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Sister Carrie: A Novel

by Theodore Dreiser · English · Gutenberg #233 · 898,421 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Sister Carrie: A Novel

Author: Theodore Dreiser


        
Release date: March 1, 1995 [eBook #233]
                Most recently updated: October 9, 2024

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/233

Credits: John Hamm and David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SISTER CARRIE: A NOVEL ***

cover




Sister Carrie

by Theodore Dreiser




Contents

 Chapter I. THE MAGNET ATTRACTING: A WAIF AMID FORCES
 Chapter II. WHAT POVERTY THREATENED: OF GRANITE AND BRASS
 Chapter III. WEE QUESTION OF FORTUNE: FOUR-FIFTY A WEEK
 Chapter IV. THE SPENDINGS OF FANCY: FACTS ANSWER WITH SNEERS
 Chapter V. A GLITTERING NIGHT FLOWER: THE USE OF A NAME
 Chapter VI. THE MACHINE AND THE MAIDEN: A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY
 Chapter VII. THE LURE OF THE MATERIAL: BEAUTY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF
 Chapter VIII. INTIMATIONS BY WINTER: AN AMBASSADOR SUMMONED
 Chapter IX. CONVENTION’S OWN TINDER-BOX: THE EYE THAT IS GREEN
 Chapter X. THE COUNSEL OF WINTER: FORTUNE’S AMBASSADOR CALLS
 Chapter XI. THE PERSUASION OF FASHION: FEELING GUARDS O’ER ITS OWN
 Chapter XII. OF THE LAMPS OF THE MANSIONS: THE AMBASSADOR PLEA
 Chapter XIII. HIS CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED: A BABEL OF TONGUES
 Chapter XIV. WITH EYES AND NOT SEEING: ONE INFLUENCE WANES
 Chapter XV. THE IRK OF THE OLD TIES: THE MAGIC OF YOUTH
 Chapter XVI. A WITLESS ALADDIN: THE GATE TO THE WORLD
 Chapter XVII. A GLIMPSE THROUGH THE GATEWAY: HOPE LIGHTENS THE EYE
 Chapter XVIII. JUST OVER THE BORDER: A HAIL AND FAREWELL
 Chapter XIX. AN HOUR IN ELFLAND: A CLAMOUR HALF HEARD
 Chapter XX. THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT: THE FLESH IN PURSUIT
 Chapter XXI. THE LURE OF THE SPIRIT: THE FLESH IN PURSUIT
 Chapter XXII. THE BLAZE OF THE TINDER: FLESH WARS WITH THE FLESH
 Chapter XXIII. A SPIRIT IN TRAVAIL: ONE RUNG PUT BEHIND
 Chapter XXIV. ASHES OF TINDER: A FACE AT THE WINDOW
 Chapter XXV. ASHES OF TINDER: THE LOOSING OF STAYS
 Chapter XXVI. THE AMBASSADOR FALLEN: A SEARCH FOR THE GATE
 Chapter XXVII. WHEN WATERS ENGULF US WE REACH FOR A STAR
 Chapter XXVIII. A PILGRIM, AN OUTLAW: THE SPIRIT DETAINED
 Chapter XXIX. THE SOLACE OF TRAVEL: THE BOATS OF THE SEA
 Chapter XXX. THE KINGDOM OF GREATNESS: THE PILGRIM ADREAM
 Chapter XXXI. A PET OF GOOD FORTUNE: BROADWAY FLAUNTS ITS JOYS
 Chapter XXXII. THE FEAST OF BELSHAZZAR: A SEER TO TRANSLATE
 Chapter XXXIII. WITHOUT THE WALLED CITY: THE SLOPE OF THE YEARS
 Chapter XXXIV. THE GRIND OF THE MILLSTONES: A SAMPLE OF CHAFF
 Chapter XXXV. THE PASSING OF EFFORT: THE VISAGE OF CARE
 Chapter XXXVI. A GRIM RETROGRESSION: THE PHANTOM OF CHANCE
 Chapter XXXVII. THE SPIRIT AWAKENS: NEW SEARCH FOR THE GATE
 Chapter XXXVIII. IN ELF LAND DISPORTING: THE GRIM WORLD WITHOUT
 Chapter XXXIX. OF LIGHTS AND OF SHADOWS: THE PARTING OF WORLDS
 Chapter XL. A PUBLIC DISSENSION: A FINAL APPEAL
 Chapter XLI. THE STRIKE
 Chapter XLII. A TOUCH OF SPRING: THE EMPTY SHELL
 Chapter XLIII. THE WORLD TURNS FLATTERER: AN EYE IN THE DARK
 Chapter XLIV. AND THIS IS NOT ELF LAND: WHAT GOLD WILL NOT BUY
 Chapter XLV. CURIOUS SHIFTS OF THE POOR
 Chapter XLVI. STIRRING TROUBLED WATERS
 Chapter XLVII. THE WAY OF THE BEATEN: A HARP IN THE WIND



Chapter I. THE MAGNET ATTRACTING: A WAIF AMID FORCES

When Caroline Meeber boarded the afternoon train for Chicago, her total
outfit consisted of a small trunk, a cheap imitation alligator-skin
satchel, a small lunch in a paper box, and a yellow leather snap purse,
containing her ticket, a scrap of paper with her sister’s address in
Van Buren Street, and four dollars in money. It was in August, 1889.
She was eighteen years of age, bright, timid, and full of the illusions
of ignorance and youth. Whatever touch of regret at parting
characterised her thoughts, it was certainly not for advantages now
being given up. A gush of tears at her mother’s farewell kiss, a touch
in her throat when the cars clacked by the flour mill where her father
worked by the day, a pathetic sigh as the familiar green environs of
the village passed in review, and the threads which bound her so
lightly to girlhood and home were irretrievably broken.

To be sure there was always the next station, where one might descend
and return. There was the great city, bound more closely by these very
trains which came up daily. Columbia City was not so very far away,
even once she was in Chicago. What, pray, is a few hours—a few hundred
miles? She looked at the little slip bearing her sister’s address and
wondered. She gazed at the green landscape, now passing in swift
review, until her swifter thoughts replaced its impression with vague
conjectures of what Chicago might be.

When a girl leaves her home at eighteen, she does one of two things.
Either she falls into saving hands and becomes better, or she rapidly
assumes the cosmopolitan standard of virtue and becomes worse. Of an
intermediate balance, under the circumstances, there is no possibility.
The city has its cunning wiles, no less than the infinitely smaller and
more human tempter. There are large forces which allure with all the
soulfulness of expression possible in the most cultured human. The
gleam of a thousand lights is often as effective as the persuasive
light in a wooing and fascinating eye. Half the undoing of the
unsophisticated and natural mind is accomplished by forces wholly
superhuman. A blare of sound, a roar of life, a vast array of human
hives, appeal to the astonished senses in equivocal terms. Without a
counsellor at hand to whisper cautious interpretations, what falsehoods
may not these things breathe into the unguarded ear! Unrecognised for
what they are, their beauty, like music, too often relaxes, then
weakens, then perverts the simpler human perceptions.

Caroline, or Sister Carrie, as she had been half affectionately termed
by the family, was possessed of a mind rudimentary in its power of
observation and analysis. Self-interest with her was high, but not
strong. It was, nevertheless, her guiding characteristic. Warm with the
fancies of youth, pretty with the insipid prettiness of the formative
period, possessed of a figure promising eventual shapeliness and an eye
alight with certain native intelligence, she was a fair example of the
middle American class—two generations removed from the emigrant. Books
were beyond her interest—knowledge a sealed book. In the intuitive
graces she was still crude. She could scarcely toss her head
gracefully. Her hands were almost ineffectual. The feet, though small,
were set flatly. And yet she was interested in her charms, quick to
understand the keener pleasures of life, ambitious to gain in material
things. A half-equipped little knight she was, venturing to reconnoitre
the mysterious city and dreaming wild dreams of some vague, far-off
supremacy, which should make it prey and subject—the proper penitent,
grovelling at a woman’s slipper.

“That,” said a voice in her ear, “is one of the prettiest little
resorts in Wisconsin.”

“Is it?” she answered nervously.

The train was just pulling out of Waukesha. For some time she had been
conscious of a man behind. She felt him observing her mass of hair. He
had been fidgetting, and with natural intuition she felt a certain
interest growing in that quarter. Her maidenly reserve, and a certain
sense of what was conventional under the circumstances, called her to
forestall and deny this familiarity, but the daring and magnetism of
the individual, born of past experiences and triumphs, prevailed. She
answered.

He leaned forward to put his elbows upon the back of her seat and
proceeded to make himself volubly agreeable.

“Yes, that is a great resort for Chicago people. The hotels are swell.
You are not familiar with this part of the country, are you?”

“Oh, yes, I am,” answered Carrie. “That is, I live at Columbia City. I
have never been through here, though.”

“And so this is your first visit to Chicago,” he observed.

All the time she was conscious of certain features out of the side of
her eye. Flush, colourful cheeks, a light moustache, a grey fedora hat.
She now turned and looked upon him in full, the instincts of
self-protection and coquetry mingling confusedly in her brain.

“I didn’t say that,” she said.

“Oh,” he answered, in a very pleasing way and with an assumed air of
mistake, “I thought you did.”

Here was a type of the travelling canvasser for a manufacturing house—a
class which at that time was first being dubbed by the slang of the day
“drummers.” He came within the meaning of a still newer term, which had
sprung into general use among Americans in 1880, and which concisely
expressed the thought of one whose dress or manners are calculated to
elicit the admiration of susceptible young women—a “masher.” His suit
was of a striped and crossed pattern of brown wool, new at that time,
but since become familiar as a business suit. The low crotch of the
vest revealed a stiff shirt bosom of white and pink stripes. From his
coat sleeves protruded a pair of linen cuffs of the same pattern,
fastened with large, gold plate buttons, set with the common yellow
agates known as “cat’s-eyes.” His fingers bore several rings—one, the
ever-enduring heavy seal—and from his vest dangled a neat gold watch
chain, from which was suspended the secret insignia of the Order of
Elks. The whole suit was rather tight-fitting, and was finished off
with heavy-soled tan shoes, highly polished, and the grey fedora hat.
He was, for the order of intellect represented, attractive, and
whatever he had to recommend him, you may be sure was not lost upon
Carrie, in this, her first glance.

Lest this order of individual should permanently pass, let me put down
some of the most striking characteristics of his most successful manner
and method. Good clothes, of course, were the first essential, the
things without which he was nothing. A strong physical nature, actuated
by a keen desire for the feminine, was the next. A mind free of any
consideration of the problems or forces of the world and actuated not
by greed, but an insatiable love of variable pleasure. His method was
always simple. Its principal element was daring, backed, of course, by
an intense desire and admiration for the sex. Let him meet with a young
woman once and he would approach her with an air of kindly familiarity,
not unmixed with pleading, which would result in most cases in a
tolerant acceptance. If she showed any tendency to coquetry he would be
apt to straighten her tie, or if she “took up” with him at all, to call
her by her first name. If he visited a department store it was to
lounge familiarly over the counter and ask some leading questions. In
more exclusive circles, on the train or in waiting stations, he went
slower. If some seemingly vulnerable object appeared he was all
attention—to pass the compliments of the day, to lead the way to the
parlor car, carrying her grip, or, failing that, to take a seat next
her with the hope of being able to court her to her destination.
Pillows, books, a footstool, the shade lowered; all these figured in
the things which he could do. If, when she reached her destination he
did not alight and attend her baggage for her, it was because, in his
own estimation, he had signally failed.

A woman should some day write the complete philosophy of clothes. No
matter how young, it is one of the things she wholly comprehends. There
is an indescribably faint line in the matter of man’s apparel which
somehow divides for her those who are worth glancing at and those who
are not. Once an individual has passed this faint line on the way
downward he will get no glance from her. There is another line at which
the dress of a man will cause her to study her own. This line the
individual at her elbow now marked for Carrie. She became conscious of
an inequality. Her own plain blue dress, with its black cotton tape
trimmings, now seemed to her shabby. She felt the worn state of her
shoes.

“Let’s see,” he went on, “I know quite a number of people in your town.
Morgenroth the clothier and Gibson the dry goods man.”

“Oh, do you?” she interrupted, aroused by memories of longings their
show windows had cost her.

At last he had a clew to her interest, and followed it deftly. In a few
minutes he had come about into her seat. He talked of sales of
clothing, his travels, Chicago, and the amusements of that city.

“If you are going there, you will enjoy it immensely. Have you
relatives?”

“I am going to visit my sister,” she explained.

“You want to see Lincoln Park,” he said, “and Michigan Boulevard. They
are putting up great buildings there. It’s a second New York—great. So
much to see—theatres, crowds, fine houses—oh, you’ll like that.”

There was a little ache in her fancy of all he described. Her
insignificance in the presence of so much magnificence faintly affected
her. She realised that hers was not to be a round of pleasure, and yet
there was something promising in all the material prospect he set
forth. There was something satisfactory in the attention of this
individual with his good clothes. She could not help smiling as he told
her of some popular actress of whom she reminded him. She was not
silly, and yet attention of this sort had its weight.

“You will be in Chicago some little time, won’t you?” he observed at
one turn of the now easy conversation.

“I don’t know,” said Carrie vaguely—a flash vision of the possibility
of her not securing employment rising in her mind.

“Several weeks, anyhow,” he said, looking steadily into her eyes.

There was much more passing now than the mere words indicated. He
recognised the indescribable thing that made up for fascination and
beauty in her. She realised that she was of interest to him from the
one standpoint which a woman both delights in and fears. Her manner was
simple, though for the very reason that she had not yet learned the
many little affectations with which women conceal their true feelings.
Some things she did appeared bold. A clever companion—had she ever had
one—would have warned her never to look a man in the eyes so steadily.

“Why do you ask?” she said.

“Well, I’m going to be there several weeks. I’m going to study stock at
our place and get new samples. I might show you ’round.”

“I don’t know whether you can or not. I mean I don’t know whether I
can. I shall be living with my sister, and——”

“Well, if she minds, we’ll fix that.” He took out his pencil and a
little pocket note-book as if it were all settled. “What is your
address there?”

She fumbled her purse which contained the address slip.

He reached down in his hip pocket and took out a fat purse. It was
filled with slips of paper, some mileage books, a roll of greenbacks.
It impressed her deeply. Such a purse had never been carried by any one
attentive to her. Indeed, an experienced traveller, a brisk man of the
world, had never come within such close range before. The purse, the
shiny tan shoes, the smart new suit, and the air with which he did
things, built up for her a dim world of fortune, of which he was the
centre. It disposed her pleasantly toward all he might do.

He took out a neat business card, on which was engraved Bartlett,
Caryoe & Company, and down in the left-hand corner, Chas. H. Drouet.

“That’s me,” he said, putting the card in her hand and touching his
name. “It’s pronounced Drew-eh. Our family was French, on my father’s
side.”

She looked at it while he put up his purse. Then he got out a letter
from a bunch in his coat pocket. “This is the house I travel for,” he
went on, pointing to a picture on it, “corner of State and Lake.” There
was pride in his voice. He felt that it was something to be connected
with such a place, and he made her feel that way.

“What is your address?” he began again, fixing his pencil to write.

She looked at his hand.

“Carrie Meeber,” she said slowly. “Three hundred and fifty-four West
Van Buren Street, care S. C. Hanson.”

He wrote it carefully down and got out the purse again. “You’ll be at
home if I come around Monday night?” he said.

“I think so,” she answered.

How true it is that words are but the vague shadows of the volumes we
mean. Little audible links, they are, chaining together great inaudible
feelings and purposes. Here were these two, bandying little phrases,
drawing purses, looking at cards, and both unconscious of how
inarticulate all their real feelings were. Neither was wise enough to
be sure of the working of the mind of the other. He could not tell how
his luring succeeded. She could not realise that she was drifting,
until he secured her address. Now she felt that she had yielded
something—he, that he had gained a victory. Already they felt that they
were somehow associated. Already he took control in directing the
conversation. His words were easy. Her manner was relaxed.

They were nearing Chicago. Signs were everywhere numerous. Trains
flashed by them. Across wide stretches of flat, open prairie they could
see lines of telegraph poles stalking across the fields toward the
great city. Far away were indications of suburban towns, some big
smokestacks towering high in the air.

Frequently there were two-story frame houses standing out in the open
fields, without fence or trees, lone outposts of the approaching army
of homes.

To the child, the genius with imagination, or the wholly untravelled,
the approach to a great city for the first time is a wonderful thing.
Particularly if it be evening—that mystic period between the glare and
gloom of the world when life is changing from one sphere or condition
to another. Ah, the promise of the night. What does it not hold for the
weary! What old illusion of hope is not here forever repeated! Says the
soul of the toiler to itself, “I shall soon be free. I shall be in the
ways and the hosts of the merry. The streets, the lamps, the lighted
chamber set for dining, are for me. The theatre, the halls, the
parties, the ways of rest and the paths of song—these are mine in the
night.” Though all humanity be still enclosed in the shops, the thrill
runs abroad. It is in the air. The dullest feel something which they
may not always express or describe. It is the lifting of the burden of
toil.

Sister Carrie gazed out of the window. Her companion, affected by her
wonder, so contagious are all things, felt anew some interest in the
city and pointed out its marvels.

“This is Northwest Chicago,” said Drouet. “This is the Chicago River,”
and he pointed to a little muddy creek, crowded with the huge masted
wanderers from far-off waters nosing the black-posted banks. With a
puff, a clang, and a clatter of rails it was gone. “Chicago is getting
to be a great town,” he went on. “It’s a wonder. You’ll find lots to
see here.”

She did not hear this very well. Her heart was troubled by a kind of
terror. The fact that she was alone, away from home, rushing into a
great sea of life and endeavour, began to tell. She could not help but
feel a little choked for breath—a little sick as her heart beat so
fast. She half closed her eyes and tried to think it was nothing, that
Columbia City was only a little way off.

