________________________________________________
_ It was not quite two days after the scene between Carrie and
Hurstwood in the Ogden Place parlour before he again put in his
appearance. He had been thinking almost uninterruptedly of her.
Her leniency had, in a way, inflamed his regard. He felt that he
must succeed with her, and that speedily.
The reason for his interest, not to say fascination, was deeper
than mere desire. It was a flowering out of feelings which had
been withering in dry and almost barren soil for many years. It
is probable that Carrie represented a better order of woman than
had ever attracted him before. He had had no love affair since
that which culminated in his marriage, and since then time and
the world had taught him how raw and erroneous was his original
judgment. Whenever he thought of it, he told himself that, if he
had it to do over again, he would never marry such a woman. At
the same time, his experience with women in general had lessened
his respect for the sex. He maintained a cynical attitude, well
grounded on numerous experiences. Such women as he had known
were of nearly one type, selfish, ignorant, flashy. The wives of
his friends were not inspiring to look upon. His own wife had
developed a cold, commonplace nature which to him was anything
but pleasing. What he knew of that under-world where grovel the
beat-men of society (and he knew a great deal) had hardened his
nature. He looked upon most women with suspicion--a single eye
to the utility of beauty and dress. He followed them with a
keen, suggestive glance. At the same time, he was not so dull
but that a good woman commanded his respect. Personally, he did
not attempt to analyse the marvel of a saintly woman. He would
take off his hat, and would silence the light-tongued and the
vicious in her presence--much as the Irish keeper of a Bowery
hall will humble himself before a Sister of Mercy, and pay toll
to charity with a willing and reverent hand. But he would not
think much upon the question of why he did so.
A man in his situation who comes, after a long round of worthless
or hardening experiences, upon a young, unsophisticated, innocent
soul, is apt either to hold aloof, out of a sense of his own
remoteness, or to draw near and become fascinated and elated by
his discovery. It is only by a roundabout process that such men
ever do draw near such a girl. They have no method, no
understanding of how to ingratiate themselves in youthful favour,
save when they find virtue in the toils. If, unfortunately, the
fly has got caught in the net, the spider can come forth and talk
business upon its own terms. So when maidenhood has wandered
into the moil of the city, when it is brought within the circle
of the "rounder" and the roue, even though it be at the outermost
rim, they can come forth and use their alluring arts.
Hurstwood had gone, at Drouet's invitation, to meet a new baggage
of fine clothes and pretty features. He entered, expecting to
indulge in an evening of lightsome frolic, and then lose track of
the newcomer forever. Instead he found a woman whose youth and
beauty attracted him. In the mild light of Carrie's eye was
nothing of the calculation of the mistress. In the diffident
manner was nothing of the art of the courtesan. He saw at once
that a mistake had been made, that some difficult conditions had
pushed this troubled creature into his presence, and his interest
was enlisted. Here sympathy sprang to the rescue, but it was not
unmixed with selfishness. He wanted to win Carrie because he
thought her fate mingled with his was better than if it were
united with Drouet's. He envied the drummer his conquest as he
had never envied any man in all the course of his experience.
Carrie was certainly better than this man, as she was superior,
mentally, to Drouet. She came fresh from the air of the village,
the light of the country still in her eye. Here was neither
guile nor rapacity. There were slight inherited traits of both
in her, but they were rudimentary. She was too full of wonder
and desire to be greedy. She still looked about her upon the
great maze of the city without understanding. Hurstwood felt the
bloom and the youth. He picked her as he would the fresh fruit
of a tree. He felt as fresh in her presence as one who is taken
out of the flash of summer to the first cool breath of spring.
Carrie, left alone since the scene in question, and having no one
with whom to counsel, had at first wandered from one strange
mental conclusion to another, until at last, tired out, she gave
it up. She owed something to Drouet, she thought. It did not
seem more than yesterday that he had aided her when she was
worried and distressed. She had the kindliest feelings for him
in every way. She gave him credit for his good looks, his
generous feelings, and even, in fact, failed to recollect his
egotism when he was absent; but she could not feel any binding
influence keeping her for him as against all others. In fact,
such a thought had never had any grounding, even in Drouet's
desires.
The truth is, that this goodly drummer carried the doom of all
enduring relationships in his own lightsome manner and unstable
fancy. He went merrily on, assured that he was alluring all,
that affection followed tenderly in his wake, that things would
endure unchangingly for his pleasure. When he missed some old
face, or found some door finally shut to him, it did not grieve
him deeply. He was too young, too successful. He would remain
thus young in spirit until he was dead.
As for Hurstwood, he was alive with thoughts and feelings
concerning Carrie. He had no definite plans regarding her, but
he was determined to make her confess an affection for him. He
thought he saw in her drooping eye, her unstable glance, her
wavering manner, the symptoms of a budding passion. He wanted to
stand near her and make her lay her hand in his--he wanted to
find out what her next step would be--what the next sign of
feeling for him would be. Such anxiety and enthusiasm had not
affected him for years. He was a youth again in feeling--a
cavalier in action.
