Sister Carrie: A Novel
pretending to forget that her fingers were still retained by his. She
soon withdrew them, however, and retreated a few feet to rest against
the window-sill.
“I didn’t see you for a long time,” she said, coquettishly, repulsing
one of his exuberant approaches. “You must have been away.”
“I was,” said Drouet.
“Do you travel far?”
“Pretty far—yes.”
“Do you like it?”
“Oh, not very well. You get tired of it after a while.”
“I wish I could travel,” said the girl, gazing idly out of the window.
“What has become of your friend, Mr. Hurstwood?” she suddenly asked,
bethinking herself of the manager, who, from her own observation,
seemed to contain promising material.
“He’s here in town. What makes you ask about him?”
“Oh, nothing, only he hasn’t been here since you got back.”
“How did you come to know him?”
“Didn’t I take up his name a dozen times in the last month?”
“Get out,” said the drummer, lightly. “He hasn’t called more than half
a dozen times since we’ve been here.”
“He hasn’t, eh?” said the girl, smiling. “That’s all you know about
it.”
Drouet took on a slightly more serious tone. He was uncertain as to
whether she was joking or not.
“Tease,” he said, “what makes you smile that way?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Have you seen him recently?”
“Not since you came back,” she laughed.
“Before?”
“Certainly.”
“How often?”
“Why, nearly every day.”
She was a mischievous newsmonger, and was keenly wondering what the
effect of her words would be.
“Who did he come to see?” asked the drummer, incredulously.
“Mrs. Drouet.”
He looked rather foolish at this answer, and then attempted to correct
himself so as not to appear a dupe.
“Well,” he said, “what of it?”
“Nothing,” replied the girl, her head cocked coquettishly on one side.
“He’s an old friend,” he went on, getting deeper into the mire.
He would have gone on further with his little flirtation, but the taste
for it was temporarily removed. He was quite relieved when the girl’s
named was called from below.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, moving away from him airily.
“I’ll see you later,” he said, with a pretence of disturbance at being
interrupted.
When she was gone, he gave freer play to his feelings. His face, never
easily controlled by him, expressed all the perplexity and disturbance
which he felt. Could it be that Carrie had received so many visits and
yet said nothing about them? Was Hurstwood lying? What did the
chambermaid mean by it, anyway? He had thought there was something odd
about Carrie’s manner at the time. Why did she look so disturbed when
he had asked her how many times Hurstwood had called? By George! He
remembered now. There was something strange about the whole thing.
He sat down in a rocking-chair to think the better, drawing up one leg
on his knee and frowning mightily. His mind ran on at a great rate.
And yet Carrie hadn’t acted out of the ordinary. It couldn’t be, by
George, that she was deceiving him. She hadn’t acted that way. Why,
even last night she had been as friendly toward him as could be, and
Hurstwood too. Look how they acted! He could hardly believe they would
try to deceive him.
His thoughts burst into words.
“She did act sort of funny at times. Here she had dressed, and gone out
this morning and never said a word.”
He scratched his head and prepared to go down town. He was still
frowning. As he came into the hall he encountered the girl, who was now
looking after another chamber. She had on a white dusting cap, beneath
which her chubby face shone good-naturedly. Drouet almost forgot his
worry in the fact that she was smiling on him. He put his hand
familiarly on her shoulder, as if only to greet her in passing.
“Got over being mad?” she said, still mischievously inclined.
“I’m not mad,” he answered.
“I thought you were,” she said, smiling.
“Quit your fooling about that,” he said, in an offhand way. “Were you
serious?”
“Certainly,” she answered. Then, with an air of one who did not
intentionally mean to create trouble, “He came lots of times. I thought
you knew.”
The game of deception was up with Drouet. He did not try to simulate
indifference further.
“Did he spend the evenings here?” he asked.
“Sometimes. Sometimes they went out.”
“In the evening?”
“Yes. You mustn’t look so mad, though.”
“I’m not,” he said. “Did any one else see him?”
“Of course,” said the girl, as if, after all, it were nothing in
particular.
“How long ago was this?”
“Just before you came back.”
The drummer pinched his lip nervously.
“Don’t say anything, will you?” he asked, giving the girl’s arm a
gentle squeeze.
“Certainly not,” she returned. “I wouldn’t worry over it.”
“All right,” he said, passing on, seriously brooding for once, and yet
not wholly unconscious of the fact that he was making a most excellent
impression upon the chambermaid.
“I’ll see her about that,” he said to himself, passionately, feeling
that he had been unduly wronged. “I’ll find out, b’George, whether
she’ll act that way or not.”
Chapter XXI. THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT: THE FLESH IN PURSUIT
When Carrie came Hurstwood had been waiting many minutes. His blood was
warm; his nerves wrought up. He was anxious to see the woman who had
stirred him so profoundly the night before.
“Here you are,” he said, repressedly, feeling a spring in his limbs and
an elation which was tragic in itself.
“Yes,” said Carrie.
They walked on as if bound for some objective point, while Hurstwood
drank in the radiance of her presence. The rustle of her pretty skirt
was like music to him.
“Are you satisfied?” he asked, thinking of how well she did the night
before.
“Are you?”
He tightened his fingers as he saw the smile she gave him.
“It was wonderful.”
Carrie laughed ecstatically.
