CHAPTER XXXIII

For a month which was one suspended moment of doubt she saw Erik only casually, at an Eastern Star dance, at the shop, where, in the presence of Nat Hicks, they conferred with immense particularity on the significance of having one or two buttons on the cuff of Kennicott’s New Suit.  For the benefit of beholders they were respectably vacuous.

Thus barred from him, depressed in the thought of Fern, Carol was suddenly and for the first time convinced that she loved Erik.

She told herself a thousand inspiriting things which he would say if he had the opportunity; for them she admired him, loved him.  But she was afraid to summon him.  He understood, he did not come.  She forgot her every doubt of him, and her discomfort in his background.  Each day it seemed impossible to get through the desolation of not seeing him.  Each morning, each afternoon, each evening was a compartment divided from all other units of time, distinguished by a sudden “Oh!  I want to see Erik!” which was as devastating as though she had never said it before.

There were wretched periods when she could not picture him.  Usually he stood out in her mind in some little moment—­glancing up from his preposterous pressing-iron, or running on the beach with Dave Dyer.  But sometimes he had vanished; he was only an opinion.  She worried then about his appearance:  Weren’t his wrists too large and red?  Wasn’t his nose a snub, like so many Scandinavians?  Was he at all the graceful thing she had fancied?  When she encountered him on the street she was as much reassuring herself as rejoicing in his presence.  More disturbing than being unable to visualize him was the darting remembrance of some intimate aspect:  his face as they had walked to the boat together at the picnic; the ruddy light on his temples, neck-cords, flat cheeks.

On a November evening when Kennicott was in the country she answered the bell and was confused to find Erik at the door, stooped, imploring, his hands in the pockets of his topcoat.  As though he had been rehearsing his speech he instantly besought: 

“Saw your husband driving away.  I’ve got to see you.  I can’t stand it.  Come for a walk.  I know!  People might see us.  But they won’t if we hike into the country.  I’ll wait for you by the elevator.  Take as long as you want to—­oh, come quick!”

“In a few minutes,” she promised.

She murmured, “I’ll just talk to him for a quarter of an hour and come home.”  She put an her tweed coat and rubber overshoes, considering how honest and hopeless are rubbers, how clearly their chaperonage proved that she wasn’t going to a lovers’ tryst.

She found him in the shadow of the grain-elevator, sulkily kicking at a rail of the side-track.  As she came toward him she fancied that his whole body expanded.  But he said nothing, nor she; he patted her sleeve, she returned the pat, and they crossed the railroad tracks, found a road, clumped toward open country.