Carol but half listened to the names.  She could not fancy their ever becoming important to her.

“I bet Luke Dawson has got more money than most of the swells on Summit Avenue; and Miss Sherwin in the high school is a regular wonder—­reads Latin like I do English; and Sam Clark, the hardware man, he’s a corker—­not a better man in the state to go hunting with; and if you want culture, besides Vida Sherwin there’s Reverend Warren, the Congregational preacher, and Professor Mott, the superintendent of schools, and Guy Pollock, the lawyer—­they say he writes regular poetry and—­and Raymie Wutherspoon, he’s not such an awful boob when you get to know him, and he sings swell.  And——­And there’s plenty of others.  Lym Cass.  Only of course none of them have your finesse, you might call it.  But they don’t make ’em any more appreciative and so on.  Come on!  We’re ready for you to boss us!”

They sat on the bank below the parapet of the old fort, hidden from observation.  He circled her shoulder with his arm.  Relaxed after the walk, a chill nipping her throat, conscious of his warmth and power, she leaned gratefully against him.

“You know I’m in love with you, Carol!”

She did not answer, but she touched the back of his hand with an exploring finger.

“You say I’m so darn materialistic.  How can I help it, unless I have you to stir me up?”

She did not answer.  She could not think.

“You say a doctor could cure a town the way he does a person.  Well, you cure the town of whatever ails it, if anything does, and I’ll be your surgical kit.”

She did not follow his words, only the burring resoluteness of them.

She was shocked, thrilled, as he kissed her cheek and cried, “There’s no use saying things and saying things and saying things.  Don’t my arms talk to you—­now?”

“Oh, please, please!” She wondered if she ought to be angry, but it was a drifting thought, and she discovered that she was crying.

Then they were sitting six inches apart, pretending that they had never been nearer, while she tried to be impersonal: 

“I would like to—­would like to see Gopher Prairie.”

“Trust me!  Here she is!  Brought some snapshots down to show you.”

Her cheek near his sleeve, she studied a dozen village pictures.  They were streaky; she saw only trees, shrubbery, a porch indistinct in leafy shadows.  But she exclaimed over the lakes:  dark water reflecting wooded bluffs, a flight of ducks, a fisherman in shirt sleeves and a wide straw hat, holding up a string of croppies.  One winter picture of the edge of Plover Lake had the air of an etching:  lustrous slide of ice, snow in the crevices of a boggy bank, the mound of a muskrat house, reeds in thin black lines, arches of frosty grasses.  It was an impression of cool clear vigor.

“How’d it be to skate there for a couple of hours, or go zinging along on a fast ice-boat, and skip back home for coffee and some hot wienies?” he demanded.