“Chicago! Chicago!” called the brakeman, slamming open the door. They
were rushing into a more crowded yard, alive with the clatter and clang
of life. She began to gather up her poor little grip and closed her
hand firmly upon her purse. Drouet arose, kicked his legs to straighten
his trousers, and seized his clean yellow grip.

“I suppose your people will be here to meet you?” he said. “Let me
carry your grip.”

“Oh, no,” she said. “I’d rather you wouldn’t. I’d rather you wouldn’t
be with me when I meet my sister.”

“All right,” he said in all kindness. “I’ll be near, though, in case
she isn’t here, and take you out there safely.”

“You’re so kind,” said Carrie, feeling the goodness of such attention
in her strange situation.

“Chicago!” called the brakeman, drawing the word out long. They were
under a great shadowy train shed, where the lamps were already
beginning to shine out, with passenger cars all about and the train
moving at a snail’s pace. The people in the car were all up and
crowding about the door.

“Well, here we are,” said Drouet, leading the way to the door.
“Good-bye, till I see you Monday.”

“Good-bye,” she answered, taking his proffered hand.

“Remember, I’ll be looking till you find your sister.”

She smiled into his eyes.

They filed out, and he affected to take no notice of her. A lean-faced,
rather commonplace woman recognised Carrie on the platform and hurried
forward.

“Why, Sister Carrie!” she began, and there was embrace of welcome.

Carrie realised the change of affectional atmosphere at once. Amid all
the maze, uproar, and novelty she felt cold reality taking her by the
hand. No world of light and merriment. No round of amusement. Her
sister carried with her most of the grimness of shift and toil.

“Why, how are all the folks at home?” she began; “how is father, and
mother?”

Carrie answered, but was looking away. Down the aisle, toward the gate
leading into the waiting-room and the street, stood Drouet. He was
looking back. When he saw that she saw him and was safe with her sister
he turned to go, sending back the shadow of a smile. Only Carrie saw
it. She felt something lost to her when he moved away. When he
disappeared she felt his absence thoroughly. With her sister she was
much alone, a lone figure in a tossing, thoughtless sea.


Chapter II. WHAT POVERTY THREATENED: OF GRANITE AND BRASS

Minnie’s flat, as the one-floor resident apartments were then being
called, was in a part of West Van Buren Street inhabited by families of
labourers and clerks, men who had come, and were still coming, with the
rush of population pouring in at the rate of 50,000 a year. It was on
the third floor, the front windows looking down into the street, where,
at night, the lights of grocery stores were shining and children were
playing. To Carrie, the sound of the little bells upon the horse-cars,
as they tinkled in and out of hearing, was as pleasing as it was novel.
She gazed into the lighted street when Minnie brought her into the
front room, and wondered at the sounds, the movement, the murmur of the
vast city which stretched for miles and miles in every direction.

Mrs. Hanson, after the first greetings were over, gave Carrie the baby
and proceeded to get supper. Her husband asked a few questions and sat
down to read the evening paper. He was a silent man, American born, of
a Swede father, and now employed as a cleaner of refrigerator cars at
the stock-yards. To him the presence or absence of his wife’s sister
was a matter of indifference. Her personal appearance did not affect
him one way or the other. His one observation to the point was
concerning the chances of work in Chicago.

“It’s a big place,” he said. “You can get in somewhere in a few days.
Everybody does.”

It had been tacitly understood beforehand that she was to get work and
pay her board. He was of a clean, saving disposition, and had already
paid a number of monthly instalments on two lots far out on the West
Side. His ambition was some day to build a house on them.

In the interval which marked the preparation of the meal Carrie found
time to study the flat. She had some slight gift of observation and
that sense, so rich in every woman—intuition.

She felt the drag of a lean and narrow life. The walls of the rooms
were discordantly papered. The floors were covered with matting and the
hall laid with a thin rag carpet. One could see that the furniture was
of that poor, hurriedly patched together quality sold by the instalment
houses.

She sat with Minnie, in the kitchen, holding the baby until it began to
cry. Then she walked and sang to it, until Hanson, disturbed in his
reading, came and took it. A pleasant side to his nature came out here.
He was patient. One could see that he was very much wrapped up in his
offspring.

“Now, now,” he said, walking. “There, there,” and there was a certain
Swedish accent noticeable in his voice.

“You’ll want to see the city first, won’t you?” said Minnie, when they
were eating. “Well, we’ll go out Sunday and see Lincoln Park.”

Carrie noticed that Hanson had said nothing to this. He seemed to be
thinking of something else.

“Well,” she said, “I think I’ll look around to-morrow. I’ve got Friday
and Saturday, and it won’t be any trouble. Which way is the business
part?”

Minnie began to explain, but her husband took this part of the
conversation to himself.

“It’s that way,” he said, pointing east. “That’s east.” Then he went
off into the longest speech he had yet indulged in, concerning the lay
of Chicago. “You’d better look in those big manufacturing houses along
Franklin Street and just the other side of the river,” he concluded.
“Lots of girls work there. You could get home easy, too. It isn’t very
far.”

Carrie nodded and asked her sister about the neighbourhood. The latter
talked in a subdued tone, telling the little she knew about it, while
Hanson concerned himself with the baby. Finally he jumped up and handed
the child to his wife.

“I’ve got to get up early in the morning, so I’ll go to bed,” and off
he went, disappearing into the dark little bedroom off the hall, for
the night.

“He works way down at the stock-yards,” explained Minnie, “so he’s got
to get up at half-past five.”

“What time do you get up to get breakfast?” asked Carrie.

“At about twenty minutes of five.”

Together they finished the labour of the day, Carrie washing the dishes
while Minnie undressed the baby and put it to bed. Minnie’s manner was
one of trained industry, and Carrie could see that it was a steady
round of toil with her.

She began to see that her relations with Drouet would have to be
abandoned. He could not come here. She read from the manner of Hanson,
in the subdued air of Minnie, and, indeed, the whole atmosphere of the
flat, a settled opposition to anything save a conservative round of
toil. If Hanson sat every evening in the front room and read his paper,
if he went to bed at nine, and Minnie a little later, what would they
expect of her? She saw that she would first need to get work and
establish herself on a paying basis before she could think of having
company of any sort. Her little flirtation with Drouet seemed now an
extraordinary thing.

“No,” she said to herself, “he can’t come here.”

She asked Minnie for ink and paper, which were upon the mantel in the
dining-room, and when the latter had gone to bed at ten, got out
Drouet’s card and wrote him.

“I cannot have you call on me here. You will have to wait until you
hear from me again. My sister’s place is so small.”

She troubled herself over what else to put in the letter. She wanted to
make some reference to their relations upon the train, but was too
timid. She concluded by thanking him for his kindness in a crude way,
then puzzled over the formality of signing her name, and finally
decided upon the severe, winding up with a “Very truly,” which she
subsequently changed to “Sincerely.” She scaled and addressed the
letter, and going in the front room, the alcove of which contained her
bed, drew the one small rocking-chair up to the open window, and sat
looking out upon the night and streets in silent wonder. Finally,
wearied by her own reflections, she began to grow dull in her chair,
and feeling the need of sleep, arranged her clothing for the night and
went to bed.

When she awoke at eight the next morning, Hanson had gone. Her sister
was busy in the dining-room, which was also the sitting-room, sewing.
She worked, after dressing, to arrange a little breakfast for herself,
and then advised with Minnie as to which way to look. The latter had
changed considerably since Carrie had seen her. She was now a thin,
though rugged, woman of twenty-seven, with ideas of life coloured by
her husband’s, and fast hardening into narrower conceptions of pleasure
and duty than had ever been hers in a thoroughly circumscribed youth.
She had invited Carrie, not because she longed for her presence, but
because the latter was dissatisfied at home, and could probably get
work and pay her board here. She was pleased to see her in a way but
reflected her husband’s point of view in the matter of work. Anything
was good enough so long as it paid—say, five dollars a week to begin
with. A shop girl was the destiny prefigured for the newcomer. She
would get in one of the great shops and do well enough until—well,
until something happened. Neither of them knew exactly what. They did
not figure on promotion. They did not exactly count on marriage. Things
would go on, though, in a dim kind of way until the better thing would
eventuate, and Carrie would be rewarded for coming and toiling in the
city. It was under such auspicious circumstances that she started out
this morning to look for work.

Before following her in her round of seeking, let us look at the sphere
in which her future was to lie. In 1889 Chicago had the peculiar
qualifications of growth which made such adventuresome pilgrimages even
on the part of young girls plausible. Its many and growing commercial
opportunities gave it widespread fame, which made of it a giant magnet,
drawing to itself, from all quarters, the hopeful and the
hopeless—those who had their fortune yet to make and those whose
fortunes and affairs had reached a disastrous climax elsewhere. It was
a city of over 500,000, with the ambition, the daring, the activity of
a metropolis of a million. Its streets and houses were already
scattered over an area of seventy-five square miles. Its population was
not so much thriving upon established commerce as upon the industries
which prepared for the arrival of others. The sound of the hammer
engaged upon the erection of new structures was everywhere heard. Great
industries were moving in. The huge railroad corporations which had
long before recognised the prospects of the place had seized upon vast
tracts of land for transfer and shipping purposes. Street-car lines had
been extended far out into the open country in anticipation of rapid
growth. The city had laid miles and miles of streets and sewers through
regions where, perhaps, one solitary house stood out alone—a pioneer of
the populous ways to be. There were regions open to the sweeping winds
and rain, which were yet lighted throughout the night with long,
blinking lines of gas-lamps, fluttering in the wind. Narrow board walks
extended out, passing here a house, and there a store, at far
intervals, eventually ending on the open prairie.

In the central portion was the vast wholesale and shopping district, to
which the uninformed seeker for work usually drifted. It was a
characteristic of Chicago then, and one not generally shared by other
cities, that individual firms of any pretension occupied individual
buildings. The presence of ample ground made this possible. It gave an
imposing appearance to most of the wholesale houses, whose offices were
upon the ground floor and in plain view of the street. The large plates
of window glass, now so common, were then rapidly coming into use, and
gave to the ground floor offices a distinguished and prosperous look.
The casual wanderer could see as he passed a polished array of office
fixtures, much frosted glass, clerks hard at work, and genteel
businessmen in “nobby” suits and clean linen lounging about or sitting
in groups. Polished brass or nickel signs at the square stone entrances
announced the firm and the nature of the business in rather neat and
reserved terms. The entire metropolitan centre possessed a high and
mighty air calculated to overawe and abash the common applicant, and to
make the gulf between poverty and success seem both wide and deep.

Into this important commercial region the timid Carrie went. She walked
east along Van Buren Street through a region of lessening importance,
until it deteriorated into a mass of shanties and coal-yards, and
finally verged upon the river. She walked bravely forward, led by an
honest desire to find employment and delayed at every step by the
interest of the unfolding scene, and a sense of helplessness amid so
much evidence of power and force which she did not understand. These
vast buildings, what were they? These strange energies and huge
interests, for what purposes were they there? She could have understood
the meaning of a little stone-cutter’s yard at Columbia City, carving
little pieces of marble for individual use, but when the yards of some
huge stone corporation came into view, filled with spur tracks and flat
cars, transpierced by docks from the river and traversed overhead by
immense trundling cranes of wood and steel, it lost all significance in
her little world.

It was so with the vast railroad yards, with the crowded array of
vessels she saw at the river, and the huge factories over the way,
lining the water’s edge. Through the open windows she could see the
figures of men and women in working aprons, moving busily about. The
great streets were wall-lined mysteries to her; the vast offices,
strange mazes which concerned far-off individuals of importance. She
could only think of people connected with them as counting money,
dressing magnificently, and riding in carriages. What they dealt in,
how they laboured, to what end it all came, she had only the vaguest
conception. It was all wonderful, all vast, all far removed, and she
sank in spirit inwardly and fluttered feebly at the heart as she
thought of entering any one of these mighty concerns and asking for
something to do—something that she could do—anything.


Chapter III. WEE QUESTION OF FORTUNE: FOUR-FIFTY A WEEK

Once across the river and into the wholesale district, she glanced
about her for some likely door at which to apply. As she contemplated
the wide windows and imposing signs, she became conscious of being
gazed upon and understood for what she was—a wage-seeker. She had never
done this thing before, and lacked courage. To avoid a certain
indefinable shame she felt at being caught spying about for a position,
she quickened her steps and assumed an air of indifference supposedly
common to one upon an errand. In this way she passed many manufacturing
and wholesale houses without once glancing in. At last, after several
blocks of walking, she felt that this would not do, and began to look
about again, though without relaxing her pace. A little way on she saw
a great door which, for some reason, attracted her attention. It was
ornamented by a small brass sign, and seemed to be the entrance to a
vast hive of six or seven floors. “Perhaps,” she thought, “they may
want some one,” and crossed over to enter. When she came within a score
of feet of the desired goal, she saw through the window a young man in
a grey checked suit. That he had anything to do with the concern, she
could not tell, but because he happened to be looking in her direction
her weakening heart misgave her and she hurried by, too overcome with
shame to enter. Over the way stood a great six-story structure,
labelled Storm and King, which she viewed with rising hope. It was a
wholesale dry goods concern and employed women. She could see them
moving about now and then upon the upper floors. This place she decided
to enter, no matter what. She crossed over and walked directly toward
the entrance. As she did so, two men came out and paused in the door. A
telegraph messenger in blue dashed past her and up the few steps that
led to the entrance and disappeared. Several pedestrians out of the
hurrying throng which filled the sidewalks passed about her as she
paused, hesitating. She looked helplessly around, and then, seeing
herself observed, retreated. It was too difficult a task. She could not
go past them.

So severe a defeat told sadly upon her nerves. Her feet carried her
mechanically forward, every foot of her progress being a satisfactory
portion of a flight which she gladly made. Block after block passed by.
Upon streetlamps at the various corners she read names such as Madison,
Monroe, La Salle, Clark, Dearborn, State, and still she went, her feet
beginning to tire upon the broad stone flagging. She was pleased in
part that the streets were bright and clean. The morning sun, shining
down with steadily increasing warmth, made the shady side of the
streets pleasantly cool. She looked at the blue sky overhead with more
realisation of its charm than had ever come to her before.

Her cowardice began to trouble her in a way. She turned back, resolving
to hunt up Storm and King and enter. On the way, she encountered a
great wholesale shoe company, through the broad plate windows of which
she saw an enclosed executive department, hidden by frosted glass.
Without this enclosure, but just within the street entrance, sat a
grey-haired gentleman at a small table, with a large open ledger before
him. She walked by this institution several times hesitating, but,
finding herself unobserved, faltered past the screen door and stood
humbly waiting.

“Well, young lady,” observed the old gentleman, looking at her somewhat
kindly, “what is it you wish?”

“I am, that is, do you—I mean, do you need any help?” she stammered.

“Not just at present,” he answered smiling. “Not just at present. Come
in some time next week. Occasionally we need some one.”

She received the answer in silence and backed awkwardly out. The
pleasant nature of her reception rather astonished her. She had
expected that it would be more difficult, that something cold and harsh
would be said—she knew not what. That she had not been put to shame and
made to feel her unfortunate position, seemed remarkable.

Somewhat encouraged, she ventured into another large structure. It was
a clothing company, and more people were in evidence—well-dressed men
of forty and more, surrounded by brass railings.

An office boy approached her.

“Who is it you wish to see?” he asked.

“I want to see the manager,” she said. He ran away and spoke to one of
a group of three men who were conferring together. One of these came
towards her.

“Well?” he said coldly. The greeting drove all courage from her at
once.

“Do you need any help?” she stammered.

“No,” he replied abruptly, and turned upon his heel.

She went foolishly out, the office boy deferentially swinging the door
for her, and gladly sank into the obscuring crowd. It was a severe
setback to her recently pleased mental state.

Now she walked quite aimlessly for a time, turning here and there,
seeing one great company after another, but finding no courage to
prosecute her single inquiry. High noon came, and with it hunger. She
hunted out an unassuming restaurant and entered, but was disturbed to
find that the prices were exorbitant for the size of her purse. A bowl
of soup was all that she could afford, and, with this quickly eaten,
she went out again. It restored her strength somewhat and made her
moderately bold to pursue the search.

In walking a few blocks to fix upon some probable place, she again
encountered the firm of Storm and King, and this time managed to get
in. Some gentlemen were conferring close at hand, but took no notice of
her. She was left standing, gazing nervously upon the floor. When the
limit of her distress had been nearly reached, she was beckoned to by a
man at one of the many desks within the near-by railing.

“Who is it you wish to see?” he required.

“Why, any one, if you please,” she answered. “I am looking for
something to do.”

“Oh, you want to see Mr. McManus,” he returned. “Sit down,” and he
pointed to a chair against the neighbouring wall. He went on leisurely
writing, until after a time a short, stout gentleman came in from the
street.

“Mr. McManus,” called the man at the desk, “this young woman wants to
see you.”

The short gentleman turned about towards Carrie, and she arose and came
forward.

“What can I do for you, miss?” he inquired, surveying her curiously.

“I want to know if I can get a position,” she inquired.

“As what?” he asked.

“Not as anything in particular,” she faltered.

“Have you ever had any experience in the wholesale dry goods business?”
he questioned.

“No, sir,” she replied.

“Are you a stenographer or typewriter?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, we haven’t anything here,” he said. “We employ only experienced
help.”

She began to step backward toward the door, when something about her
plaintive face attracted him.

“Have you ever worked at anything before?” he inquired.

“No, sir,” she said.

“Well, now, it’s hardly possible that you would get anything to do in a
wholesale house of this kind. Have you tried the department stores?”

She acknowledged that she had not.

