poetry. That was it, for a beginning! She conceived so clear a picture
of their bending over large fair pages by the fire (in a non-existent
fireplace) that the spectral presences slipped away. Doors no longer
moved; curtains were not creeping shadows but lovely dark masses in the
dusk; and when Bea came home Carol was singing at the piano which she
had not touched for many days.

Their supper was the feast of two girls. Carol was in the dining-room,
in a frock of black satin edged with gold, and Bea, in blue gingham and
an apron, dined in the kitchen; but the door was open between, and
Carol was inquiring, "Did you see any ducks in Dahl's window?" and Bea
chanting, "No, ma'am. Say, ve have a svell time, dis afternoon. Tina she
have coffee and knackebrod, and her fella vos dere, and ve yoost laughed
and laughed, and her fella say he vos president and he going to make
me queen of Finland, and Ay stick a fedder in may hair and say Ay bane
going to go to var--oh, ve vos so foolish and ve LAUGH so!"

When Carol sat at the piano again she did not think of her husband but
of the book-drugged hermit, Guy Pollock. She wished that Pollock would
come calling.

"If a girl really kissed him, he'd creep out of his den and be human. If
Will were as literate as Guy, or Guy were as executive as Will, I think
I could endure even Gopher Prairie. It's so hard to mother Will. I
could be maternal with Guy. Is that what I want, something to mother, a
man or a baby or a town? I WILL have a baby. Some day. But to have him
isolated here all his receptive years----

"And so to bed.

"Have I found my real level in Bea and kitchen-gossip?

"Oh, I do miss you, Will. But it will be pleasant to turn over in bed as
often as I want to, without worrying about waking you up.

"Am I really this settled thing called a 'married woman'? I feel
so unmarried tonight. So free. To think that there was once a Mrs.
Kennicott who let herself worry over a town called Gopher Prairie when
there was a whole world outside it!

"Of course Will is going to like poetry."

III

A black February day. Clouds hewn of ponderous timber weighing down
on the earth; an irresolute dropping of snow specks upon the trampled
wastes. Gloom but no veiling of angularity. The lines of roofs and
sidewalks sharp and inescapable.

The second day of Kennicott's absence.

She fled from the creepy house for a walk. It was thirty below zero;
too cold to exhilarate her. In th