"Why couldn't we stay here? That is what I want to do--to keep out of the city with its horrible clatter of ambitions, to return to the soil, and live like the primitive peasant without ambition." The Wisconsin woman smiled sympathetically. She had grown strong and firm-fleshed these summer weeks, sucking vitality from the warm soil. "The land is all owned around here!" she laughed. "And they use herb doctors or homeopaths. No, we should starve in the midst of harvests. There is only one thing to do, to go back where we can earn a bit of bread." Sommers started to row, but put down the oars again. "Do _you_ want to go back?" "I never think about it. It is so arranged," she answered simply. "Perhaps it will not be always so." "Which means that we may be more fortunate than our neighbors?" "I don't know--why think? We have until Monday," and she leaned forward to touch his hand. Why think! That is what she had taught him. They had sloughed off Chicago at the first, and from the day they arrived at Perota they had sunk into a gentle, solitary routine. Sommers had been content to smoke his pipe, to ruminate on nothings, to be idle with no strenuous summoning of his will. There had been no perplexity, no revolt, no decision. Even the storm of their love subdued itself to a settled warmth, like that of the insistent summer sun. They had little enough to do with, but they were not aware of their poverty. Alves had had a long training in economy, and with the innate capability of the Wisconsin farmer's daughter, adjusted their little so neatly to their lives that they scarcely thought of unfulfilled wants. Now why, the man mused, must they break this? Why must they be forced back into a world that they disliked, and that had no place for them? If he were as capable as she, there would be no need. But society has discovered a clever way of binding each man to his bench! While he brooded, Alves watched the gentle hills, straw-colored with grain, and her eyes grew moist at the pleasant sight. She glanced at him and smiled--the comprehending smile of the mothers of men. "You would not want it always." They landed at the end of the lake; from there it was a short walk over the dusty country road to the village. The cross-roads hamlet with its saloons and post-office was still sleeping in midday lethargy. Alves pointed to the unpainted, stuffy-looking houses. "You would not like this." At the post-office they met a young fellow wearing a cassock, a strangely incongruous figure in the Wisconsin village. "Are you coming to vespers?" the young priest asked. His brown, heavy face did not accord with the clerical habit or with the thin clerical voice. "I think so--for the last time," Alves answered. "Guy Jones will be there. You remember Guy, Alves? He used to be quite sweet on you in the old days when your brother was at the seminary."