Sister Carrie: A Novel
hardly knew how to answer this, and yet her wrath was not placated. She
felt that the drummer had injured her irreparably.
“Did I ask you to?” she returned.
“Well, I did it,” said Drouet, “and you took it.”
“You talk as though I had persuaded you,” answered Carrie. “You stand
there and throw up what you’ve done. I don’t want your old things. I’ll
not have them. You take them to-night and do what you please with them.
I’ll not stay here another minute.”
“That’s nice!” he answered, becoming angered now at the sense of his
own approaching loss. “Use everything and abuse me and then walk off.
That’s just like a woman. I take you when you haven’t got anything, and
then when some one else comes along, why I’m no good. I always thought
it’d come out that way.”
He felt really hurt as he thought of his treatment, and looked as if he
saw no way of obtaining justice.
“It’s not so,” said Carrie, “and I’m not going with anybody else. You
have been as miserable and inconsiderate as you can be. I hate you, I
tell you, and I wouldn’t live with you another minute. You’re a big,
insulting”—here she hesitated and used no word at all—“or you wouldn’t
talk that way.”
She had secured her hat and jacket and slipped the latter on over her
little evening dress. Some wisps of wavy hair had loosened from the
bands at the side of her head and were straggling over her hot, red
cheeks. She was angry, mortified, grief-stricken. Her large eyes were
full of the anguish of tears, but her lids were not yet wet. She was
distracted and uncertain, deciding and doing things without an aim or
conclusion, and she had not the slightest conception of how the whole
difficulty would end.
“Well, that’s a fine finish,” said Drouet. “Pack up and pull out, eh?
You take the cake. I bet you were knocking around with Hurstwood or you
wouldn’t act like that. I don’t want the old rooms. You needn’t pull
out for me. You can have them for all I care, but b’George, you haven’t
done me right.”
“I’ll not live with you,” said Carrie. “I don’t want to live with you.
You’ve done nothing but brag around ever since you’ve been here.”
“Aw, I haven’t anything of the kind,” he answered.
Carrie walked over to the door.
“Where are you going?” he said, stepping over and heading her off.
“Let me out,” she said.
“Where are you going?” he repeated.
He was, above all, sympathetic, and the sight of Carrie wandering out,
he knew not where, affected him, despite his grievance.
Carrie merely pulled at the door.
The strain of the situation was too much for her, however. She made one
more vain effort and then burst into tears.
“Now, be reasonable, Cad,” said Drouet gently. “What do you want to
rush out for this way? You haven’t any place to go. Why not stay here
now and be quiet? I’ll not bother you. I don’t want to stay here any
longer.”
Carrie had gone sobbing from the door to the window. She was so
overcome she could not speak.
“Be reasonable now,” he said. “I don’t want to hold you. You can go if
you want to, but why don’t you think it over? Lord knows, I don’t want
to stop you.”
He received no answer. Carrie was quieting, however, under the
influence of his plea.
“You stay here now, and I’ll go,” he added at last.
Carrie listened to this with mingled feelings. Her mind was shaken
loose from the little mooring of logic that it had. She was stirred by
this thought, angered by that—her own injustice, Hurstwood’s, Drouet’s,
their respective qualities of kindness and favour, the threat of the
world outside, in which she had failed once before, the impossibility
of this state inside, where the chambers were no longer justly hers,
the effect of the argument upon her nerves, all combined to make her a
mass of jangling fibres—an anchorless, storm-beaten little craft which
could do absolutely nothing but drift.
“Say,” said Drouet, coming over to her after a few moments, with a new
idea, and putting his hand upon her.
“Don’t!” said Carrie, drawing away, but not removing her handkerchief
from her eyes. “Never mind about this quarrel now. Let it go. You stay
here until the month’s out, anyhow, and then you can tell better what
you want to do. Eh?”
Carrie made no answer.
“You’d better do that,” he said. “There’s no use your packing up now.
You can’t go anywhere.”
Still he got nothing for his words.
“If you’ll do that, we’ll call it off for the present and I’ll get
out.”
Carrie lowered her handkerchief slightly and looked out of the window.
“Will you do that?” he asked.
Still no answer.
“Will you?” he repeated.
She only looked vaguely into the street.
“Aw! come on,” he said, “tell me. Will you?”
“I don’t know,” said Carrie softly, forced to answer.
“Promise me you’ll do that,” he said, “and we’ll quit talking about it.
It’ll be the best thing for you.”
Carrie heard him, but she could not bring herself to answer reasonably.
She felt that the man was gentle, and that his interest in her had not
abated, and it made her suffer a pang of regret. She was in a most
helpless plight.
As for Drouet, his attitude had been that of the jealous lover. Now his
feelings were a mixture of anger at deception, sorrow at losing Carrie,
misery at being defeated. He wanted his rights in some way or other,
and yet his rights included the retaining of Carrie, the making her
feel her error.
“Will you?” he urged.
“Well, I’ll see,” said Carrie.
This left the matter as open as before, but it was something. It looked
as if the quarrel would blow over, if they could only get some way of
talking to one another. Carrie was ashamed, and Drouet aggrieved. He
pretended to take up the task of packing some things in a valise.
