cried at the top of his lungs:
"Mind your own business and go to hell!"
It was the first time he had ever said a real "swear word."
He saw a blur of outraged heads swing round, and was for an instant aware of two startled eyes in a familiar face, terror-stricken eyes that ought somehow to have been cajoling. Walter Dreer! He grasped Gritty more tightly by the hand and ran with her for dear life down the hill, past the church, bringing up at Gritty's gate. The twilight had turned to night—indigo night—and on the hill the entrance to the tent showed in an orange triangle, surrounded by faintly luminous canvas. A miniature hell set up as a puny challenge to a vast, dark, beneficent world.
A scent of syringas clung to the little brown house. The windmill creaked faintly and the trees rustled. Gritty was panting from the swift run. The sparkle had come back to her eyes, which caught a gleam from the lamplight pouring softly through the window. It was Paul who collapsed on the doorstep, scared by the enormity of his deed. But he was just daring to be glad, glad! That swine had tried to prevent him from leaving the meeting! He had retaliated by doing something he had wanted to do ever since he could remember. Often, before the mirror, he had practised "faces" he would like to make at people—the minister, for one. At last he had done even better: had sworn out loud in a meeting-place, and everybody had heard. He had got even with the community for an injury he couldn't quite formulate. The long smouldering had given way to a flare-up. Now they would know he was on fire.