“That was one of the best things I’ve seen in a long time,” he added.
He was dwelling on her attractiveness as he had felt it the evening
before, and mingling it with the feeling her presence inspired now.
Carrie was dwelling in the atmosphere which this man created for her.
Already she was enlivened and suffused with a glow. She felt his
drawing toward her in every sound of his voice.
“Those were such nice flowers you sent me,” she said, after a moment or
two. “They were beautiful.”
“Glad you liked them,” he answered, simply.
He was thinking all the time that the subject of his desire was being
delayed. He was anxious to turn the talk to his own feelings. All was
ripe for it. His Carrie was beside him. He wanted to plunge in and
expostulate with her, and yet he found himself fishing for words and
feeling for a way.
“You got home all right,” he said, gloomily, of a sudden, his tune
modifying itself to one of self-commiseration.
“Yes,” said Carrie, easily.
He looked at her steadily for a moment, slowing his pace and fixing her
with his eye.
She felt the flood of feeling.
“How about me?” he asked.
This confused Carrie considerably, for she realised the flood-gates
were open. She didn’t know exactly what to answer. “I don’t know,” she
answered.
He took his lower lip between his teeth for a moment, and then let it
go. He stopped by the walk side and kicked the grass with his toe. He
searched her face with a tender, appealing glance.
“Won’t you come away from him?” he asked, intensely.
“I don’t know,” returned Carrie, still illogically drifting and finding
nothing at which to catch.
As a matter of fact, she was in a most hopeless quandary. Here was a
man whom she thoroughly liked, who exercised an influence over her,
sufficient almost to delude her into the belief that she was possessed
of a lively passion for him. She was still the victim of his keen eyes,
his suave manners, his fine clothes. She looked and saw before her a
man who was most gracious and sympathetic, who leaned toward her with a
feeling that was a delight to observe. She could not resist the glow of
his temperament, the light of his eye. She could hardly keep from
feeling what he felt.
And yet she was not without thoughts which were disturbing. What did he
know? What had Drouet told him? Was she a wife in his eyes, or what?
Would he marry her? Even while he talked, and she softened, and her
eyes were lighted with a tender glow, she was asking herself if Drouet
had told him they were not married. There was never anything at all
convincing about what Drouet said.
And yet she was not grieved at Hurstwood’s love. No strain of
bitterness was in it for her, whatever he knew. He was evidently
sincere. His passion was real and warm. There was power in what he
said. What should she do? She went on thinking this, answering vaguely,
languishing affectionately, and altogether drifting, until she was on a
borderless sea of speculation.
“Why don’t you come away?” he said, tenderly. “I will arrange for you
whatever—”
“Oh, don’t,” said Carrie.
“Don’t what?” he asked. “What do you mean?”
There was a look of confusion and pain in her face. She was wondering
why that miserable thought must be brought in. She was struck as by a
blade with the miserable provision which was outside the pale of
marriage.
He himself realized that it was a wretched thing to have dragged in. He
wanted to weigh the effects of it, and yet he could not see. He went
beating on, flushed by her presence, clearly awakened, intensely
enlisted in his plan.
“Won’t you come?” he said, beginning over and with a more reverent
feeling. “You know I can’t do without you—you know it—it can’t go on
this way—can it?”
“I know,” said Carrie.
“I wouldn’t ask if I—I wouldn’t argue with you if I could help it. Look
at me, Carrie. Put yourself in my place. You don’t want to stay away
from me, do you?”
She shook her head as if in deep thought. “Then why not settle the
whole thing, once and for all?”
“I don’t know,” said Carrie.
“Don’t know! Ah, Carrie, what makes you say that? Don’t torment me. Be
serious.”
“I am,” said Carrie, softly.
“You can’t be, dearest, and say that. Not when you know how I love you.
Look at last night.”
His manner as he said this was the most quiet imaginable. His face and
body retained utter composure. Only his eyes moved, and they flashed a
subtle, dissolving fire. In them the whole intensity of the man’s
nature was distilling itself.
Carrie made no answer.
“How can you act this way, dearest?” he inquired, after a time. “You
love me, don’t you?”
He turned on her such a storm of feeling that she was overwhelmed. For
the moment all doubts were cleared away.
“Yes,” she answered, frankly and tenderly.
“Well, then you’ll come, won’t you—come to-night?”
Carrie shook her head in spite of her distress.
“I can’t wait any longer,” urged Hurstwood. “If that is too soon, come
Saturday.”
“When will we be married?” she asked, diffidently, forgetting in her
difficult situation that she had hoped he took her to be Drouet’s wife.
The manager started, hit as he was by a problem which was more
difficult than hers. He gave no sign of the thoughts that flashed like
messages to his mind.
“Any time you say,” he said, with ease, refusing to discolour his
present delight with this miserable problem.
“Saturday?” asked Carrie.
He nodded his head.
“Well, if you will marry me then,” she said, “I’ll go.”
The manager looked at his lovely prize, so beautiful, so winsome, so
difficult to be won, and made strange resolutions. His passion had
gotten to that stage now where it was no longer coloured with reason.
He did not trouble over little barriers of this sort in the face of so
much loveliness. He would accept the situation with all its
difficulties; he would not try to answer the objections which cold
truth thrust upon him. He would promise anything, everything, and trust