“Yes.”

“I think he’s an awful handsome fellow, and they say he’s smart.  Do you like him?”

“He seems very polite.”

“Cy says you and him had a lovely boat-ride.  My, that must have been pleasant.”

“Yes, except that I couldn’t get Mr. Valborg to say a word.  I wanted to ask him about the suit Mr. Hicks is making for my husband.  But he insisted on singing.  Still, it was restful, floating around on the water and singing.  So happy and innocent.  Don’t you think it’s a shame, Mrs. Bogart, that people in this town don’t do more nice clean things like that, instead of all this horrible gossiping?”

“Yes. . . .  Yes.”

Mrs. Bogart sounded vacant.  Her bonnet was awry; she was incomparably dowdy.  Carol stared at her, felt contemptuous, ready at last to rebel against the trap, and as the rusty goodwife fished again, “Plannin’ some more picnics?” she flung out, “I haven’t the slightest idea!  Oh.  Is that Hugh crying?  I must run up to him.”

But up-stairs she remembered that Mrs. Bogart had seen her walking with Erik from the railroad track into town, and she was chilly with disquietude.

At the Jolly Seventeen, two days after, she was effusive to Maud Dyer, to Juanita Haydock.  She fancied that every one was watching her, but she could not be sure, and in rare strong moments she did not care.  She could rebel against the town’s prying now that she had something, however indistinct, for which to rebel.

In a passionate escape there must be not only a place from which to flee but a place to which to flee.  She had known that she would gladly leave Gopher Prairie, leave Main Street and all that it signified, but she had had no destination.  She had one now.  That destination was not Erik Valborg and the love of Erik.  She continued to assure herself that she wasn’t in love with him but merely “fond of him, and interested in his success.”  Yet in him she had discovered both her need of youth and the fact that youth would welcome her.  It was not Erik to whom she must escape, but universal and joyous youth, in class-rooms, in studios, in offices, in meetings to protest against Things in General. . . .  But universal and joyous youth rather resembled Erik.

All week she thought of things she wished to say to him.  High, improving things.  She began to admit that she was lonely without him.  Then she was afraid.

It was at the Baptist church supper, a week after the picnic, that she saw him again.  She had gone with Kennicott and Aunt Bessie to the supper, which was spread on oilcloth-covered and trestle-supported tables in the church basement.  Erik was helping Myrtle Cass to fill coffee cups for the wait-resses.  The congregation had doffed their piety.  Children tumbled under the tables, and Deacon Pierson greeted the women with a rolling, “Where’s Brother Jones, sister, where’s Brother Jones?  Not going to be with us tonight?  Well, you tell Sister Perry to hand you a plate, and make ’em give you enough oyster pie!”