“Well, if I were you,” he said, looking at her rather genially, “I
would try the department stores. They often need young women as
clerks.”

“Thank you,” she said, her whole nature relieved by this spark of
friendly interest.

“Yes,” he said, as she moved toward the door, “you try the department
stores,” and off he went.

At that time the department store was in its earliest form of
successful operation, and there were not many. The first three in the
United States, established about 1884, were in Chicago. Carrie was
familiar with the names of several through the advertisements in the
“Daily News,” and now proceeded to seek them. The words of Mr. McManus
had somehow managed to restore her courage, which had fallen low, and
she dared to hope that this new line would offer her something. Some
time she spent in wandering up and down, thinking to encounter the
buildings by chance, so readily is the mind, bent upon prosecuting a
hard but needful errand, eased by that self-deception which the
semblance of search, without the reality, gives. At last she inquired
of a police officer, and was directed to proceed “two blocks up,” where
she would find “The Fair.”

The nature of these vast retail combinations, should they ever
permanently disappear, will form an interesting chapter in the
commercial history of our nation. Such a flowering out of a modest
trade principle the world had never witnessed up to that time. They
were along the line of the most effective retail organisation, with
hundreds of stores coordinated into one and laid out upon the most
imposing and economic basis. They were handsome, bustling, successful
affairs, with a host of clerks and a swarm of patrons. Carrie passed
along the busy aisles, much affected by the remarkable displays of
trinkets, dress goods, stationery, and jewelry. Each separate counter
was a show place of dazzling interest and attraction. She could not
help feeling the claim of each trinket and valuable upon her
personally, and yet she did not stop. There was nothing there which she
could not have used—nothing which she did not long to own. The dainty
slippers and stockings, the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats,
the laces, ribbons, hair-combs, purses, all touched her with individual
desire, and she felt keenly the fact that not any of these things were
in the range of her purchase. She was a work-seeker, an outcast without
employment, one whom the average employee could tell at a glance was
poor and in need of a situation.

It must not be thought that any one could have mistaken her for a
nervous, sensitive, high-strung nature, cast unduly upon a cold,
calculating, and unpoetic world. Such certainly she was not. But women
are peculiarly sensitive to their adornment.

Not only did Carrie feel the drag of desire for all which was new and
pleasing in apparel for women, but she noticed too, with a touch at the
heart, the fine ladies who elbowed and ignored her, brushing past in
utter disregard of her presence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the
materials which the store contained. Carrie was not familiar with the
appearance of her more fortunate sisters of the city. Neither had she
before known the nature and appearance of the shop girls with whom she
now compared poorly. They were pretty in the main, some even handsome,
with an air of independence and indifference which added, in the case
of the more favoured, a certain piquancy. Their clothes were neat, in
many instances fine, and wherever she encountered the eye of one it was
only to recognise in it a keen analysis of her own position—her
individual shortcomings of dress and that shadow of _manner_ which she
thought must hang about her and make clear to all who and what she was.
A flame of envy lighted in her heart. She realised in a dim way how
much the city held—wealth, fashion, ease—every adornment for women, and
she longed for dress and beauty with a whole heart.

On the second floor were the managerial offices, to which, after some
inquiry, she was now directed. There she found other girls ahead of
her, applicants like herself, but with more of that self-satisfied and
independent air which experience of the city lends; girls who
scrutinised her in a painful manner. After a wait of perhaps
three-quarters of an hour, she was called in turn.

“Now,” said a sharp, quick-mannered Jew, who was sitting at a roll-top
desk near the window, “have you ever worked in any other store?”

“No, sir,” said Carrie.

“Oh, you haven’t,” he said, eyeing her keenly.

“No, sir,” she replied.

“Well, we prefer young women just now with some experience. I guess we
can’t use you.”

Carrie stood waiting a moment, hardly certain whether the interview had
terminated.

“Don’t wait!” he exclaimed. “Remember we are very busy here.”

Carrie began to move quickly to the door.

“Hold on,” he said, calling her back. “Give me your name and address.
We want girls occasionally.”

When she had gotten safely into the street, she could scarcely restrain
the tears. It was not so much the particular rebuff which she had just
experienced, but the whole abashing trend of the day. She was tired and
nervous. She abandoned the thought of appealing to the other department
stores and now wandered on, feeling a certain safety and relief in
mingling with the crowd.

In her indifferent wandering she turned into Jackson Street, not far
from the river, and was keeping her way along the south side of that
imposing thoroughfare, when a piece of wrapping paper, written on with
marking ink and tacked up on the door, attracted her attention. It
read, “Girls wanted—wrappers & stitchers.” She hesitated a moment, then
entered.

The firm of Speigelheim & Co., makers of boys’ caps, occupied one floor
of the building, fifty feet in width and some eighty feet in depth. It
was a place rather dingily lighted, the darkest portions having
incandescent lights, filled with machines and work benches. At the
latter laboured quite a company of girls and some men. The former were
drabby-looking creatures, stained in face with oil and dust, clad in
thin, shapeless, cotton dresses and shod with more or less worn shoes.
Many of them had their sleeves rolled up, revealing bare arms, and in
some cases, owing to the heat, their dresses were open at the neck.
They were a fair type of nearly the lowest order of
shop-girls—careless, slouchy, and more or less pale from confinement.
They were not timid, however; were rich in curiosity, and strong in
daring and slang.

Carrie looked about her, very much disturbed and quite sure that she
did not want to work here. Aside from making her uncomfortable by
sidelong glances, no one paid her the least attention. She waited until
the whole department was aware of her presence. Then some word was sent
around, and a foreman, in an apron and shirt sleeves, the latter rolled
up to his shoulders, approached.

“Do you want to see me?” he asked.

“Do you need any help?” said Carrie, already learning directness of
address.

“Do you know how to stitch caps?” he returned.

“No, sir,” she replied.

“Have you ever had any experience at this kind of work?” he inquired.

She answered that she had not.

“Well,” said the foreman, scratching his ear meditatively, “we do need
a stitcher. We like experienced help, though. We’ve hardly got time to
break people in.” He paused and looked away out of the window. “We
might, though, put you at finishing,” he concluded reflectively.

“How much do you pay a week?” ventured Carrie, emboldened by a certain
softness in the man’s manner and his simplicity of address.

“Three and a half,” he answered.

“Oh,” she was about to exclaim, but checked herself and allowed her
thoughts to die without expression.

“We’re not exactly in need of anybody,” he went on vaguely, looking her
over as one would a package. “You can come on Monday morning, though,”
he added, “and I’ll put you to work.”

“Thank you,” said Carrie weakly.

“If you come, bring an apron,” he added.

He walked away and left her standing by the elevator, never so much as
inquiring her name.

While the appearance of the shop and the announcement of the price paid
per week operated very much as a blow to Carrie’s fancy, the fact that
work of any kind was offered after so rude a round of experience was
gratifying. She could not begin to believe that she would take the
place, modest as her aspirations were. She had been used to better than
that. Her mere experience and the free out-of-door life of the country
caused her nature to revolt at such confinement. Dirt had never been
her share. Her sister’s flat was clean. This place was grimy and low,
the girls were careless and hardened. They must be bad-minded and
hearted, she imagined. Still, a place had been offered her. Surely
Chicago was not so bad if she could find one place in one day. She
might find another and better later.

Her subsequent experiences were not of a reassuring nature, however.
From all the more pleasing or imposing places she was turned away
abruptly with the most chilling formality. In others where she applied
only the experienced were required. She met with painful rebuffs, the
most trying of which had been in a manufacturing cloak house, where she
had gone to the fourth floor to inquire.

“No, no,” said the foreman, a rough, heavily built individual, who
looked after a miserably lighted workshop, “we don’t want any one.
Don’t come here.”

With the wane of the afternoon went her hopes, her courage, and her
strength. She had been astonishingly persistent. So earnest an effort
was well deserving of a better reward. On every hand, to her fatigued
senses, the great business portion grew larger, harder, more stolid in
its indifference. It seemed as if it was all closed to her, that the
struggle was too fierce for her to hope to do anything at all. Men and
women hurried by in long, shifting lines. She felt the flow of the tide
of effort and interest—felt her own helplessness without quite
realising the wisp on the tide that she was. She cast about vainly for
some possible place to apply, but found no door which she had the
courage to enter. It would be the same thing all over. The old
humiliation of her plea, rewarded by curt denial. Sick at heart and in
body, she turned to the west, the direction of Minnie’s flat, which she
had now fixed in mind, and began that wearisome, baffled retreat which
the seeker for employment at nightfall too often makes. In passing
through Fifth Avenue, south towards Van Buren Street, where she
intended to take a car, she passed the door of a large wholesale shoe
house, through the plate-glass windows of which she could see a
middle-aged gentleman sitting at a small desk. One of those forlorn
impulses which often grow out of a fixed sense of defeat, the last
sprouting of a baffled and uprooted growth of ideas, seized upon her.
She walked deliberately through the door and up to the gentleman, who
looked at her weary face with partially awakened interest.

“What is it?” he said.

“Can you give me something to do?” said Carrie.

“Now, I really don’t know,” he said kindly. “What kind of work is it
you want—you’re not a typewriter, are you?”

“Oh, no,” answered Carrie.

“Well, we only employ book-keepers and typewriters here. You might go
around to the side and inquire upstairs. They did want some help
upstairs a few days ago. Ask for Mr. Brown.”

She hastened around to the side entrance and was taken up by the
elevator to the fourth floor.

“Call Mr. Brown, Willie,” said the elevator man to a boy near by.

Willie went off and presently returned with the information that Mr.
Brown said she should sit down and that he would be around in a little
while.

It was a portion of the stock room which gave no idea of the general
character of the place, and Carrie could form no opinion of the nature
of the work.

“So you want something to do,” said Mr. Brown, after he inquired
concerning the nature of her errand. “Have you ever been employed in a
shoe factory before?”

“No, sir,” said Carrie.

“What is your name?” he inquired, and being informed, “Well, I don’t
know as I have anything for you. Would you work for four and a half a
week?”

Carrie was too worn by defeat not to feel that it was considerable. She
had not expected that he would offer her less than six. She acquiesced,
however, and he took her name and address.

“Well,” he said, finally, “you report here at eight o’clock Monday
morning. I think I can find something for you to do.”

He left her revived by the possibilities, sure that she had found
something at last. Instantly the blood crept warmly over her body. Her
nervous tension relaxed. She walked out into the busy street and
discovered a new atmosphere. Behold, the throng was moving with a
lightsome step. She noticed that men and women were smiling. Scraps of
conversation and notes of laughter floated to her. The air was light.
People were already pouring out of the buildings, their labour ended
for the day. She noticed that they were pleased, and thoughts of her
sister’s home and the meal that would be awaiting her quickened her
steps. She hurried on, tired perhaps, but no longer weary of foot. What
would not Minnie say! Ah, the long winter in Chicago—the lights, the
crowd, the amusement! This was a great, pleasing metropolis after all.
Her new firm was a goodly institution. Its windows were of huge plate
glass. She could probably do well there. Thoughts of Drouet returned—of
the things he had told her. She now felt that life was better, that it
was livelier, sprightlier. She boarded a car in the best of spirits,
feeling her blood still flowing pleasantly. She would live in Chicago,
her mind kept saying to itself. She would have a better time than she
had ever had before—she would be happy.


Chapter IV. THE SPENDINGS OF FANCY: FACTS ANSWER WITH SNEERS

For the next two days Carrie indulged in the most high-flown
speculations.

Her fancy plunged recklessly into privileges and amusements which would
have been much more becoming had she been cradled a child of fortune.
With ready will and quick mental selection she scattered her meagre
four-fifty per week with a swift and graceful hand. Indeed, as she sat
in her rocking-chair these several evenings before going to bed and
looked out upon the pleasantly lighted street, this money cleared for
its prospective possessor the way to every joy and every bauble which
the heart of woman may desire. “I will have a fine time,” she thought.

Her sister Minnie knew nothing of these rather wild cerebrations,
though they exhausted the markets of delight. She was too busy
scrubbing the kitchen woodwork and calculating the purchasing power of
eighty cents for Sunday’s dinner. When Carrie had returned home,
flushed with her first success and ready, for all her weariness, to
discuss the now interesting events which led up to her achievement, the
former had merely smiled approvingly and inquired whether she would
have to spend any of it for car fare. This consideration had not
entered in before, and it did not now for long affect the glow of
Carrie’s enthusiasm. Disposed as she then was to calculate upon that
vague basis which allows the subtraction of one sum from another
without any perceptible diminution, she was happy.

When Hanson came home at seven o’clock, he was inclined to be a little
crusty—his usual demeanour before supper. This never showed so much in
anything he said as in a certain solemnity of countenance and the
silent manner in which he slopped about. He had a pair of yellow carpet
slippers which he enjoyed wearing, and these he would immediately
substitute for his solid pair of shoes. This, and washing his face with
the aid of common washing soap until it glowed a shiny red, constituted
his only preparation for his evening meal. He would then get his
evening paper and read in silence.

For a young man, this was rather a morbid turn of character, and so
affected Carrie. Indeed, it affected the entire atmosphere of the flat,
as such things are inclined to do, and gave to his wife’s mind its
subdued and tactful turn, anxious to avoid taciturn replies. Under the
influence of Carrie’s announcement he brightened up somewhat.

“You didn’t lose any time, did you?” he remarked, smiling a little.

“No,” returned Carrie with a touch of pride.

He asked her one or two more questions and then turned to play with the
baby, leaving the subject until it was brought up again by Minnie at
the table.

Carrie, however, was not to be reduced to the common level of
observation which prevailed in the flat.

“It seems to be such a large company,” she said, at one place.

“Great big plate-glass windows and lots of clerks. The man I saw said
they hired ever so many people.”

“It’s not very hard to get work now,” put in Hanson, “if you look
right.”

Minnie, under the warming influence of Carrie’s good spirits and her
husband’s somewhat conversational mood, began to tell Carrie of some of
the well-known things to see—things the enjoyment of which cost
nothing.

“You’d like to see Michigan Avenue. There are such fine houses. It is
such a fine street.”

“Where is H. R. Jacob’s?” interrupted Carrie, mentioning one of the
theatres devoted to melodrama which went by that name at the time.

“Oh, it’s not very far from here,” answered Minnie. “It’s in Halstead
Street, right up here.”

“How I’d like to go there. I crossed Halstead Street to-day, didn’t I?”

At this there was a slight halt in the natural reply. Thoughts are a
strangely permeating factor. At her suggestion of going to the theatre,
the unspoken shade of disapproval to the doing of those things which
involved the expenditure of money—shades of feeling which arose in the
mind of Hanson and then in Minnie—slightly affected the atmosphere of
the table. Minnie answered “yes,” but Carrie could feel that going to
the theatre was poorly advocated here. The subject was put off for a
little while until Hanson, through with his meal, took his paper and
went into the front room.

When they were alone, the two sisters began a somewhat freer
conversation, Carrie interrupting it to hum a little, as they worked at
the dishes.

“I should like to walk up and see Halstead Street, if it isn’t too
far,” said Carrie, after a time. “Why don’t we go to the theatre
to-night?”

“Oh, I don’t think Sven would want to go to-night,” returned Minnie.
“He has to get up so early.”

“He wouldn’t mind—he’d enjoy it,” said Carrie.

“No, he doesn’t go very often,” returned Minnie.

“Well, I’d like to go,” rejoined Carrie. “Let’s you and me go.”

Minnie pondered a while, not upon whether she could or would go—for
that point was already negatively settled with her—but upon some means
of diverting the thoughts of her sister to some other topic.

“We’ll go some other time,” she said at last, finding no ready means of
escape.

Carrie sensed the root of the opposition at once.

“I have some money,” she said. “You go with me.” Minnie shook her head.

“He could go along,” said Carrie.

“No,” returned Minnie softly, and rattling the dishes to drown the
conversation. “He wouldn’t.”

It had been several years since Minnie had seen Carrie, and in that
time the latter’s character had developed a few shades. Naturally timid
in all things that related to her own advancement, and especially so
when without power or resource, her craving for pleasure was so strong
that it was the one stay of her nature. She would speak for that when
silent on all else.

“Ask him,” she pleaded softly.

Minnie was thinking of the resource which Carrie’s board would add. It
would pay the rent and would make the subject of expenditure a little
less difficult to talk about with her husband. But if Carrie was going
to think of running around in the beginning there would be a hitch
somewhere. Unless Carrie submitted to a solemn round of industry and
saw the need of hard work without longing for play, how was her coming
to the city to profit them? These thoughts were not those of a cold,
hard nature at all. They were the serious reflections of a mind which
invariably adjusted itself, without much complaining, to such
surroundings as its industry could make for it.

At last she yielded enough to ask Hanson. It was a half-hearted
procedure without a shade of desire on her part.

“Carrie wants us to go to the theatre,” she said, looking in upon her
husband. Hanson looked up from his paper, and they exchanged a mild
look, which said as plainly as anything: “This isn’t what we expected.”

“I don’t care to go,” he returned. “What does she want to see?”

“H. R. Jacob’s,” said Minnie.

He looked down at his paper and shook his head negatively.

When Carrie saw how they looked upon her proposition, she gained a
still clearer feeling of their way of life. It weighed on her, but took
no definite form of opposition.

“I think I’ll go down and stand at the foot of the stairs,” she said,
after a time.

Minnie made no objection to this, and Carrie put on her hat and went
below.

“Where has Carrie gone?” asked Hanson, coming back into the dining-room
when he heard the door close.

“She said she was going down to the foot of the stairs,” answered
Minnie. “I guess she just wants to look out a while.”

“She oughtn’t to be thinking about spending her money on theatres
already, do you think?” he said.

“She just feels a little curious, I guess,” ventured Minnie.
“Everything is so new.”