In his position opportunity for taking his evenings out was
excellent. He was a most faithful worker in general, and a man
who commanded the confidence of his employers in so far as the
distribution of his time was concerned. He could take such hours
off as he chose, for it was well known that he fulfilled his
managerial duties successfully, whatever time he might take. His
grace, tact, and ornate appearance gave the place an air which
was most essential, while at the same time his long experience
made him a most excellent judge of its stock necessities.
Bartenders and assistants might come and go, singly or in groups,
but, so long as he was present, the host of old-time customers
would barely notice the change. He gave the place the atmosphere
to which they were used. Consequently, he arranged his hours
very much to suit himself, taking now an afternoon, now an
evening, but invariably returning between eleven and twelve to
witness the last hour or two of the day's business and look after
the closing details.
"You see that things are safe and all the employees are out when
you go home, George," Moy had once remarked to him, and he never
once, in all the period of his long service, neglected to do
this. Neither of the owners had for years been in the resort
after five in the afternoon, and yet their manager as faithfully
fulfilled this request as if they had been there regularly to
observe.
On this Friday afternoon, scarcely two days after his previous
visit, he made up his mind to see Carrie. He could not stay away
longer.
"Evans," he said, addressing the head barkeeper, "if any one
calls, I will be back between four and five."
He hurried to Madison Street and boarded a horse-car, which
carried him to Ogden Place in half an hour.
Carrie had thought of going for a walk, and had put on a light
grey woollen dress with a jaunty double-breasted jacket. She had
out her hat and gloves, and was fastening a white lace tie about
her throat when the housemaid brought up the information that Mr.
Hurstwood wished to see her.
She started slightly at the announcement, but told the girl to
say that she would come down in a moment, and proceeded to hasten
her dressing.
Carrie could not have told herself at this moment whether she was
glad or sorry that the impressive manager was awaiting her
presence. She was slightly flurried and tingling in the cheeks,
but it was more nervousness than either fear or favour. She did
not try to conjecture what the drift of the conversation would
be. She only felt that she must be careful, and that Hurstwood
had an indefinable fascination for her. Then she gave her tie
its last touch with her fingers and went below.
The deep-feeling manager was himself a little strained in the
nerves by the thorough consciousness of his mission. He felt
that he must make a strong play on this occasion, but now that
the hour was come, and he heard Carrie's feet upon the stair, his
nerve failed him. He sank a little in determination, for he was
not so sure, after all, what her opinion might be.
When she entered the room, however, her appearance gave him
courage. She looked simple and charming enough to strengthen the
daring of any lover. Her apparent nervousness dispelled his own.
"How are you?" he said, easily. "I could not resist the
temptation to come out this afternoon, it was so pleasant."
"Yes," said Carrie, halting before him, "I was just preparing to
go for a walk myself."
"Oh, were you?" he said. "Supposing, then, you get your hat and
we both go?"
They crossed the park and went west along Washington Boulevard,
beautiful with its broad macadamised road, and large frame houses
set back from the sidewalks. It was a street where many of the
more prosperous residents of the West Side lived, and Hurstwood
could not help feeling nervous over the publicity of it. They
had gone but a few blocks when a livery stable sign in one of the
side streets solved the difficulty for him. He would take her to
drive along the new Boulevard.
The Boulevard at that time was little more than a country road.
The part he intended showing her was much farther out on this
same West Side, where there was scarcely a house. It connected
Douglas Park with Washington or South Park, and was nothing more
than a neatly MADE road, running due south for some five miles
over an open, grassy prairie, and then due east over the same
kind of prairie for the same distance. There was not a house to
be encountered anywhere along the larger part of the route, and
any conversation would be pleasantly free of interruption.
At the stable he picked a gentle horse, and they were soon out of
range of either public observation or hearing.
"Can you drive?" he said, after a time.
"I never tried," said Carrie.
He put the reins in her hand, and folded his arms.
"You see there's nothing to it much," he said, smilingly.
"Not when you have a gentle horse," said Carrie.
"You can handle a horse as well as any one, after a little
practice," he added, encouragingly.
He had been looking for some time for a break in the conversation
when he could give it a serious turn. Once or twice he had held
his peace, hoping that in silence her thoughts would take the
colour of his own, but she had lightly continued the subject.
Presently, however, his silence controlled the situation. The
drift of his thoughts began to tell. He gazed fixedly at nothing
in particular, as if he were thinking of something which
concerned her not at all. His thoughts, however, spoke for
themselves. She was very much aware that a climax was pending.
"Do you know," he said, "I have spent the happiest evenings in
years since I have known you?"
"Have you?" she said, with assumed airiness, but still excited by
the conviction which the tone of his voice carried.
"I was going to tell you the other evening," he added, "but
somehow the opportunity slipped away."
Carrie was listening without attempting to reply. She could
think of nothing worth while to say. Despite all the ideas
concerning right which had troubled her vaguely since she had
last seen him, she was now influenced again strongly in his
favour.
"I came out here to-day," he went on, solemnly, "to tell you just
how I feel--to see if you wouldn't listen to me."
