ed? 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.

"Chilly night, but I like this melancholy gray," he said.

"Yes."

They passed a moaning clump of trees and splashed along the wet road.
He tucked her hand into the side-pocket of his overcoat. She caught his
thumb and, sighing, held it exactly as Hugh held hers when they went
walking. She thought about Hugh. The current maid was in for the
evening, but was it safe to leave the baby with her? The thought was
distant and elusive.

Erik began to talk, slowly, revealingly. He made for her a picture of
his work in a large tailor shop in Minneapolis: the steam and heat, and
the drudgery; the men in darned vests and crumpled trousers, men who
"rushed growlers of beer" and were cynical about women, who laughed at
him and played jokes on him. "But I didn't mind, because I could keep
away from them outside. I used to go to the Art Institute and the Walker
Gallery, and tramp clear around Lake Harriet, or hike out to the Gates
house and imagine it was a chateau in Italy and I lived in it. I was a
marquis and colle