“I don’t know,” said Hanson, and went over to the baby, his forehead
slightly wrinkled.

He was thinking of a full career of vanity and wastefulness which a
young girl might indulge in, and wondering how Carrie could contemplate
such a course when she had so little, as yet, with which to do.

On Saturday Carrie went out by herself—first toward the river, which
interested her, and then back along Jackson Street, which was then
lined by the pretty houses and fine lawns which subsequently caused it
to be made into a boulevard. She was struck with the evidences of
wealth, although there was, perhaps, not a person on the street worth
more than a hundred thousand dollars. She was glad to be out of the
flat, because already she felt that it was a narrow, humdrum place, and
that interest and joy lay elsewhere. Her thoughts now were of a more
liberal character, and she punctuated them with speculations as to the
whereabouts of Drouet. She was not sure but that he might call anyhow
Monday night, and, while she felt a little disturbed at the
possibility, there was, nevertheless, just the shade of a wish that he
would.

On Monday she arose early and prepared to go to work. She dressed
herself in a worn shirt-waist of dotted blue percale, a skirt of
light-brown serge rather faded, and a small straw hat which she had
worn all summer at Columbia City. Her shoes were old, and her necktie
was in that crumpled, flattened state which time and much wearing
impart. She made a very average looking shop-girl with the exception of
her features. These were slightly more even than common, and gave her a
sweet, reserved, and pleasing appearance.

It is no easy thing to get up early in the morning when one is used to
sleeping until seven and eight, as Carrie had been at home. She gained
some inkling of the character of Hanson’s life when, half asleep, she
looked out into the dining-room at six o’clock and saw him silently
finishing his breakfast. By the time she was dressed he was gone, and
she, Minnie, and the baby ate together, the latter being just old
enough to sit in a high chair and disturb the dishes with a spoon. Her
spirits were greatly subdued now when the fact of entering upon strange
and untried duties confronted her. Only the ashes of all her fine
fancies were remaining—ashes still concealing, nevertheless, a few red
embers of hope. So subdued was she by her weakening nerves, that she
ate quite in silence going over imaginary conceptions of the character
of the shoe company, the nature of the work, her employer’s attitude.
She was vaguely feeling that she would come in contact with the great
owners, that her work would be where grave, stylishly dressed men
occasionally look on.

“Well, good luck,” said Minnie, when she was ready to go. They had
agreed it was best to walk, that morning at least, to see if she could
do it every day—sixty cents a week for car fare being quite an item
under the circumstances.

“I’ll tell you how it goes to-night,” said Carrie.

Once in the sunlit street, with labourers tramping by in either
direction, the horse-cars passing crowded to the rails with the small
clerks and floor help in the great wholesale houses, and men and women
generally coming out of doors and passing about the neighbourhood,
Carrie felt slightly reassured. In the sunshine of the morning, beneath
the wide, blue heavens, with a fresh wind astir, what fears, except the
most desperate, can find a harbourage? In the night, or the gloomy
chambers of the day, fears and misgivings wax strong, but out in the
sunlight there is, for a time, cessation even of the terror of death.

Carrie went straight forward until she crossed the river, and then
turned into Fifth Avenue. The thoroughfare, in this part, was like a
walled canon of brown stone and dark red brick. The big windows looked
shiny and clean. Trucks were rumbling in increasing numbers; men and
women, girls and boys were moving onward in all directions. She met
girls of her own age, who looked at her as if with contempt for her
diffidence. She wondered at the magnitude of this life and at the
importance of knowing much in order to do anything in it at all. Dread
at her own inefficiency crept upon her. She would not know how, she
would not be quick enough. Had not all the other places refused her
because she did not know something or other? She would be scolded,
abused, ignominiously discharged.

It was with weak knees and a slight catch in her breathing that she
came up to the great shoe company at Adams and Fifth Avenue and entered
the elevator. When she stepped out on the fourth floor there was no one
at hand, only great aisles of boxes piled to the ceiling. She stood,
very much frightened, awaiting some one.

Presently Mr. Brown came up. He did not seem to recognise her.

“What is it you want?” he inquired.

Carrie’s heart sank.

“You said I should come this morning to see about work—”

“Oh,” he interrupted. “Um—yes. What is your name?”

“Carrie Meeber.”

“Yes,” said he. “You come with me.”

He led the way through dark, box-lined aisles which had the smell of
new shoes, until they came to an iron door which opened into the
factory proper. There was a large, low-ceiled room, with clacking,
rattling machines at which men in white shirt sleeves and blue gingham
aprons were working. She followed him diffidently through the
clattering automatons, keeping her eyes straight before her, and
flushing slightly. They crossed to a far corner and took an elevator to
the sixth floor. Out of the array of machines and benches, Mr. Brown
signalled a foreman.

“This is the girl,” he said, and turning to Carrie, “You go with him.”
He then returned, and Carrie followed her new superior to a little desk
in a corner, which he used as a kind of official centre.

“You’ve never worked at anything like this before, have you?” he
questioned, rather sternly.

“No, sir,” she answered.

He seemed rather annoyed at having to bother with such help, but put
down her name and then led her across to where a line of girls occupied
stools in front of clacking machines. On the shoulder of one of the
girls who was punching eye-holes in one piece of the upper, by the aid
of the machine, he put his hand.

“You,” he said, “show this girl how to do what you’re doing. When you
get through, come to me.”

The girl so addressed rose promptly and gave Carrie her place.

“It isn’t hard to do,” she said, bending over. “You just take this so,
fasten it with this clamp, and start the machine.”

She suited action to word, fastened the piece of leather, which was
eventually to form the right half of the upper of a man’s shoe, by
little adjustable clamps, and pushed a small steel rod at the side of
the machine. The latter jumped to the task of punching, with sharp,
snapping clicks, cutting circular bits of leather out of the side of
the upper, leaving the holes which were to hold the laces. After
observing a few times, the girl let her work at it alone. Seeing that
it was fairly well done, she went away.

The pieces of leather came from the girl at the machine to her right,
and were passed on to the girl at her left. Carrie saw at once that an
average speed was necessary or the work would pile up on her and all
those below would be delayed. She had no time to look about, and bent
anxiously to her task. The girls at her left and right realised her
predicament and feelings, and, in a way, tried to aid her, as much as
they dared, by working slower.

At this task she laboured incessantly for some time, finding relief
from her own nervous fears and imaginings in the humdrum, mechanical
movement of the machine. She felt, as the minutes passed, that the room
was not very light. It had a thick odour of fresh leather, but that did
not worry her. She felt the eyes of the other help upon her, and
troubled lest she was not working fast enough.

Once, when she was fumbling at the little clamp, having made a slight
error in setting in the leather, a great hand appeared before her eyes
and fastened the clamp for her. It was the foreman. Her heart thumped
so that she could scarcely see to go on.

“Start your machine,” he said, “start your machine. Don’t keep the line
waiting.”

This recovered her sufficiently and she went excitedly on, hardly
breathing until the shadow moved away from behind her. Then she heaved
a great breath.

As the morning wore on the room became hotter. She felt the need of a
breath of fresh air and a drink of water, but did not venture to stir.
The stool she sat on was without a back or foot-rest, and she began to
feel uncomfortable. She found, after a time, that her back was
beginning to ache. She twisted and turned from one position to another
slightly different, but it did not ease her for long. She was beginning
to weary.

“Stand up, why don’t you?” said the girl at her right, without any form
of introduction. “They won’t care.”

Carrie looked at her gratefully. “I guess I will,” she said.

She stood up from her stool and worked that way for a while, but it was
a more difficult position. Her neck and shoulders ached in bending
over.

The spirit of the place impressed itself on her in a rough way. She did
not venture to look around, but above the clack of the machine she
could hear an occasional remark. She could also note a thing or two out
of the side of her eye.

“Did you see Harry last night?” said the girl at her left, addressing
her neighbour.

“No.”

“You ought to have seen the tie he had on. Gee, but he was a mark.”

“S-s-t,” said the other girl, bending over her work. The first,
silenced, instantly assumed a solemn face. The foreman passed slowly
along, eyeing each worker distinctly. The moment he was gone, the
conversation was resumed again.

“Say,” began the girl at her left, “what jeh think he said?”

“I don’t know.”

“He said he saw us with Eddie Harris at Martin’s last night.”

“No!” They both giggled.

A youth with tan-coloured hair, that needed clipping very badly, came
shuffling along between the machines, bearing a basket of leather
findings under his left arm, and pressed against his stomach. When near
Carrie, he stretched out his right hand and gripped one girl under the
arm.

“Aw, let me go,” she exclaimed angrily. “Duffer.”

He only grinned broadly in return.

“Rubber!” he called back as she looked after him. There was nothing of
the gallant in him.

Carrie at last could scarcely sit still. Her legs began to tire and she
wanted to get up and stretch. Would noon never come? It seemed as if
she had worked an entire day. She was not hungry at all, but weak, and
her eyes were tired, straining at the one point where the eye-punch
came down. The girl at the right noticed her squirmings and felt sorry
for her. She was concentrating herself too thoroughly—what she did
really required less mental and physical strain. There was nothing to
be done, however. The halves of the uppers came piling steadily down.
Her hands began to ache at the wrists and then in the fingers, and
towards the last she seemed one mass of dull, complaining muscles,
fixed in an eternal position and performing a single mechanical
movement which became more and more distasteful, until as last it was
absolutely nauseating. When she was wondering whether the strain would
ever cease, a dull-sounding bell clanged somewhere down an elevator
shaft, and the end came. In an instant there was a buzz of action and
conversation. All the girls instantly left their stools and hurried
away in an adjoining room, men passed through, coming from some
department which opened on the right. The whirling wheels began to sing
in a steadily modifying key, until at last they died away in a low
buzz. There was an audible stillness, in which the common voice sounded
strange.

Carrie got up and sought her lunch box. She was stiff, a little dizzy,
and very thirsty. On the way to the small space portioned off by wood,
where all the wraps and lunches were kept, she encountered the foreman,
who stared at her hard.

“Well,” he said, “did you get along all right?”

“I think so,” she replied, very respectfully.

“Um,” he replied, for want of something better, and walked on.

Under better material conditions, this kind of work would not have been
so bad, but the new socialism which involves pleasant working
conditions for employees had not then taken hold upon manufacturing
companies.

The place smelled of the oil of the machines and the new leather—a
combination which, added to the stale odours of the building, was not
pleasant even in cold weather. The floor, though regularly swept every
evening, presented a littered surface. Not the slightest provision had
been made for the comfort of the employees, the idea being that
something was gained by giving them as little and making the work as
hard and unremunerative as possible. What we know of foot-rests,
swivel-back chairs, dining-rooms for the girls, clean aprons and
curling irons supplied free, and a decent cloak room, were unthought
of. The washrooms were disagreeable, crude, if not foul places, and the
whole atmosphere was sordid.

Carrie looked about her, after she had drunk a tinful of water from a
bucket in one corner, for a place to sit and eat. The other girls had
ranged themselves about the windows or the work-benches of those of the
men who had gone out. She saw no place which did not hold a couple or a
group of girls, and being too timid to think of intruding herself, she
sought out her machine and, seated upon her stool, opened her lunch on
her lap. There she sat listening to the chatter and comment about her.
It was, for the most part, silly and graced by the current slang.
Several of the men in the room exchanged compliments with the girls at
long range.

“Say, Kitty,” called one to a girl who was doing a waltz step in a few
feet of space near one of the windows, “are you going to the ball with
me?”

“Look out, Kitty,” called another, “you’ll jar your back hair.”

“Go on, Rubber,” was her only comment.

As Carrie listened to this and much more of similar familiar badinage
among the men and girls, she instinctively withdrew into herself. She
was not used to this type, and felt that there was something hard and
low about it all. She feared that the young boys about would address
such remarks to her—boys who, beside Drouet, seemed uncouth and
ridiculous. She made the average feminine distinction between clothes,
putting worth, goodness, and distinction in a dress suit, and leaving
all the unlovely qualities and those beneath notice in overalls and
jumper.

She was glad when the short half hour was over and the wheels began to
whirr again. Though wearied, she would be inconspicuous. This illusion
ended when another young man passed along the aisle and poked her
indifferently in the ribs with his thumb. She turned about, indignation
leaping to her eyes, but he had gone on and only once turned to grin.
She found it difficult to conquer an inclination to cry.

The girl next her noticed her state of mind. “Don’t you mind,” she
said. “He’s too fresh.”

Carrie said nothing, but bent over her work. She felt as though she
could hardly endure such a life. Her idea of work had been so entirely
different. All during the long afternoon she thought of the city
outside and its imposing show, crowds, and fine buildings. Columbia
City and the better side of her home life came back. By three o’clock
she was sure it must be six, and by four it seemed as if they had
forgotten to note the hour and were letting all work overtime. The
foreman became a true ogre, prowling constantly about, keeping her tied
down to her miserable task. What she heard of the conversation about
her only made her feel sure that she did not want to make friends with
any of these. When six o’clock came she hurried eagerly away, her arms
aching and her limbs stiff from sitting in one position.

As she passed out along the hall after getting her hat, a young machine
hand, attracted by her looks, made bold to jest with her.

“Say, Maggie,” he called, “if you wait, I’ll walk with you.”

It was thrown so straight in her direction that she knew who was meant,
but never turned to look.

In the crowded elevator, another dusty, toil-stained youth tried to
make an impression on her by leering in her face.

One young man, waiting on the walk outside for the appearance of
another, grinned at her as she passed.

“Ain’t going my way, are you?” he called jocosely.

Carrie turned her face to the west with a subdued heart. As she turned
the corner, she saw through the great shiny window the small desk at
which she had applied. There were the crowds, hurrying with the same
buzz and energy-yielding enthusiasm. She felt a slight relief, but it
was only at her escape. She felt ashamed in the face of better dressed
girls who went by. She felt as though she should be better served, and
her heart revolted.


Chapter V. A GLITTERING NIGHT FLOWER: THE USE OF A NAME

Drouet did not call that evening. After receiving the letter, he had
laid aside all thought of Carrie for the time being and was floating
around having what he considered a gay time. On this particular evening
he dined at “Rector’s,” a restaurant of some local fame, which occupied
a basement at Clark and Monroe Streets. There—after he visited the
resort of Fitzgerald and Moy’s in Adams Street, opposite the imposing
Federal Building. There he leaned over the splendid bar and swallowed a
glass of plain whiskey and purchased a couple of cigars, one of which
he lighted. This to him represented in part high life—a fair sample of
what the whole must be. Drouet was not a drinker in excess. He was not
a moneyed man. He only craved the best, as his mind conceived it, and
such doings seemed to him a part of the best. Rector’s, with its
polished marble walls and floor, its profusion of lights, its show of
china and silverware, and, above all, its reputation as a resort for
actors and professional men, seemed to him the proper place for a
successful man to go. He loved fine clothes, good eating, and
particularly the company and acquaintanceship of successful men. When
dining, it was a source of keen satisfaction to him to know that Joseph
Jefferson was wont to come to this same place, or that Henry E. Dixie,
a well-known performer of the day, was then only a few tables off. At
Rector’s he could always obtain this satisfaction, for there one could
encounter politicians, brokers, actors, some rich young “rounders” of
the town, all eating and drinking amid a buzz of popular commonplace
conversation.

“That’s So-and-so over there,” was a common remark of these gentlemen
among themselves, particularly among those who had not yet reached, but
hoped to do so, the dazzling height which money to dine here lavishly
represented.

“You don’t say so,” would be the reply.

“Why, yes, didn’t you know that? Why, he’s manager of the Grand Opera
House.”

When these things would fall upon Drouet’s ears, he would straighten
himself a little more stiffly and eat with solid comfort. If he had any
vanity, this augmented it, and if he had any ambition, this stirred it.
He would be able to flash a roll of greenbacks too some day. As it was,
he could eat where _they_ did.

His preference for Fitzgerald and Moy’s Adams Street place was another
yard off the same cloth. This was really a gorgeous saloon from a
Chicago standpoint. Like Rector’s, it was also ornamented with a blaze
of incandescent lights, held in handsome chandeliers. The floors were
of brightly coloured tiles, the walls a composition of rich, dark,
polished wood, which reflected the light, and coloured stucco-work,
which gave the place a very sumptuous appearance. The long bar was a
blaze of lights, polished woodwork, coloured and cut glassware, and
many fancy bottles. It was a truly swell saloon, with rich screens,
fancy wines, and a line of bar goods unsurpassed in the country.

At Rector’s, Drouet had met Mr. G. W. Hurstwood, manager of Fitzgerald
and Moy’s. He had been pointed out as a very successful and well-known
man about town. Hurstwood looked the part, for, besides being slightly
under forty, he had a good, stout constitution, an active manner, and a
solid, substantial air, which was composed in part of his fine clothes,
his clean linen, his jewels, and, above all, his own sense of his
importance. Drouet immediately conceived a notion of him as being some
one worth knowing, and was glad not only to meet him, but to visit the
Adams Street bar thereafter whenever he wanted a drink or a cigar.

Hurstwood was an interesting character after his kind. He was shrewd
and clever in many little things, and capable of creating a good
impression. His managerial position was fairly important—a kind of
stewardship which was imposing, but lacked financial control. He had
risen by perseverance and industry, through long years of service, from
the position of barkeeper in a commonplace saloon to his present
altitude. He had a little office in the place, set off in polished
cherry and grill-work, where he kept, in a roll-top desk, the rather
simple accounts of the place—supplies ordered and needed. The chief
executive and financial functions devolved upon the owners—Messrs.
Fitzgerald and Moy—and upon a cashier who looked after the money taken
in.