Now, as Carrie watched him out of the corner of her eye, certain sound
thoughts came into her head. He had erred, true, but what had she done?
He was kindly and good-natured for all his egotism. Throughout this
argument he had said nothing very harsh. On the other hand, there was
Hurstwood—a greater deceiver than he. He had pretended all this
affection, all this passion, and he was lying to her all the while. Oh,
the perfidy of men! And she had loved him. There could be nothing more
in that quarter. She would see Hurstwood no more. She would write him
and let him know what she thought. Thereupon what would she do? Here
were these rooms. Here was Drouet, pleading for her to remain.
Evidently things could go on here somewhat as before, if all were
arranged. It would be better than the street, without a place to lay
her head.
All this she thought of as Drouet rummaged the drawers for collars and
laboured long and painstakingly at finding a shirt-stud. He was in no
hurry to rush this matter. He felt an attraction to Carrie which would
not down. He could not think that the thing would end by his walking
out of the room. There must be some way round, some way to make her own
up that he was right and she was wrong—to patch up a peace and shut out
Hurstwood for ever. Mercy, how he turned at the man’s shameless
duplicity.
“Do you think,” he said, after a few moments’ silence, “that you’ll try
and get on the stage?”
He was wondering what she was intending.
“I don’t know what I’ll do yet,” said Carrie.
“If you do, maybe I can help you. I’ve got a lot of friends in that
line.”
She made no answer to this.
“Don’t go and try to knock around now without any money. Let me help
you,” he said. “It’s no easy thing to go on your own hook here.”
Carrie only rocked back and forth in her chair.
“I don’t want you to go up against a hard game that way.”
He bestirred himself about some other details and Carrie rocked on.
“Why don’t you tell me all about this thing,” he said, after a time,
“and let’s call it off? You don’t really care for Hurstwood, do you?”
“Why do you want to start on that again?” said Carrie. “You were to
blame.”
“No, I wasn’t,” he answered.
“Yes, you were, too,” said Carrie. “You shouldn’t have ever told me
such a story as that.”
“But you didn’t have much to do with him, did you?” went on Drouet,
anxious for his own peace of mind to get some direct denial from her.
“I won’t talk about it,” said Carrie, pained at the quizzical turn the
peace arrangement had taken.
“What’s the use of acting like that now, Cad?” insisted the drummer,
stopping in his work and putting up a hand expressively. “You might let
me know where I stand, at least.”
“I won’t,” said Carrie, feeling no refuge but in anger. “Whatever has
happened is your own fault.”
“Then you do care for him?” said Drouet, stopping completely and
experiencing a rush of feeling.
“Oh, stop!” said Carrie.
“Well, I’ll not be made a fool of,” exclaimed Drouet. “You may trifle
around with him if you want to, but you can’t lead me. You can tell me
or not, just as you want to, but I won’t fool any longer!”
He shoved the last few remaining things he had laid out into his valise
and snapped it with a vengeance. Then he grabbed his coat, which he had
laid off to work, picked up his gloves, and started out.
“You can go to the deuce as far as I am concerned,” he said, as he
reached the door. “I’m no sucker,” and with that he opened it with a
jerk and closed it equally vigorously.
Carrie listened at her window view, more astonished than anything else
at this sudden rise of passion in the drummer. She could hardly believe
her senses—so good-natured and tractable had he invariably been. It was
not for her to see the wellspring of human passion. A real flame of
love is a subtle thing. It burns as a will-o’-the-wisp, dancing onward
to fairylands of delight. It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is
the quality upon which it feeds.
Chapter XXIV. ASHES OF TINDER: A FACE AT THE WINDOW
That night Hurstwood remained down town entirely, going to the Palmer
House for a bed after his work was through. He was in a fevered state
of mind, owing to the blight his wife’s action threatened to cast upon
his entire future. While he was not sure how much significance might be
attached to the threat she had made, he was sure that her attitude, if
long continued, would cause him no end of trouble. She was determined,
and had worsted him in a very important contest. How would it be from
now on? He walked the floor of his little office, and later that of his
room, putting one thing and another together to no avail.
Mrs. Hurstwood, on the contrary, had decided not to lose her advantage
by inaction. Now that she had practically cowed him, she would follow
up her work with demands, the acknowledgment of which would make her
word _law_ in the future. He would have to pay her the money which she
would now regularly demand or there would be trouble. It did not matter
what he did. She really did not care whether he came home any more or
not. The household would move along much more pleasantly without him,
and she could do as she wished without consulting any one. Now she
proposed to consult a lawyer and hire a detective. She would find out
at once just what advantages she could gain.
Hurstwood walked the floor, mentally arranging the chief points of his
situation. “She has that property in her name,” he kept saying to
himself. “What a fool trick that was. Curse it! What a fool move that
was.”
He also thought of his managerial position. “If she raises a row now
I’ll lose this thing. They won’t have me around if my name gets in the
papers. My friends, too!” He grew more angry as he thought of the talk
any action on her part would create. How would the papers talk about
it? Every man he knew would be wondering. He would have to explain and
deny and make a general mark of himself. Then Moy would come and confer
with him and there would be the devil to pay.
Many little wrinkles gathered between his eyes as he contemplated this,