nto something too tense, too
exciting, the atmosphere of the revival. Yet, though his fellow
Christians blamed him for it, they sought it like a drug. He played on
their unwilling nerves and they ran to be played on. He was their opera,
their jazz. Breath came faster and eyes shone. The likelihood of a
hysterical giggle was imminent, and some couples, safely out of range of
Tenney's gaze, were "holding hands" and mentally shuddering at their own
temerity.

Now he was telling his own religious experience, with a mounting fervor
ready to froth over into frenzy. Raven, turning slightly, regarded him
with a cold dislike. This was the voice that had echoed through the
woods that day when Tira stood, her baby in her arms, in what chill of
fear Raven believed he knew. Tenney went on lashing himself into the
ecstasy of his emotional debauch. His eyes glittered. He was happy, he
asserted, because he had found salvation. His conversion was akin to
that of Saul. To his immense spiritual egotism, Raven concluded, nothing
short of a story colossally dramatic would serve. He had been a sinner,
perhaps not as to works but faith. He had kept the commandments, all but
one. Had he loved the Lord his God with all his heart, all his soul, all
his might? No: for he had not accepted the sacrifice the Lord God had
prepared for him, of His only Son. That Son of God had been with him
everywhere, in his down-sittings and his uprisings, as He was with every
man and woman on earth. But, like other sinful men and women, he had not
seen Him. He had not felt Him. But He was there. And one day he was
hoeing in the field and a voice at his side asked: "Why persecutest thou
me?" He looked up and saw----Here he paused dramatically, though Raven
concluded it was simply because he found himself at a loss to go on. He
had appropriated the story, but he was superstitiously afraid to
embroider it. For he (Raven gave him that credit) honestly believed in
his self-evolved God.

"And then," said Tenney, in a broken voice, tears trickling down his
cheeks, "the voice said to me: 'Go ye out and preach the gospel.'"

The front door opened and a little answering breeze flickered in the
flame of the lamp. A girl near Nan, her nerves on edge, gave a cry. A
man stepped in and closed the door behind him. He was a figure of
fashion evolved from cheap models and flashy materials. Tall, quick in
his movements, as if he found life a perpetual dance and
self-consciously ad