For the most part he lounged about, dressed in excellent tailored suits
of imported goods, a solitaire ring, a fine blue diamond in his tie, a
striking vest of some new pattern, and a watch-chain of solid gold,
which held a charm of rich design, and a watch of the latest make and
engraving. He knew by name, and could greet personally with a “Well,
old fellow,” hundreds of actors, merchants, politicians, and the
general run of successful characters about town, and it was part of his
success to do so. He had a finely graduated scale of informality and
friendship, which improved from the “How do you do?” addressed to the
fifteen-dollar-a-week clerks and office attaches, who, by long
frequenting of the place, became aware of his position, to the “Why,
old man, how are you?” which he addressed to those noted or rich
individuals who knew him and were inclined to be friendly. There was a
class, however, too rich, too famous, or too successful, with whom he
could not attempt any familiarity of address, and with these he was
professionally tactful, assuming a grave and dignified attitude, paying
them the deference which would win their good feeling without in the
least compromising his own bearing and opinions. There were, in the
last place, a few good followers, neither rich nor poor, famous, nor
yet remarkably successful, with whom he was friendly on the score of
good-fellowship. These were the kind of men with whom he would converse
longest and most seriously. He loved to go out and have a good time
once in a while—to go to the races, the theatres, the sporting
entertainments at some of the clubs. He kept a horse and neat trap, had
his wife and two children, who were well established in a neat house on
the North Side near Lincoln Park, and was altogether a very acceptable
individual of our great American upper class—the first grade below the
luxuriously rich.

Hurstwood liked Drouet. The latter’s genial nature and dressy
appearance pleased him. He knew that Drouet was only a travelling
salesman—and not one of many years at that—but the firm of Bartlett,
Caryoe & Company was a large and prosperous house, and Drouet stood
well. Hurstwood knew Caryoe quite well, having drunk a glass now and
then with him, in company with several others, when the conversation
was general. Drouet had what was a help in his business, a moderate
sense of humour, and could tell a good story when the occasion
required. He could talk races with Hurstwood, tell interesting
incidents concerning himself and his experiences with women, and report
the state of trade in the cities which he visited, and so managed to
make himself almost invariably agreeable. To-night he was particularly
so, since his report to the company had been favourably commented upon,
his new samples had been satisfactorily selected, and his trip marked
out for the next six weeks.

“Why, hello, Charlie, old man,” said Hurstwood, as Drouet came in that
evening about eight o’clock. “How goes it?” The room was crowded.

Drouet shook hands, beaming good nature, and they strolled towards the
bar.

“Oh, all right.”

“I haven’t seen you in six weeks. When did you get in?”

“Friday,” said Drouet. “Had a fine trip.”

“Glad of it,” said Hurstwood, his black eyes lit with a warmth which
half displaced the cold make-believe that usually dwelt in them. “What
are you going to take?” he added, as the barkeeper, in snowy jacket and
tie, leaned toward them from behind the bar.

“Old Pepper,” said Drouet.

“A little of the same for me,” put in Hurstwood.

“How long are you in town this time?” inquired Hurstwood.

“Only until Wednesday. I’m going up to St. Paul.”

“George Evans was in here Saturday and said he saw you in Milwaukee
last week.”

“Yes, I saw George,” returned Drouet. “Great old boy, isn’t he? We had
quite a time there together.”

The barkeeper was setting out the glasses and bottle before them, and
they now poured out the draught as they talked, Drouet filling his to
within a third of full, as was considered proper, and Hurstwood taking
the barest suggestion of whiskey and modifying it with seltzer.

“What’s become of Caryoe?” remarked Hurstwood. “I haven’t seen him
around here in two weeks.”

“Laid up, they say,” exclaimed Drouet. “Say, he’s a gouty old boy!”

“Made a lot of money in his time, though, hasn’t he?”

“Yes, wads of it,” returned Drouet. “He won’t live much longer. Barely
comes down to the office now.”

“Just one boy, hasn’t he?” asked Hurstwood.

“Yes, and a swift-pacer,” laughed Drouet.

“I guess he can’t hurt the business very much, though, with the other
members all there.”

“No, he can’t injure that any, I guess.”

Hurstwood was standing, his coat open, his thumbs in his pockets, the
light on his jewels and rings relieving them with agreeable
distinctness. He was the picture of fastidious comfort.

To one not inclined to drink, and gifted with a more serious turn of
mind, such a bubbling, chattering, glittering chamber must ever seem an
anomaly, a strange commentary on nature and life. Here come the moths,
in endless procession, to bask in the light of the flame. Such
conversation as one may hear would not warrant a commendation of the
scene upon intellectual grounds. It seems plain that schemers would
choose more sequestered quarters to arrange their plans, that
politicians would not gather here in company to discuss anything save
formalities, where the sharp-eared may hear, and it would scarcely be
justified on the score of thirst, for the majority of those who
frequent these more gorgeous places have no craving for liquor.
Nevertheless, the fact that here men gather, here chatter, here love to
pass and rub elbows, must be explained upon some grounds. It must be
that a strange bundle of passions and vague desires give rise to such a
curious social institution or it would not be.

Drouet, for one, was lured as much by his longing for pleasure as by
his desire to shine among his betters. The many friends he met here
dropped in because they craved, without, perhaps, consciously analysing
it, the company, the glow, the atmosphere which they found. One might
take it, after all, as an augur of the better social order, for the
things which they satisfied here, though sensory, were not evil. No
evil could come out of the contemplation of an expensively decorated
chamber. The worst effect of such a thing would be, perhaps, to stir up
in the material-minded an ambition to arrange their lives upon a
similarly splendid basis. In the last analysis, that would scarcely be
called the fault of the decorations, but rather of the innate trend of
the mind. That such a scene might stir the less expensively dressed to
emulate the more expensively dressed could scarcely be laid at the door
of anything save the false ambition of the minds of those so affected.
Remove the element so thoroughly and solely complained of—liquor—and
there would not be one to gainsay the qualities of beauty and
enthusiasm which would remain. The pleased eye with which our modern
restaurants of fashion are looked upon is proof of this assertion.

Yet, here is the fact of the lighted chamber, the dressy, greedy
company, the small, self-interested palaver, the disorganized, aimless,
wandering mental action which it represents—the love of light and show
and finery which, to one outside, under the serene light of the eternal
stars, must seem a strange and shiny thing. Under the stars and
sweeping night winds, what a lamp-flower it must bloom; a strange,
glittering night-flower, odour-yielding, insect-drawing,
insect-infested rose of pleasure.

“See that fellow coming in there?” said Hurstwood, glancing at a
gentleman just entering, arrayed in a high hat and Prince Albert coat,
his fat cheeks puffed and red as with good eating.

“No, where?” said Drouet.

“There,” said Hurstwood, indicating the direction by a cast of his eye,
“the man with the silk hat.”

“Oh, yes,” said Drouet, now affecting not to see. “Who is he?”

“That’s Jules Wallace, the spiritualist.”

Drouet followed him with his eyes, much interested.

“Doesn’t look much like a man who sees spirits, does he?” said Drouet.

“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Hurstwood. “He’s got the money, all
right,” and a little twinkle passed over his eyes.

“I don’t go much on those things, do you?” asked Drouet.

“Well, you never can tell,” said Hurstwood. “There may be something to
it. I wouldn’t bother about it myself, though. By the way,” he added,
“are you going anywhere to-night?”

“‘The Hole in the Ground,’” said Drouet, mentioning the popular farce
of the time.

“Well, you’d better be going. It’s half after eight already,” and he
drew out his watch.

The crowd was already thinning out considerably—some bound for the
theatres, some to their clubs, and some to that most fascinating of all
the pleasures—for the type of man there represented, at least—the
ladies.

“Yes, I will,” said Drouet.

“Come around after the show. I have something I want to show you,” said
Hurstwood.

“Sure,” said Drouet, elated.

“You haven’t anything on hand for the night, have you?” added
Hurstwood.

“Not a thing.”

“Well, come round, then.”

“I struck a little peach coming in on the train Friday,” remarked
Drouet, by way of parting. “By George, that’s so, I must go and call on
her before I go away.”

“Oh, never mind her,” Hurstwood remarked.

“Say, she was a little dandy, I tell you,” went on Drouet
confidentially, and trying to impress his friend.

“Twelve o’clock,” said Hurstwood.

“That’s right,” said Drouet, going out.

Thus was Carrie’s name bandied about in the most frivolous and gay of
places, and that also when the little toiler was bemoaning her narrow
lot, which was almost inseparable from the early stages of this, her
unfolding fate.


Chapter VI. THE MACHINE AND THE MAIDEN: A KNIGHT OF TO-DAY

At the flat that evening Carrie felt a new phase of its atmosphere. The
fact that it was unchanged, while her feelings were different,
increased her knowledge of its character. Minnie, after the good
spirits Carrie manifested at first, expected a fair report. Hanson
supposed that Carrie would be satisfied.

“Well,” he said, as he came in from the hall in his working clothes,
and looked at Carrie through the dining-room door, “how did you make
out?”

“Oh,” said Carrie, “it’s pretty hard. I don’t like it.”

There was an air about her which showed plainer than any words that she
was both weary and disappointed.

“What sort of work is it?” he asked, lingering a moment as he turned
upon his heel to go into the bathroom.

“Running a machine,” answered Carrie.

It was very evident that it did not concern him much, save from the
side of the flat’s success. He was irritated a shade because it could
not have come about in the throw of fortune for Carrie to be pleased.

Minnie worked with less elation than she had just before Carrie
arrived. The sizzle of the meat frying did not sound quite so pleasing
now that Carrie had reported her discontent. To Carrie, the one relief
of the whole day would have been a jolly home, a sympathetic reception,
a bright supper table, and some one to say: “Oh, well, stand it a
little while. You will get something better,” but now this was ashes.
She began to see that they looked upon her complaint as unwarranted,
and that she was supposed to work on and say nothing. She knew that she
was to pay four dollars for her board and room, and now she felt that
it would be an exceedingly gloomy round, living with these people.

Minnie was no companion for her sister—she was too old. Her thoughts
were staid and solemnly adapted to a condition. If Hanson had any
pleasant thoughts or happy feelings he concealed them. He seemed to do
all his mental operations without the aid of physical expression. He
was as still as a deserted chamber. Carrie, on the other hand, had the
blood of youth and some imagination. Her day of love and the mysteries
of courtship were still ahead. She could think of things she would like
to do, of clothes she would like to wear, and of places she would like
to visit. These were the things upon which her mind ran, and it was
like meeting with opposition at every turn to find no one here to call
forth or respond to her feelings.

She had forgotten, in considering and explaining the result of her day,
that Drouet might come. Now, when she saw how unreceptive these two
people were, she hoped he would not. She did not know exactly what she
would do or how she would explain to Drouet, if he came. After supper
she changed her clothes. When she was trimly dressed she was rather a
sweet little being, with large eyes and a sad mouth. Her face expressed
the mingled expectancy, dissatisfaction, and depression she felt. She
wandered about after the dishes were put away, talked a little with
Minnie, and then decided to go down and stand in the door at the foot
of the stairs. If Drouet came, she could meet him there. Her face took
on the semblance of a look of happiness as she put on her hat to go
below.

“Carrie doesn’t seem to like her place very well,” said Minnie to her
husband when the latter came out, paper in hand, to sit in the
dining-room a few minutes.

“She ought to keep it for a time, anyhow,” said Hanson. “Has she gone
downstairs?”

“Yes,” said Minnie.

“I’d tell her to keep it if I were you. She might be here weeks without
getting another one.”

Minnie said she would, and Hanson read his paper.

“If I were you,” he said a little later, “I wouldn’t let her stand in
the door down there. It don’t look good.”

“I’ll tell her,” said Minnie.

The life of the streets continued for a long time to interest Carrie.
She never wearied of wondering where the people in the cars were going
or what their enjoyments were. Her imagination trod a very narrow
round, always winding up at points which concerned money, looks,
clothes, or enjoyment. She would have a far-off thought of Columbia
City now and then, or an irritating rush of feeling concerning her
experiences of the present day, but, on the whole, the little world
about her enlisted her whole attention.

The first floor of the building, of which Hanson’s flat was the third,
was occupied by a bakery, and to this, while she was standing there,
Hanson came down to buy a loaf of bread. She was not aware of his
presence until he was quite near her.

“I’m after bread,” was all he said as he passed.

The contagion of thought here demonstrated itself. While Hanson really
came for bread, the thought dwelt with him that now he would see what
Carrie was doing. No sooner did he draw near her with that in mind than
she felt it. Of course, she had no understanding of what put it into
her head, but, nevertheless, it aroused in her the first shade of real
antipathy to him. She knew now that she did not like him. He was
suspicious.

A thought will colour a world for us. The flow of Carrie’s meditations
had been disturbed, and Hanson had not long gone upstairs before she
followed. She had realised with the lapse of the quarter hours that
Drouet was not coming, and somehow she felt a little resentful, a
little as if she had been forsaken—was not good enough. She went
upstairs, where everything was silent. Minnie was sewing by a lamp at
the table. Hanson had already turned in for the night. In her weariness
and disappointment Carrie did no more than announce that she was going
to bed.

“Yes, you’d better,” returned Minnie. “You’ve got to get up early, you
know.”

The morning was no better. Hanson was just going out the door as Carrie
came from her room. Minnie tried to talk with her during breakfast, but
there was not much of interest which they could mutually discuss. As on
the previous morning, Carrie walked down town, for she began to realise
now that her four-fifty would not even allow her car fare after she
paid her board. This seemed a miserable arrangement. But the morning
light swept away the first misgivings of the day, as morning light is
ever wont to do.

At the shoe factory she put in a long day, scarcely so wearisome as the
preceding, but considerably less novel. The head foreman, on his round,
stopped by her machine.

“Where did you come from?” he inquired.

“Mr. Brown hired me,” she replied.

“Oh, he did, eh!” and then, “See that you keep things going.”

The machine girls impressed her even less favourably. They seemed
satisfied with their lot, and were in a sense “common.” Carrie had more
imagination than they. She was not used to slang. Her instinct in the
matter of dress was naturally better. She disliked to listen to the
girl next to her, who was rather hardened by experience.

“I’m going to quit this,” she heard her remark to her neighbour. “What
with the stipend and being up late, it’s too much for me health.”

They were free with the fellows, young and old, about the place, and
exchanged banter in rude phrases, which at first shocked her. She saw
that she was taken to be of the same sort and addressed accordingly.

“Hello,” remarked one of the stout-wristed sole-workers to her at noon.
“You’re a daisy.” He really expected to hear the common “Aw! go chase
yourself!” in return, and was sufficiently abashed, by Carrie’s
silently moving away, to retreat, awkwardly grinning.

That night at the flat she was even more lonely—the dull situation was
becoming harder to endure. She could see that the Hansons seldom or
never had any company. Standing at the street door looking out, she
ventured to walk out a little way. Her easy gait and idle manner
attracted attention of an offensive but common sort. She was slightly
taken back at the overtures of a well-dressed man of thirty, who in
passing looked at her, reduced his pace, turned back, and said:

“Out for a little stroll, are you, this evening?”

Carrie looked at him in amazement, and then summoned sufficient thought
to reply: “Why, I don’t know you,” backing away as she did so.

“Oh, that don’t matter,” said the other affably.

She bandied no more words with him, but hurried away, reaching her own
door quite out of breath. There was something in the man’s look which
frightened her.

During the remainder of the week it was very much the same. One or two
nights she found herself too tired to walk home, and expended car fare.
She was not very strong, and sitting all day affected her back. She
went to bed one night before Hanson.

Transplantation is not always successful in the matter of flowers or
maidens. It requires sometimes a richer soil, a better atmosphere to
continue even a natural growth. It would have been better if her
acclimatization had been more gradual—less rigid. She would have done
better if she had not secured a position so quickly, and had seen more
of the city which she constantly troubled to know about.

On the first morning it rained she found that she had no umbrella.
Minnie loaned her one of hers, which was worn and faded. There was the
kind of vanity in Carrie that troubled at this. She went to one of the
great department stores and bought herself one, using a dollar and a
quarter of her small store to pay for it.

“What did you do that for, Carrie?” asked Minnie when she saw it.

“Oh, I need one,” said Carrie.

“You foolish girl.”

Carrie resented this, though she did not reply. She was not going to be
a common shop-girl, she thought; they need not think it, either.

On the first Saturday night Carrie paid her board, four dollars. Minnie
had a quaver of conscience as she took it, but did not know how to
explain to Hanson if she took less. That worthy gave up just four
dollars less toward the household expenses with a smile of
satisfaction. He contemplated increasing his Building and Loan
payments. As for Carrie, she studied over the problem of finding
clothes and amusement on fifty cents a week. She brooded over this
until she was in a state of mental rebellion.

“I’m going up the street for a walk,” she said after supper.

“Not alone, are you?” asked Hanson.

“Yes,” returned Carrie.

“I wouldn’t,” said Minnie.

“I want to see _something_,” said Carrie, and by the tone she put into
the last word they realised for the first time she was not pleased with
them.

“What’s the matter with her?” asked Hanson, when she went into the
front room to get her hat.

“I don’t know,” said Minnie.

“Well, she ought to know better than to want to go out alone.”

Carrie did not go very far, after all. She returned and stood in the
door. The next day they went out to Garfield Park, but it did not
please her. She did not look well enough. In the shop next day she
heard the highly coloured reports which girls give of their trivial
amusements. They had been happy. On several days it rained and she used
up car fare. One night she got thoroughly soaked, going to catch the
car at Van Buren Street. All that evening she sat alone in the front
room looking out upon the street, where the lights were reflected on
the wet pavements, thinking. She had imagination enough to be moody.

On Saturday she paid another four dollars and pocketed her fifty cents
in despair. The speaking acquaintanceship which she formed with some of
the girls at the shop discovered to her the fact that they had more of
their earnings to use for themselves than she did. They had young men
of the kind whom she, since her experience with Drouet, felt above, who
took them about. She came to thoroughly dislike the light-headed young
fellows of the shop. Not one of them had a show of refinement. She saw
only their workday side.