Hurstwood was something of a romanticist after his kind. He was
capable of strong feelings--often poetic ones--and under a stress
of desire, such as the present, he waxed eloquent. That is, his
feelings and his voice were coloured with that seeming repression
and pathos which is the essence of eloquence.
"You know," he said, putting his hand on her arm, and keeping a
strange silence while he formulated words, "that I love you?"
Carrie did not stir at the words. She was bound up completely in
the man's atmosphere. He would have churchlike silence in order
to express his feelings, and she kept it. She did not move her
eyes from the flat, open scene before her. Hurstwood waited for
a few moments, and then repeated the words.
"You must not say that," she said, weakly.
Her words were not convincing at all. They were the result of a
feeble thought that something ought to be said. He paid no
attention to them whatever.
"Carrie," he said, using her first name with sympathetic
familiarity, "I want you to love me. You don't know how much I
need some one to waste a little affection on me. I am
practically alone. There is nothing in my life that is pleasant
or delightful. It's all work and worry with people who are
nothing to me."
As he said this, Hurstwood really imagined that his state was
pitiful. He had the ability to get off at a distance and view
himself objectively--of seeing what he wanted to see in the
things which made up his existence. Now, as he spoke, his voice
trembled with that peculiar vibration which is the result of
tensity. It went ringing home to his companion's heart.
"Why, I should think," she said, turning upon him large eyes
which were full of sympathy and feeling, "that you would be very
happy. You know so much of the world."
"That is it," he said, his voice dropping to a soft minor, "I
know too much of the world."
It was an important thing to her to hear one so well-positioned
and powerful speaking in this manner. She could not help feeling
the strangeness of her situation. How was it that, in so little
a while, the narrow life of the country had fallen from her as a
garment, and the city, with all its mystery, taken its place?
Here was this greatest mystery, the man of money and affairs
sitting beside her, appealing to her. Behold, he had ease and
comfort, his strength was great, his position high, his clothing
rich, and yet he was appealing to her. She could formulate no
thought which would be just and right. She troubled herself no
more upon the matter. She only basked in the warmth of his
feeling, which was as a grateful blaze to one who is cold.
Hurstwood glowed with his own intensity, and the heat of his
passion was already melting the wax of his companion's scruples.
"You think," he said, "I am happy; that I ought not to complain?
If you were to meet all day with people who care absolutely
nothing about you, if you went day after day to a place where
there was nothing but show and indifference, if there was not one
person in all those you knew to whom you could appeal for
sympathy or talk to with pleasure, perhaps you would be unhappy
too.
He was striking a chord now which found sympathetic response in
her own situation. She knew what it was to meet with people who
were indifferent, to walk alone amid so many who cared absolutely
nothing about you. Had not she? Was not she at this very moment
quite alone? Who was there among all whom she knew to whom she
could appeal for sympathy? Not one. She was left to herself to
brood and wonder.
"I could be content," went on Hurstwood, "if I had you to love
me. If I had you to go to; you for a companion. As it is, I
simply move about from place to place without any satisfaction.
Time hangs heavily on my hands. Before you came I did nothing
but idle and drift into anything that offered itself. Since you
came--well, I've had you to think about."
The old illusion that here was some one who needed her aid began
to grow in Carrie's mind. She truly pitied this sad, lonely
figure. To think that all his fine state should be so barren for
want of her; that he needed to make such an appeal when she
herself was lonely and without anchor. Surely, this was too bad.
"I am not very bad," he said, apologetically, as if he owed it to
her to explain on this score. "You think, probably, that I roam
around, and get into all sorts of evil? I have been rather
reckless, but I could easily come out of that. I need you to
draw me back, if my life ever amounts to anything."
Carrie looked at him with the tenderness which virtue ever feels
in its hope of reclaiming vice. How could such a man need
reclaiming? His errors, what were they, that she could correct?
Small they must be, where all was so fine. At worst, they were
gilded affairs, and with what leniency are gilded errors viewed.
He put himself in such a lonely light that she was deeply moved.
"Is it that way?" she mused.
He slipped his arm about her waist, and she could not find the
heart to draw away. With his free hand he seized upon her
fingers. A breath of soft spring wind went bounding over the
road, rolling some brown twigs of the previous autumn before it.
The horse paced leisurely on, unguided.
"Tell me," he said, softly, "that you love me."
Her eyes fell consciously.
"Own to it, dear," he said, feelingly; "you do, don't you?"
She made no answer, but he felt his victory.
"Tell me," he said, richly, drawing her so close that their lips
were near together. He pressed her hand warmly, and then
released it to touch her cheek.
"You do?" he said, pressing his lips to her own.
For answer, her lips replied.
"Now," he said, joyously, his fine eyes ablaze, "you're my own
girl, aren't you?"
By way of further conclusion, her head lay softly upon his
shoulder. _
Read next: CHAPTER XIV WITH EYES AND NOT SEEING--ONE INFLUENCE WANES
Read previous: CHAPTER XII OF THE LAMPS OF THE MANSIONS--THE AMBASSADOR PLEA
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