Main Street by Sinclair Lewis

People covertly stared at her on the street. Aunt Bessie tried to catechize her about Erik's disappearance, and it was Kennicott who silenced the woman with a savage, "Say, are you hinting that Carrie had anything to do with that fellow's beating it? Then let me tell you, and you can go right out and tell the whole bloomin' town, that Carrie and I took Val -- took Erik riding, and he asked me about getting a better job in Minneapolis, and I advised him to go to it. Getting much sugar in at the store now?"

Guy Pollock crossed the street to be pleasant apropos of California and new novels. Vida Sherwin dragged her to the Jolly Seventeen. There, with everyone rigidly listening, Maud Dyer shot at Carol, "I hear Erik has left town."