There came a day when the first premonitory blast of winter swept over
the city. It scudded the fleecy clouds in the heavens, trailed long,
thin streamers of smoke from the tall stacks, and raced about the
streets and corners in sharp and sudden puffs. Carrie now felt the
problem of winter clothes. What was she to do? She had no winter
jacket, no hat, no shoes. It was difficult to speak to Minnie about
this, but at last she summoned the courage.

“I don’t know what I’m going to do about clothes,” she said one evening
when they were together. “I need a hat.”

Minnie looked serious.

“Why don’t you keep part of your money and buy yourself one?” she
suggested, worried over the situation which the withholding of Carrie’s
money would create.

“I’d like to for a week or so, if you don’t mind,” ventured Carrie.

“Could you pay two dollars?” asked Minnie.

Carrie readily acquiesced, glad to escape the trying situation, and
liberal now that she saw a way out. She was elated and began figuring
at once. She needed a hat first of all. How Minnie explained to Hanson
she never knew. He said nothing at all, but there were thoughts in the
air which left disagreeable impressions.

The new arrangement might have worked if sickness had not intervened.
It blew up cold after a rain one afternoon when Carrie was still
without a jacket. She came out of the warm shop at six and shivered as
the wind struck her. In the morning she was sneezing, and going down
town made it worse. That day her bones ached and she felt light-headed.
Towards evening she felt very ill, and when she reached home was not
hungry. Minnie noticed her drooping actions and asked her about
herself.

“I don’t know,” said Carrie. “I feel real bad.”

She hung about the stove, suffered a chattering chill, and went to bed
sick. The next morning she was thoroughly feverish.

Minnie was truly distressed at this, but maintained a kindly demeanour.
Hanson said perhaps she had better go back home for a while. When she
got up after three days, it was taken for granted that her position was
lost. The winter was near at hand, she had no clothes, and now she was
out of work.

“I don’t know,” said Carrie; “I’ll go down Monday and see if I can’t
get something.”

If anything, her efforts were more poorly rewarded on this trial than
the last. Her clothes were nothing suitable for fall wearing. Her last
money she had spent for a hat. For three days she wandered about,
utterly dispirited. The attitude of the flat was fast becoming
unbearable. She hated to think of going back there each evening. Hanson
was so cold. She knew it could not last much longer. Shortly she would
have to give up and go home.

On the fourth day she was down town all day, having borrowed ten cents
for lunch from Minnie. She had applied in the cheapest kind of places
without success. She even answered for a waitress in a small restaurant
where she saw a card in the window, but they wanted an experienced
girl. She moved through the thick throng of strangers, utterly subdued
in spirit. Suddenly a hand pulled her arm and turned her about.

“Well, well!” said a voice. In the first glance she beheld Drouet. He
was not only rosy-cheeked, but radiant. He was the essence of sunshine
and good-humour. “Why, how are you, Carrie?” he said. “You’re a daisy.
Where have you been?”

Carrie smiled under his irresistible flood of geniality.

“I’ve been out home,” she said.

“Well,” he said, “I saw you across the street there. I thought it was
you. I was just coming out to your place. How are you, anyhow?”

“I’m all right,” said Carrie, smiling.

Drouet looked her over and saw something different.

“Well,” he said, “I want to talk to you. You’re not going anywhere in
particular, are you?”

“Not just now,” said Carrie.

“Let’s go up here and have something to eat. George! but I’m glad to
see you again.”

She felt so relieved in his radiant presence, so much looked after and
cared for, that she assented gladly, though with the slightest air of
holding back.

“Well,” he said, as he took her arm—and there was an exuberance of
good-fellowship in the word which fairly warmed the cockles of her
heart.

They went through Monroe Street to the old Windsor dining-room, which
was then a large, comfortable place, with an excellent cuisine and
substantial service. Drouet selected a table close by the window, where
the busy rout of the street could be seen. He loved the changing
panorama of the street—to see and be seen as he dined.

“Now,” he said, getting Carrie and himself comfortably settled, “what
will you have?”

Carrie looked over the large bill of fare which the waiter handed her
without really considering it. She was very hungry, and the things she
saw there awakened her desires, but the high prices held her attention.
“Half broiled spring chicken—seventy-five. Sirloin steak with
mushrooms—one twenty-five.” She had dimly heard of these things, but it
seemed strange to be called to order from the list.

“I’ll fix this,” exclaimed Drouet. “Sst! waiter.”

That officer of the board, a full-chested, round-faced negro,
approached, and inclined his ear.

“Sirloin with mushrooms,” said Drouet. “Stuffed tomatoes.”

“Yassah,” assented the negro, nodding his head.

“Hashed brown potatoes.”

“Yassah.”

“Asparagus.”

“Yassah.”

“And a pot of coffee.”

Drouet turned to Carrie. “I haven’t had a thing since breakfast. Just
got in from Rock Island. I was going off to dine when I saw you.”

Carrie smiled and smiled.

“What have you been doing?” he went on. “Tell me all about yourself.
How is your sister?”

“She’s well,” returned Carrie, answering the last query.

He looked at her hard.

“Say,” he said, “you haven’t been sick, have you?”

Carrie nodded.

“Well, now, that’s a blooming shame, isn’t it? You don’t look very
well. I thought you looked a little pale. What have you been doing?”

“Working,” said Carrie.

“You don’t say so! At what?”

She told him.

“Rhodes, Morgenthau and Scott—why, I know that house over here on Fifth
Avenue, isn’t it? They’re a close-fisted concern. What made you go
there?”

“I couldn’t get anything else,” said Carrie frankly.

“Well, that’s an outrage,” said Drouet. “You oughtn’t to be working for
those people. Have the factory right back of the store, don’t they?”

“Yes,” said Carrie.

“That isn’t a good house,” said Drouet. “You don’t want to work at
anything like that, anyhow.”

He chatted on at a great rate, asking questions, explaining things
about himself, telling her what a good restaurant it was, until the
waiter returned with an immense tray, bearing the hot savoury dishes
which had been ordered. Drouet fairly shone in the matter of serving.
He appeared to great advantage behind the white napery and silver
platters of the table and displaying his arms with a knife and fork. As
he cut the meat his rings almost spoke. His new suit creaked as he
stretched to reach the plates, break the bread, and pour the coffee. He
helped Carrie to a rousing plateful and contributed the warmth of his
spirit to her body until she was a new girl. He was a splendid fellow
in the true popular understanding of the term, and captivated Carrie
completely.

That little soldier of fortune took her good turn in an easy way. She
felt a little out of place, but the great room soothed her and the view
of the well-dressed throng outside seemed a splendid thing. Ah, what
was it not to have money! What a thing it was to be able to come in
here and dine! Drouet must be fortunate. He rode on trains, dressed in
such nice clothes, was so strong, and ate in these fine places. He
seemed quite a figure of a man, and she wondered at his friendship and
regard for her.

“So you lost your place because you got sick, eh?” he said. “What are
you going to do now?”

“Look around,” she said, a thought of the need that hung outside this
fine restaurant like a hungry dog at her heels passing into her eyes.

“Oh, no,” said Drouet, “that won’t do. How long have you been looking?”

“Four days,” she answered.

“Think of that!” he said, addressing some problematical individual.
“You oughtn’t to be doing anything like that. These girls,” and he
waved an inclusion of all shop and factory girls, “don’t get anything.
Why, you can’t live on it, can you?”

He was a brotherly sort of creature in his demeanour. When he had
scouted the idea of that kind of toil, he took another tack. Carrie was
really very pretty. Even then, in her commonplace garb, her figure was
evidently not bad, and her eyes were large and gentle. Drouet looked at
her and his thoughts reached home. She felt his admiration. It was
powerfully backed by his liberality and good-humour. She felt that she
liked him—that she could continue to like him ever so much. There was
something even richer than that, running as a hidden strain, in her
mind. Every little while her eyes would meet his, and by that means the
interchanging current of feeling would be fully connected.

“Why don’t you stay down town and go to the theatre with me?” he said,
hitching his chair closer. The table was not very wide.

“Oh, I can’t,” she said.

“What are you going to do to-night?”

“Nothing,” she answered, a little drearily.

“You don’t like out there where you are, do you?”

“Oh, I don’t know.”

“What are you going to do if you don’t get work?”

“Go back home, I guess.”

There was the least quaver in her voice as she said this. Somehow, the
influence he was exerting was powerful. They came to an understanding
of each other without words—he of her situation, she of the fact that
he realised it. “No,” he said, “you can’t make it!” genuine sympathy
filling his mind for the time. “Let me help you. You take some of my
money.”

“Oh, no!” she said, leaning back.

“What are you going to do?” he said.

She sat meditating, merely shaking her head.

He looked at her quite tenderly for his kind. There were some loose
bills in his vest pocket—greenbacks. They were soft and noiseless, and
he got his fingers about them and crumpled them up in his hand.

“Come on,” he said, “I’ll see you through all right. Get yourself some
clothes.”

It was the first reference he had made to that subject, and now she
realised how bad off she was. In his crude way he had struck the
key-note. Her lips trembled a little.

She had her hand out on the table before her. They were quite alone in
their corner, and he put his larger, warmer hand over it.

“Aw, come, Carrie,” he said, “what can you do alone? Let me help you.”

He pressed her hand gently and she tried to withdraw it. At this he
held it fast, and she no longer protested. Then he slipped the
greenbacks he had into her palm, and when she began to protest, he
whispered:

“I’ll loan it to you—that’s all right. I’ll loan it to you.”

He made her take it. She felt bound to him by a strange tie of
affection now. They went out, and he walked with her far out south
toward Polk Street, talking.

“You don’t want to live with those people?” he said in one place,
abstractedly. Carrie heard it, but it made only a slight impression.

“Come down and meet me to-morrow,” he said, “and we’ll go to the
matinée. Will you?”

Carrie protested a while, but acquiesced.

“You’re not doing anything. Get yourself a nice pair of shoes and a
jacket.”

She scarcely gave a thought to the complication which would trouble her
when he was gone. In his presence, she was of his own hopeful,
easy-way-out mood.

“Don’t you bother about those people out there,” he said at parting.
“I’ll help you.”

Carrie left him, feeling as though a great arm had slipped out before
her to draw off trouble. The money she had accepted was two soft,
green, handsome ten-dollar bills.


Chapter VII. THE LURE OF THE MATERIAL: BEAUTY SPEAKS FOR ITSELF

The true meaning of money yet remains to be popularly explained and
comprehended. When each individual realises for himself that this thing
primarily stands for and should only be accepted as a moral due—that it
should be paid out as honestly stored energy, and not as a usurped
privilege—many of our social, religious, and political troubles will
have permanently passed. As for Carrie, her understanding of the moral
significance of money was the popular understanding, nothing more. The
old definition: “Money: something everybody else has and I must get,”
would have expressed her understanding of it thoroughly. Some of it she
now held in her hand—two soft, green ten-dollar bills—and she felt that
she was immensely better off for the having of them. It was something
that was power in itself. One of her order of mind would have been
content to be cast away upon a desert island with a bundle of money,
and only the long strain of starvation would have taught her that in
some cases it could have no value. Even then she would have had no
conception of the relative value of the thing; her one thought would,
undoubtedly, have concerned the pity of having so much power and the
inability to use it.

The poor girl thrilled as she walked away from Drouet. She felt ashamed
in part because she had been weak enough to take it, but her need was
so dire, she was still glad. Now she would have a nice new jacket! Now
she would buy a nice pair of pretty button shoes. She would get
stockings, too, and a skirt, and, and—until already, as in the matter
of her prospective salary, she had got beyond, in her desires, twice
the purchasing power of her bills.

She conceived a true estimate of Drouet. To her, and indeed to all the
world, he was a nice, good-hearted man. There was nothing evil in the
fellow. He gave her the money out of a good heart—out of a realisation
of her want. He would not have given the same amount to a poor young
man, but we must not forget that a poor young man could not, in the
nature of things, have appealed to him like a poor young girl.
Femininity affected his feelings. He was the creature of an inborn
desire. Yet no beggar could have caught his eye and said, “My God,
mister, I’m starving,” but he would gladly have handed out what was
considered the proper portion to give beggars and thought no more about
it. There would have been no speculation, no philosophising. He had no
mental process in him worthy the dignity of either of those terms. In
his good clothes and fine health, he was a merry, unthinking moth of
the lamp. Deprived of his position, and struck by a few of the involved
and baffling forces which sometimes play upon man, he would have been
as helpless as Carrie—as helpless, as non-understanding, as pitiable,
if you will, as she.

Now, in regard to his pursuit of women, he meant them no harm, because
he did not conceive of the relation which he hoped to hold with them as
being harmful. He loved to make advances to women, to have them succumb
to his charms, not because he was a cold-blooded, dark, scheming
villain, but because his inborn desire urged him to that as a chief
delight. He was vain, he was boastful, he was as deluded by fine
clothes as any silly-headed girl. A truly deep-dyed villain could have
hornswaggled him as readily as he could have flattered a pretty
shop-girl. His fine success as a salesman lay in his geniality and the
thoroughly reputable standing of his house. He bobbed about among men,
a veritable bundle of enthusiasm—no power worthy the name of intellect,
no thoughts worthy the adjective noble, no feelings long continued in
one strain. A Madame Sappho would have called him a pig; a Shakespeare
would have said “my merry child”; old, drinking Caryoe thought him a
clever, successful businessman. In short, he was as good as his
intellect conceived.

The best proof that there was something open and commendable about the
man was the fact that Carrie took the money. No deep, sinister soul
with ulterior motives could have given her fifteen cents under the
guise of friendship. The unintellectual are not so helpless. Nature has
taught the beasts of the field to fly when some unheralded danger
threatens. She has put into the small, unwise head of the chipmunk the
untutored fear of poisons. “He keepeth His creatures whole,” was not
written of beasts alone. Carrie was unwise, and, therefore, like the
sheep in its unwisdom, strong in feeling. The instinct of
self-protection, strong in all such natures, was roused but feebly, if
at all, by the overtures of Drouet.

When Carrie had gone, he felicitated himself upon her good opinion. By
George, it was a shame young girls had to be knocked around like that.
Cold weather coming on and no clothes. Tough. He would go around to
Fitzgerald and Moy’s and get a cigar. It made him feel light of foot as
he thought about her.

Carrie reached home in high good spirits, which she could scarcely
conceal. The possession of the money involved a number of points which
perplexed her seriously. How should she buy any clothes when Minnie
knew that she had no money? She had no sooner entered the flat than
this point was settled for her. It could not be done. She could think
of no way of explaining.

“How did you come out?” asked Minnie, referring to the day.

Carrie had none of the small deception which could feel one thing and
say something directly opposed. She would prevaricate, but it would be
in the line of her feelings at least. So instead of complaining when
she felt so good, she said:

“I have the promise of something.”

“Where?”

“At the Boston Store.”

“Is it sure promised?” questioned Minnie.

“Well, I’m to find out to-morrow,” returned Carrie disliking to draw
out a lie any longer than was necessary.

Minnie felt the atmosphere of good feeling which Carrie brought with
her. She felt now was the time to express to Carrie the state of
Hanson’s feeling about her entire Chicago venture.

“If you shouldn’t get it—” she paused, troubled for an easy way.

“If I don’t get something pretty soon, I think I’ll go home.”

Minnie saw her chance.

“Sven thinks it might be best for the winter, anyhow.”

The situation flashed on Carrie at once. They were unwilling to keep
her any longer, out of work. She did not blame Minnie, she did not
blame Hanson very much. Now, as she sat there digesting the remark, she
was glad she had Drouet’s money. “Yes,” she said after a few moments,
“I thought of doing that.”

She did not explain that the thought, however, had aroused all the
antagonism of her nature. Columbia City, what was there for her? She
knew its dull, little round by heart. Here was the great, mysterious
city which was still a magnet for her. What she had seen only suggested
its possibilities. Now to turn back on it and live the little old life
out there—she almost exclaimed against the thought.

She had reached home early and went in the front room to think. What
could she do? She could not buy new shoes and wear them here. She would
need to save part of the twenty to pay her fare home. She did not want
to borrow of Minnie for that. And yet, how could she explain where she
even got that money? If she could only get enough to let her out easy.

She went over the tangle again and again. Here, in the morning, Drouet
would expect to see her in a new jacket, and that couldn’t be. The
Hansons expected her to go home, and she wanted to get away, and yet
she did not want to go home. In the light of the way they would look on
her getting money without work, the taking of it now seemed dreadful.
She began to be ashamed. The whole situation depressed her. It was all
so clear when she was with Drouet. Now it was all so tangled, so
hopeless—much worse than it was before, because she had the semblance
of aid in her hand which she could not use.

Her spirits sank so that at supper Minnie felt that she must have had
another hard day. Carrie finally decided that she would give the money
back. It was wrong to take it. She would go down in the morning and
hunt for work. At noon she would meet Drouet as agreed and tell him. At
this decision her heart sank, until she was the old Carrie of distress.

Curiously, she could not hold the money in her hand without feeling
some relief. Even after all her depressing conclusions, she could sweep
away all thought about the matter and then the twenty dollars seemed a
wonderful and delightful thing. Ah, money, money, money! What a thing
it was to have. How plenty of it would clear away all these troubles.

In the morning she got up and started out a little early. Her decision
to hunt for work was moderately strong, but the money in her pocket,
after all her troubling over it, made the work question the least shade
less terrible. She walked into the wholesale district, but as the
thought of applying came with each passing concern, her heart shrank.
What a coward she was, she thought to herself. Yet she had applied so
often. It would be the same old story. She walked on and on, and
finally did go into one place, with the old result. She came out
feeling that luck was against her. It was no use.

