“Stone the crows!” He whispered to no one in particular. “This place, and these people…”
Lamont edged over to Constance, who was watching the spectacle with an expression somewhere between fascination and horror. “Blimey, love,” Lamont whispered to her. “Is that what you sounded like?”
Constance grimaced. “Could be. I don’t rightly recall.”
“It was,” Abner Wade confirmed somberly, his eyes locked on the ecstatic couple. “It was just like that, except more kinda passionate and torrid.”
Constance jabbed the young man hard in the gut with her elbow.
“Miss Beckett!” Rosemary exclaimed scoldingly, rushing to the aid of the young man, who was bending over now.
“I apologize,” Constance said flatly. “I suppose I feel a might ticklish about making a spectacle of myself like that.”
“Aw, shucks,” Abner said, the words coming out in a pained gasp. “We all get caught up in the spirit on occasion.”
Lamont’s mind traveled back to the Wednesday night service he had stumbled into on the colonist deck, and Abner’s breathless invitation to join in the strange proceedings. “Stone the crows!” He whispered to no one in particular. “This place, and these people…”
He looked at Barney, who returned his gaze earnestly and said, “With a fervent heart and an illuminated mind, I found myself standing at the threshold of revelation. I glimpsed the countenance of divinity, an enigmatic visage shrouded in enigmas and revelations. The eyes of the divine bore into my very essence, reflecting the kaleidoscope of existence, revealing both the divine and the human, the Alpha and Omega, the womb, the cave.”
Lamont snapped a photo of him with his recorder. “This too shall pass,” he assured Barney philosophically.
“It’s dangerous,” said Anna, who had made her way over to their group after detaching from Betty, who was continuing to expound on her experience at the same time as her husband. “It’s bad enough that there’s precious little to wholesomely occupy the time in this place.”
“Have you tried it?” Lamont asked.
“No,” Anna assured him. “And no force in heaven or earth could make me.”
“I hate to tell you,” the newspaperman said, drawing a cigarette from his shirt pocket, “But I rather doubt either has much influence here.”
“I’m next!” Proclaimed Walter Ames, who stepped toward the beckoning entrance of the grove. Faster than Lamont would have thought possible, his way was blocked by the small body of Rosemary, who had leapt from Abner’s side to interpose herself.
“Oy! That’s enough for now,” She said authoritatively, raising her voice above the ecstatic rambling of the Downs couple and the murmurs of the group. “No one else is going in there right now.”
“Yeah?” Barked Jackson Clyde, bristling at the uniformed medic. “Where’s the cavalry?”
I really enjoy the usage of "wholesome" as an adjective