An instant bitterness, tightening his thin metallic lips and narrowing
a cold fixed gaze, destroyed the harmony of the assured salvation.
Lemuel Doret silently cursed the pinched stupidity of the country
clods. The slow helpless fools! If instead of muttering in groups one
of the men would face him with the local hypocrisy he'd sink a heel in
his jaw. The bitterness expanded into a hatred like the gleam on a
knife blade; his hands, spare and hard, grew rigid with the desire to
choke a thick throat.
Then the rage sank before a swift self-horror, an overwhelming
conviction of his relapse into unutterable sin. He stopped and in a
spiritual agony, forgetful of his surroundings, half lifted quivering
arms to the dim sky: "O Christ, lean down from the throne and hold me
steady."
He stood for a moment while a monotonous chatter on a porch above
dropped to a curious stillness. It seemed to him that his whisper was
heard and immediately answered; anyhow peace slowly enveloped him once
more, the melody of hope was again uppermost in his mind. He went
forward, procuring a cigarette from a mended ragged pocket.
His house, reached by a short steep path and sagging steps, was dark;
at first he saw no one, then the creak of a rocking-chair in the open
doorway indicated Bella, his wife.
"Give me a cigarette," she demanded, her penetrating voice
dissatisfied.
"You know I don't want you to smoke anywhere you can be seen," he
answered.
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