Without much thinking, she reached Dearborn Street. Here was the great
Fair store with its multitude of delivery wagons about its long window
display, its crowd of shoppers. It readily changed her thoughts, she
who was so weary of them. It was here that she had intended to come and
get her new things. Now for relief from distress; she thought she would
go in and see. She would look at the jackets.

There is nothing in this world more delightful than that middle state
in which we mentally balance at times, possessed of the means, lured by
desire, and yet deterred by conscience or want of decision. When Carrie
began wandering around the store amid the fine displays she was in this
mood. Her original experience in this same place had given her a high
opinion of its merits. Now she paused at each individual bit of finery,
where before she had hurried on. Her woman’s heart was warm with desire
for them. How would she look in this, how charming that would make her!
She came upon the corset counter and paused in rich reverie as she
noted the dainty concoctions of colour and lace there displayed. If she
would only make up her mind, she could have one of those now. She
lingered in the jewelry department. She saw the earrings, the
bracelets, the pins, the chains. What would she not have given if she
could have had them all! She would look fine too, if only she had some
of these things.

The jackets were the greatest attraction. When she entered the store,
she already had her heart fixed upon the peculiar little tan jacket
with large mother-of-pearl buttons which was all the rage that fall.
Still she delighted to convince herself that there was nothing she
would like better. She went about among the glass cases and racks where
these things were displayed, and satisfied herself that the one she
thought of was the proper one. All the time she wavered in mind, now
persuading herself that she could buy it right away if she chose, now
recalling to herself the actual condition. At last the noon hour was
dangerously near, and she had done nothing. She must go now and return
the money.

Drouet was on the corner when she came up.

“Hello,” he said, “where is the jacket and”—looking down—“the shoes?”

Carrie had thought to lead up to her decision in some intelligent way,
but this swept the whole fore-schemed situation by the board.

“I came to tell you that—that I can’t take the money.”

“Oh, that’s it, is it?” he returned. “Well, you come on with me. Let’s
go over here to Partridge’s.”

Carrie walked with him. Behold, the whole fabric of doubt and
impossibility had slipped from her mind. She could not get at the
points that were so serious, the things she was going to make plain to
him.

“Have you had lunch yet? Of course you haven’t. Let’s go in here,” and
Drouet turned into one of the very nicely furnished restaurants off
State Street, in Monroe.

“I mustn’t take the money,” said Carrie, after they were settled in a
cosey corner, and Drouet had ordered the lunch. “I can’t wear those
things out there. They—they wouldn’t know where I got them.”

“What do you want to do,” he smiled, “go without them?”

“I think I’ll go home,” she said, wearily.

“Oh, come,” he said, “you’ve been thinking it over too long. I’ll tell
you what you do. You say you can’t wear them out there. Why don’t you
rent a furnished room and leave them in that for a week?”

Carrie shook her head. Like all women, she was there to object and be
convinced. It was for him to brush the doubts away and clear the path
if he could. “Why are you going home?” he asked.

“Oh, I can’t get anything here.”

“They won’t keep you?” he remarked, intuitively.

“They can’t,” said Carrie.

“I’ll tell you what you do,” he said. “You come with me. I’ll take care
of you.”

Carrie heard this passively. The peculiar state which she was in made
it sound like the welcome breath of an open door. Drouet seemed of her
own spirit and pleasing. He was clean, handsome, well-dressed, and
sympathetic. His voice was the voice of a friend.

“What can you do back at Columbia City?” he went on, rousing by the
words in Carrie’s mind a picture of the dull world she had left. “There
isn’t anything down there. Chicago’s the place. You can get a nice room
here and some clothes, and then you can do something.”

Carrie looked out through the window into the busy street. There it
was, the admirable, great city, so fine when you are not poor. An
elegant coach, with a prancing pair of bays, passed by, carrying in its
upholstered depths a young lady.

“What will you have if you go back?” asked Drouet. There was no subtle
undercurrent to the question. He imagined that she would have nothing
at all of the things he thought worth while.

Carrie sat still, looking out. She was wondering what she could do.
They would be expecting her to go home this week.

Drouet turned to the subject of the clothes she was going to buy.

“Why not get yourself a nice little jacket? You’ve got to have it. I’ll
loan you the money. You needn’t worry about taking it. You can get
yourself a nice room by yourself. I won’t hurt you.”

Carrie saw the drift, but could not express her thoughts. She felt more
than ever the helplessness of her case.

“If I could only get something to do,” she said.

“Maybe you can,” went on Drouet, “if you stay here. You can’t if you go
away. They won’t let you stay out there. Now, why not let me get you a
nice room? I won’t bother you—you needn’t be afraid. Then, when you get
fixed up, maybe you could get something.”

He looked at her pretty face and it vivified his mental resources. She
was a sweet little mortal to him—there was no doubt of that. She seemed
to have some power back of her actions. She was not like the common run
of store-girls. She wasn’t silly.

In reality, Carrie had more imagination than he—more taste. It was a
finer mental strain in her that made possible her depression and
loneliness. Her poor clothes were neat, and she held her head
unconsciously in a dainty way.

“Do you think I could get something?” she asked.

“Sure,” he said, reaching over and filling her cup with tea. “I’ll help
you.”

She looked at him, and he laughed reassuringly.

“Now I’ll tell you what we’ll do. We’ll go over here to Partridge’s and
you pick out what you want. Then we’ll look around for a room for you.
You can leave the things there. Then we’ll go to the show to-night.”

Carrie shook her head.

“Well, you can go out to the flat then, that’s all right. You don’t
need to stay in the room. Just take it and leave your things there.”

She hung in doubt about this until the dinner was over.

“Let’s go over and look at the jackets,” he said.

Together they went. In the store they found that shine and rustle of
new things which immediately laid hold of Carrie’s heart. Under the
influence of a good dinner and Drouet’s radiating presence, the scheme
proposed seemed feasible. She looked about and picked a jacket like the
one which she had admired at The Fair. When she got it in her hand it
seemed so much nicer. The saleswoman helped her on with it, and, by
accident, it fitted perfectly. Drouet’s face lightened as he saw the
improvement. She looked quite smart.

“That’s the thing,” he said.

Carrie turned before the glass. She could not help feeling pleased as
she looked at herself. A warm glow crept into her cheeks.

“That’s the thing,” said Drouet. “Now pay for it.”

“It’s nine dollars,” said Carrie.

“That’s all right—take it,” said Drouet.

She reached in her purse and took out one of the bills. The woman asked
if she would wear the coat and went off. In a few minutes she was back
and the purchase was closed.

From Partridge’s they went to a shoe store, where Carrie was fitted for
shoes. Drouet stood by, and when he saw how nice they looked, said,
“Wear them.” Carrie shook her head, however. She was thinking of
returning to the flat. He bought her a purse for one thing, and a pair
of gloves for another, and let her buy the stockings.

“To-morrow,” he said, “you come down here and buy yourself a skirt.”

In all of Carrie’s actions there was a touch of misgiving. The deeper
she sank into the entanglement, the more she imagined that the thing
hung upon the few remaining things she had not done. Since she had not
done these, there was a way out.

Drouet knew a place in Wabash Avenue where there were rooms. He showed
Carrie the outside of these, and said: “Now, you’re my sister.” He
carried the arrangement off with an easy hand when it came to the
selection, looking around, criticising, opining. “Her trunk will be
here in a day or so,” he observed to the landlady, who was very
pleased.

When they were alone, Drouet did not change in the least. He talked in
the same general way as if they were out in the street. Carrie left her
things.

“Now,” said Drouet, “why don’t you move to-night?”

“Oh, I can’t,” said Carrie.

“Why not?”

“I don’t want to leave them so.”

He took that up as they walked along the avenue. It was a warm
afternoon. The sun had come out and the wind had died down. As he
talked with Carrie, he secured an accurate detail of the atmosphere of
the flat.

“Come out of it,” he said, “they won’t care. I’ll help you get along.”

She listened until her misgivings vanished. He would show her about a
little and then help her get something. He really imagined that he
would. He would be out on the road and she could be working.

“Now, I’ll tell you what you do,” he said, “you go out there and get
whatever you want and come away.”

She thought a long time about this. Finally she agreed. He would come
out as far as Peoria Street and wait for her. She was to meet him at
half-past eight. At half-past five she reached home, and at six her
determination was hardened.

“So you didn’t get it?” said Minnie, referring to Carrie’s story of the
Boston Store.

Carrie looked at her out of the corner of her eye. “No,” she answered.

“I don’t think you’d better try any more this fall,” said Minnie.

Carrie said nothing.

When Hanson came home he wore the same inscrutable demeanour. He washed
in silence and went off to read his paper. At dinner Carrie felt a
little nervous. The strain of her own plans were considerable, and the
feeling that she was not welcome here was strong.

“Didn’t find anything, eh?” said Hanson.

“No.”

He turned to his eating again, the thought that it was a burden to have
her here dwelling in his mind. She would have to go home, that was all.
Once she was away, there would be no more coming back in the spring.

Carrie was afraid of what she was going to do, but she was relieved to
know that this condition was ending. They would not care. Hanson
particularly would be glad when she went. He would not care what became
of her.

After dinner she went into the bathroom, where they could not disturb
her, and wrote a little note.

“Good-bye, Minnie,” it read. “I’m not going home. I’m going to stay in
Chicago a little while and look for work. Don’t worry. I’ll be all
right.”

In the front room Hanson was reading his paper. As usual, she helped
Minnie clear away the dishes and straighten up. Then she said:

“I guess I’ll stand down at the door a little while.” She could
scarcely prevent her voice from trembling.

Minnie remembered Hanson’s remonstrance.

“Sven doesn’t think it looks good to stand down there,” she said.

“Doesn’t he?” said Carrie. “I won’t do it any more after this.”

She put on her hat and fidgeted around the table in the little bedroom,
wondering where to slip the note. Finally she put it under Minnie’s
hair-brush.

When she had closed the hall-door, she paused a moment and wondered
what they would think. Some thought of the queerness of her deed
affected her. She went slowly down the stairs. She looked back up the
lighted step, and then affected to stroll up the street. When she
reached the corner she quickened her pace.

As she was hurrying away, Hanson came back to his wife.

“Is Carrie down at the door again?” he asked.

“Yes,” said Minnie; “she said she wasn’t going to do it any more.”

He went over to the baby where it was playing on the floor and began to
poke his finger at it.

Drouet was on the corner waiting, in good spirits.

“Hello, Carrie,” he said, as a sprightly figure of a girl drew near
him. “Got here safe, did you? Well, we’ll take a car.”


Chapter VIII. INTIMATIONS BY WINTER: AN AMBASSADOR SUMMONED

Among the forces which sweep and play throughout the universe,
untutored man is but a wisp in the wind. Our civilisation is still in a
middle stage, scarcely beast, in that it is no longer wholly guided by
instinct; scarcely human, in that it is not yet wholly guided by
reason. On the tiger no responsibility rests. We see him aligned by
nature with the forces of life—he is born into their keeping and
without thought he is protected. We see man far removed from the lairs
of the jungles, his innate instincts dulled by too near an approach to
free-will, his free-will not sufficiently developed to replace his
instincts and afford him perfect guidance.

He is becoming too wise to hearken always to instincts and desires; he
is still too weak to always prevail against them. As a beast, the
forces of life aligned him with them; as a man, he has not yet wholly
learned to align himself with the forces. In this intermediate stage he
wavers—neither drawn in harmony with nature by his instincts nor yet
wisely putting himself into harmony by his own free-will. He is even as
a wisp in the wind, moved by every breath of passion, acting now by his
will and now by his instincts, erring with one, only to retrieve by the
other, falling by one, only to rise by the other—a creature of
incalculable variability. We have the consolation of knowing that
evolution is ever in action, that the ideal is a light that cannot
fail. He will not forever balance thus between good and evil. When this
jangle of free-will instinct shall have been adjusted, when perfect
understanding has given the former the power to replace the latter
entirely, man will no longer vary. The needle of understanding will yet
point steadfast and unwavering to the distinct pole of truth.

In Carrie—as in how many of our worldlings do they not?—instinct and
reason, desire and understanding, were at war for the mastery. She
followed whither her craving led. She was as yet more drawn than she
drew.

When Minnie found the note next morning, after a night of mingled
wonder and anxiety, which was not exactly touched by yearning, sorrow,
or love, she exclaimed: “Well, what do you think of that?”

“What?” said Hanson.

“Sister Carrie has gone to live somewhere else.”

Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed
and looked at the note. The only indication of his thoughts came in the
form of a little clicking sound made by his tongue; the sound some
people make when they wish to urge on a horse.

“Where do you suppose she’s gone to?” said Minnie, thoroughly aroused.

“I don’t know,” a touch of cynicism lighting his eye. “Now she has gone
and done it.”

Minnie moved her head in a puzzled way.

“Oh, oh,” she said, “she doesn’t know what she has done.”

“Well,” said Hanson, after a while, sticking his hands out before him,
“what can you do?”

Minnie’s womanly nature was higher than this. She figured the
possibilities in such cases.

“Oh,” she said at last, “poor Sister Carrie!”

At the time of this particular conversation, which occurred at 5 A.M.,
that little soldier of fortune was sleeping a rather troubled sleep in
her new room, alone.

Carrie’s new state was remarkable in that she saw possibilities in it.
She was no sensualist, longing to drowse sleepily in the lap of luxury.
She turned about, troubled by her daring, glad of her release,
wondering whether she would get something to do, wondering what Drouet
would do. That worthy had his future fixed for him beyond a
peradventure. He could not help what he was going to do. He could not
see clearly enough to wish to do differently. He was drawn by his
innate desire to act the old pursuing part. He would need to delight
himself with Carrie as surely as he would need to eat his heavy
breakfast. He might suffer the least rudimentary twinge of conscience
in whatever he did, and in just so far he was evil and sinning. But
whatever twinges of conscience he might have would be rudimentary, you
may be sure.

The next day he called upon Carrie, and she saw him in her chamber. He
was the same jolly, enlivening soul.

“Aw,” he said, “what are you looking so blue about? Come on out to
breakfast. You want to get your other clothes to-day.”

Carrie looked at him with the hue of shifting thought in her large
eyes.

“I wish I could get something to do,” she said.

“You’ll get that all right,” said Drouet. “What’s the use worrying
right now? Get yourself fixed up. See the city. I won’t hurt you.”

“I know you won’t,” she remarked, half truthfully.

“Got on the new shoes, haven’t you? Stick ’em out. George, they look
fine. Put on your jacket.”

Carrie obeyed.

“Say, that fits like a T, don’t it?” he remarked, feeling the set of it
at the waist and eyeing it from a few paces with real pleasure. “What
you need now is a new skirt. Let’s go to breakfast.”

Carrie put on her hat.

“Where are the gloves?” he inquired.

“Here,” she said, taking them out of the bureau drawer.

“Now, come on,” he said.

Thus the first hour of misgiving was swept away.

It went this way on every occasion. Drouet did not leave her much
alone. She had time for some lone wanderings, but mostly he filled her
hours with sight-seeing. At Carson, Pirie’s he bought her a nice skirt
and shirt waist. With his money she purchased the little necessaries of
toilet, until at last she looked quite another maiden. The mirror
convinced her of a few things which she had long believed. She was
pretty, yes, indeed! How nice her hat set, and weren’t her eyes pretty.
She caught her little red lip with her teeth and felt her first thrill
of power. Drouet was so good.

They went to see “The Mikado” one evening, an opera which was
hilariously popular at that time. Before going, they made off for the
Windsor dining-room, which was in Dearborn Street, a considerable
distance from Carrie’s room. It was blowing up cold, and out of her
window Carrie could see the western sky, still pink with the fading
light, but steely blue at the top where it met the darkness. A long,
thin cloud of pink hung in midair, shaped like some island in a far-off
sea. Somehow the swaying of some dead branches of trees across the way
brought back the picture with which she was familiar when she looked
from their front window in December days at home. She paused and wrung
her little hands.

“What’s the matter?” said Drouet.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she said, her lip trembling.

He sensed something, and slipped his arm over her shoulder, patting her
arm.

“Come on,” he said gently, “you’re all right.”

She turned to slip on her jacket.

“Better wear that boa about your throat to-night.”

They walked north on Wabash to Adams Street and then west. The lights
in the stores were already shining out in gushes of golden hue. The arc
lights were sputtering overhead, and high up were the lighted windows
of the tall office buildings. The chill wind whipped in and out in
gusty breaths. Homeward bound, the six o’clock throng bumped and
jostled. Light overcoats were turned up about the ears, hats were
pulled down. Little shop-girls went fluttering by in pairs and fours,
chattering, laughing. It was a spectacle of warm-blooded humanity.

Suddenly a pair of eyes met Carrie’s in recognition. They were looking
out from a group of poorly dressed girls. Their clothes were faded and
loose-hanging, their jackets old, their general make-up shabby.

Carrie recognised the glance and the girl. She was one of those who
worked at the machines in the shoe factory. The latter looked, not
quite sure, and then turned her head and looked. Carrie felt as if some
great tide had rolled between them. The old dress and the old machine
came back. She actually started. Drouet didn’t notice until Carrie
bumped into a pedestrian.

“You must be thinking,” he said.

They dined and went to the theatre. That spectacle pleased Carrie
immensely. The colour and grace of it caught her eye. She had vain
imaginings about place and power, about far-off lands and magnificent
people. When it was over, the clatter of coaches and the throng of fine
ladies made her stare.

“Wait a minute,” said Drouet, holding her back in the showy foyer where
ladies and gentlemen were moving in a social crush, skirts rustling,
lace-covered heads nodding, white teeth showing through parted lips.
“Let’s see.”

“Sixty-seven,” the coach-caller was saying, his voice lifted in a sort
of euphonious cry. “Sixty-seven.”

“Isn’t it fine?” said Carrie.

“Great,” said Drouet. He was as much affected by this show of finery
and gayety as she. He pressed her arm warmly. Once she looked up, her
even teeth glistening through her smiling lips, her eyes alight. As
they were moving out he whispered down to her, “You look lovely!” They
were right where the coach-caller was swinging open a coach-door and
ushering in two ladies.

“You stick to me and we’ll have a coach,” laughed Drouet.

Carrie scarcely heard, her head was so full of the swirl of life. They
stopped in at a restaurant for a little after-theatre lunch. Just a
shade of a thought of the hour entered Carrie’s head, but there was no
household law to govern her now. If any habits ever had time to fix
upon her, they would have operated here. Habits are peculiar things.
They will drive the really non-religious mind out of bed to say prayers
that are only a custom and not a devotion. The victim of habit, when he
has neglected the thing which it was his custom to do, feels a little
scratching in the brain, a little irritating something which comes of
being out of the rut, and imagines it to be the prick of conscience,
the still, small voice that is urging him ever to righteousness. If the
digression is unusual enough, the drag of habit will be heavy enough to
cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory
thing. “Now, bless me,” says such a mind, “I have done my duty,” when,
as a matter of fact, it has merely done its old, unbreakable trick once
again.

Carrie had no excellent home principles fixed upon her. If she had, she
would have been more consciously distressed. Now the lunch went off
with considerable warmth. Under the influence of the varied
occurrences, the fine, invisible passion which was emanating from
Drouet, the food, the still unusual luxury, she relaxed and heard with
open ears. She was again the victim of the city’s hypnotic influence.

“Well,” said Drouet at last, “we had better be going.”

They had been dawdling over the dishes, and their eyes had frequently
met. Carrie could not help but feel the vibration of force which
followed, which, indeed, was his gaze. He had a way of touching her
hand in explanation, as if to impress a fact upon her. He touched it
now as he spoke of going.

They arose and went out into the street. The downtown section was now
bare, save for a few whistling strollers, a few _owl_ cars, a few open
resorts whose windows were still bright. Out Wabash Avenue they
strolled, Drouet still pouring forth his volume of small information.
He had Carrie’s arm in his, and held it closely as he explained. Once
in a while, after some witticism, he would look down, and his eyes
would meet hers. At last they came to the steps, and Carrie stood up on
the first one, her head now coming even with his own. He took her hand
and held it genially. He looked steadily at her as she glanced about,
warmly musing.

At about that hour, Minnie was soundly sleeping, after a long evening
of troubled thought. She had her elbow in an awkward position under her
side. The muscles so held irritated a few nerves, and now a vague scene
floated in on the drowsy mind. She fancied she and Carrie were
somewhere beside an old coal-mine. She could see the tall runway and
the heap of earth and coal cast out. There was a deep pit, into which
they were looking; they could see the curious wet stones far down where
the wall disappeared in vague shadows. An old basket, used for
descending, was hanging there, fastened by a worn rope.

“Let’s get in,” said Carrie.

“Oh, no,” said Minnie.

“Yes, come on,” said Carrie.

She began to pull the basket over, and now, in spite of all protest,
she had swung over and was going down.

“Carrie,” she called, “Carrie, come back”; but Carrie was far down now
and the shadow had swallowed her completely.

She moved her arm.

Now the mystic scenery merged queerly and the place was by waters she
had never seen. They were upon some board or ground or something that
reached far out, and at the end of this was Carrie. They looked about,
and now the thing was sinking, and Minnie heard the low sip of the
encroaching water.

“Come on, Carrie,” she called, but Carrie was reaching farther out. She
seemed to recede, and now it was difficult to call to her.

“Carrie,” she called, “Carrie,” but her own voice sounded far away, and
the strange waters were blurring everything. She came away suffering as
though she had lost something. She was more inexpressibly sad than she
had ever been in life.

It was this way through many shifts of the tired brain, those curious
phantoms of the spirit slipping in, blurring strange scenes, one with
the other. The last one made her cry out, for Carrie was slipping away
somewhere over a rock, and her fingers had let loose and she had seen
her falling.

“Minnie! What’s the matter? Here, wake up,” said Hanson, disturbed, and
shaking her by the shoulder.

“Wha—what’s the matter?” said Minnie, drowsily.

“Wake up,” he said, “and turn over. You’re talking in your sleep.”


A week or so later Drouet strolled into Fitzgerald and Moy’s, spruce in
dress and manner.

“Hello, Charley,” said Hurstwood, looking out from his office door.

Drouet strolled over and looked in upon the manager at his desk. “When
do you go out on the road again?” he inquired.

“Pretty soon,” said Drouet.

“Haven’t seen much of you this trip,” said Hurstwood.

“Well, I’ve been busy,” said Drouet.

They talked some few minutes on general topics.

“Say,” said Drouet, as if struck by a sudden idea, “I want you to come
out some evening.”

“Out where?” inquired Hurstwood.

“Out to my house, of course,” said Drouet, smiling.

Hurstwood looked up quizzically, the least suggestion of a smile
hovering about his lips. He studied the face of Drouet in his wise way,
and then with the demeanour of a gentleman, said: “Certainly; glad to.”

“We’ll have a nice game of euchre.”

“May I bring a nice little bottle of Sec?” asked Hurstwood.
“Certainly,” said Drouet. “I’ll introduce you.”


Chapter IX. CONVENTION’S OWN TINDER-BOX: THE EYE THAT IS GREEN

Hurstwood’s residence on the North Side, near Lincoln Park, was a brick
building of a very popular type then, a three-story affair with the
first floor sunk a very little below the level of the street. It had a
large bay window bulging out from the second floor, and was graced in
front by a small grassy plot, twenty-five feet wide and ten feet deep.
There was also a small rear yard, walled in by the fences of the
neighbours and holding a stable where he kept his horse and trap.

The ten rooms of the house were occupied by himself, his wife Julia,
and his son and daughter, George, Jr., and Jessica. There were besides
these a maid-servant, represented from time to time by girls of various
extraction, for Mrs. Hurstwood was not always easy to please.

“George, I let Mary go yesterday,” was not an unfrequent salutation at
the dinner table.

“All right,” was his only reply. He had long since wearied of
discussing the rancorous subject.

A lovely home atmosphere is one of the flowers of the world, than which
there is nothing more tender, nothing more delicate, nothing more
calculated to make strong and just the natures cradled and nourished
within it. Those who have never experienced such a beneficent influence
will not understand wherefore the tear springs glistening to the
eyelids at some strange breath in lovely music. The mystic chords which
bind and thrill the heart of the nation, they will never know.

Hurstwood’s residence could scarcely be said to be infused with this
home spirit. It lacked that toleration and regard without which the
home is nothing. There was fine furniture, arranged as soothingly as
the artistic perception of the occupants warranted. There were soft
rugs, rich, upholstered chairs and divans, a grand piano, a marble
carving of some unknown Venus by some unknown artist, and a number of
small bronzes gathered from heaven knows where, but generally sold by
the large furniture houses along with everything else which goes to
make the “perfectly appointed house.”

In the dining-room stood a sideboard laden with glistening decanters
and other utilities and ornaments in glass, the arrangement of which
could not be questioned. Here was something Hurstwood knew about. He
had studied the subject for years in his business. He took no little
satisfaction in telling each Mary, shortly after she arrived, something
of what the art of the thing required. He was not garrulous by any
means. On the contrary, there was a fine reserve in his manner toward
the entire domestic economy of his life which was all that is
comprehended by the popular term, gentlemanly. He would not argue, he
would not talk freely. In his manner was something of the dogmatist.
What he could not correct, he would ignore. There was a tendency in him
to walk away from the impossible thing.

There was a time when he had been considerably enamoured of his
Jessica, especially when he was younger and more confined in his
success. Now, however, in her seventeenth year, Jessica had developed a
certain amount of reserve and independence which was not inviting to
the richest form of parental devotion. She was in the high school, and
had notions of life which were decidedly those of a patrician. She
liked nice clothes and urged for them constantly. Thoughts of love and
elegant individual establishments were running in her head. She met
girls at the high school whose parents were truly rich and whose
fathers had standing locally as partners or owners of solid businesses.
These girls gave themselves the airs befitting the thriving domestic
establishments from whence they issued. They were the only ones of the
school about whom Jessica concerned herself.

Young Hurstwood, Jr., was in his twentieth year, and was already
connected in a promising capacity with a large real estate firm. He
contributed nothing for the domestic expenses of the family, but was
thought to be saving his money to invest in real estate. He had some
ability, considerable vanity, and a love of pleasure that had not, as
yet, infringed upon his duties, whatever they were. He came in and went
out, pursuing his own plans and fancies, addressing a few words to his
mother occasionally, relating some little incident to his father, but
for the most part confining himself to those generalities with which
most conversation concerns itself. He was not laying bare his desires
for any one to see. He did not find any one in the house who
particularly cared to see.

Mrs. Hurstwood was the type of woman who has ever endeavoured to shine
and has been more or less chagrined at the evidences of superior
capability in this direction elsewhere. Her knowledge of life extended
to that little conventional round of society of which she was not—but
longed to be—a member. She was not without realisation already that
this thing was impossible, so far as she was concerned. For her
daughter, she hoped better things. Through Jessica she might rise a
little. Through George, Jr.’s, possible success she might draw to
herself the privilege of pointing proudly. Even Hurstwood was doing
well enough, and she was anxious that his small real estate adventures
should prosper. His property holdings, as yet, were rather small, but
his income was pleasing and his position with Fitzgerald and Moy was
fixed. Both those gentlemen were on pleasant and rather informal terms
with him.

The atmosphere which such personalities would create must be apparent
to all. It worked out in a thousand little conversations, all of which
were of the same calibre.

“I’m going up to Fox Lake to-morrow,” announced George, Jr., at the
dinner table one Friday evening.

“What’s going on up there?” queried Mrs. Hurstwood.

“Eddie Fahrway’s got a new steam launch, and he wants me to come up and
see how it works.”

“How much did it cost him?” asked his mother.

“Oh, over two thousand dollars. He says it’s a dandy.”

“Old Fahrway must be making money,” put in Hurstwood.

“He is, I guess. Jack told me they were shipping Vegacura to Australia
now—said they sent a whole box to Cape Town last week.”

“Just think of that!” said Mrs. Hurstwood, “and only four years ago
they had that basement in Madison Street.”

“Jack told me they were going to put up a six-story building next
spring in Robey Street.”

“Just think of that!” said Jessica.

On this particular occasion Hurstwood wished to leave early.

“I guess I’ll be going down town,” he remarked, rising.

“Are we going to McVicker’s Monday?” questioned Mrs. Hurstwood, without
rising.

“Yes,” he said indifferently.

They went on dining, while he went upstairs for his hat and coat.
Presently the door clicked.

“I guess papa’s gone,” said Jessica.

The latter’s school news was of a particular stripe.

“They’re going to give a performance in the Lyceum, upstairs,” she
reported one day, “and I’m going to be in it.”

“Are you?” said her mother.

“Yes, and I’ll have to have a new dress. Some of the nicest girls in
the school are going to be in it. Miss Palmer is going to take the part
of Portia.”

“Is she?” said Mrs. Hurstwood.

“They’ve got that Martha Griswold in it again. She thinks she can act.”

“Her family doesn’t amount to anything, does it?” said Mrs. Hurstwood
sympathetically. “They haven’t anything, have they?”

“No,” returned Jessica, “they’re poor as church mice.”

She distinguished very carefully between the young boys of the school,
many of whom were attracted by her beauty.

“What do you think?” she remarked to her mother one evening; “that
Herbert Crane tried to make friends with me.”

“Who is he, my dear?” inquired Mrs. Hurstwood.

“Oh, no one,” said Jessica, pursing her pretty lips. “He’s just a
student there. He hasn’t anything.”

The other half of this picture came when young Blyford, son of Blyford,
the soap manufacturer, walked home with her. Mrs. Hurstwood was on the
third floor, sitting in a rocking-chair reading, and happened to look
out at the time.

“Who was that with you, Jessica?” she inquired, as Jessica came
upstairs.

“It’s Mr. Blyford, mamma,” she replied.

“Is it?” said Mrs. Hurstwood.

“Yes, and he wants me to stroll over into the park with him,” explained
Jessica, a little flushed with running up the stairs.

“All right, my dear,” said Mrs. Hurstwood. “Don’t be gone long.”

As the two went down the street, she glanced interestedly out of the
window. It was a most satisfactory spectacle indeed, most satisfactory.

In this atmosphere Hurstwood had moved for a number of years, not
thinking deeply concerning it. His was not the order of nature to
trouble for something better, unless the better was immediately and
sharply contrasted. As it was, he received and gave, irritated
sometimes by the little displays of selfish indifference, pleased at
times by some show of finery which supposedly made for dignity and
social distinction. The life of the resort which he managed was his
life. There he spent most of his time. When he went home evenings the
house looked nice. With rare exceptions the meals were acceptable,
being the kind that an ordinary servant can arrange. In part, he was
interested in the talk of his son and daughter, who always looked well.
The vanity of Mrs. Hurstwood caused her to keep her person rather
showily arrayed, but to Hurstwood this was much better than plainness.
There was no love lost between them. There was no great feeling of
dissatisfaction. Her opinion on any subject was not startling. They did
not talk enough together to come to the argument of any one point. In
the accepted and popular phrase, she had her ideas and he had his. Once
in a while he would meet a woman whose youth, sprightliness, and humour
would make his wife seem rather deficient by contrast, but the
temporary dissatisfaction which such an encounter might arouse would be
counterbalanced by his social position and a certain matter of policy.
He could not complicate his home life, because it might affect his
relations with his employers. They wanted no scandals. A man, to hold
his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a
respectable home anchorage. Therefore he was circumspect in all he did,
and whenever he appeared in the public ways in the afternoon, or on
Sunday, it was with his wife, and sometimes his children. He would
visit the local resorts, or those near by in Wisconsin, and spend a few
stiff, polished days strolling about conventional places doing
conventional things. He knew the need of it.

When some one of the many middle-class individuals whom he knew, who
had money, would get into trouble, he would shake his head. It didn’t
do to talk about those things. If it came up for discussion among such
friends as with him passed for close, he would deprecate the folly of
the thing. “It was all right to do it—all men do those things—but why
wasn’t he careful? A man can’t be too careful.” He lost sympathy for
the man that made a mistake and was found out.

On this account he still devoted some time to showing his wife
about—time which would have been wearisome indeed if it had not been
for the people he would meet and the little enjoyments which did not
depend upon her presence or absence. He watched her with considerable
curiosity at times, for she was still attractive in a way and men
looked at her. She was affable, vain, subject to flattery, and this
combination, he knew quite well, might produce a tragedy in a woman of
her home position. Owing to his order of mind, his confidence in the
sex was not great. His wife never possessed the virtues which would win
the confidence and admiration of a man of his nature. As long as she
loved him vigorously he could see how confidence could be, but when
that was no longer the binding chain—well, something might happen.

During the last year or two the expenses of the family seemed a large
thing. Jessica wanted fine clothes, and Mrs. Hurstwood, not to be
outshone by her daughter, also frequently enlivened her apparel.
Hurstwood had said nothing in the past, but one day he murmured.

“Jessica must have a new dress this month,” said Mrs. Hurstwood one
morning.

Hurstwood was arraying himself in one of his perfection vests before
the glass at the time.

“I thought she just bought one,” he said.

“That was just something for evening wear,” returned his wife
complacently.

“It seems to me,” returned Hurstwood, “that she’s spending a good deal
for dresses of late.”

“Well, she’s going out more,” concluded his wife, but the tone of his
voice impressed her as containing something she had not heard there
before.

He was not a man who traveled much, but when he did, he had been
accustomed to take her along. On one occasion recently a local
aldermanic junket had been arranged to visit Philadelphia—a junket that
was to last ten days. Hurstwood had been invited.

“Nobody knows us down there,” said one, a gentleman whose face was a
slight improvement over gross ignorance and sensuality. He always wore
a silk hat of most imposing proportions. “We can have a good time.” His
left eye moved with just the semblance of a wink. “You want to come
along, George.”

The next day Hurstwood announced his intention to his wife.

“I’m going away, Julia,” he said, “for a few days.”

“Where?” she asked, looking up.

“To Philadelphia, on business.”

She looked at him consciously, expecting something else.

“I’ll have to leave you behind this time.”

“All right,” she replied, but he could see that she was thinking that
it was a curious thing. Before he went she asked him a few more
questions, and that irritated him. He began to feel that she was a
disagreeable attachment.

On this trip he enjoyed himself thoroughly, and when it was over he was
sorry to get back. He was not willingly a prevaricator, and hated
thoroughly to make explanations concerning it. The whole incident was
glossed over with general remarks, but Mrs. Hurstwood gave the subject
considerable thought. She drove out more, dressed better, and attended
theatres freely to make up for it.

Such an atmosphere could hardly come under the category of home life.
It ran along by force of habit, by force of conventional opinion. With
the lapse of time it must necessarily become dryer and dryer—must
eventually be tinder, easily lighted and destroyed.


Chapter X. THE COUNSEL OF WINTER: FORTUNE’S AMBASSADOR CALLS

In the light of the world’s attitude toward woman and her duties, the
nature of Carrie’s mental state deserves consideration. Actions such as
hers are measured by an arbitrary scale. Society possesses a
conventional standard whereby it judges all things. All men should be
good, all women virtuous. Wherefore, villain, hast thou failed?

For all the liberal analysis of Spencer and our modern naturalistic
philosophers, we have but an infantile perception of morals. There is
more in the subject than mere conformity to a law of evolution. It is
yet deeper than conformity to things of earth alone. It is more
involved than we, as yet, perceive. Answer, first, why the heart
thrills; explain wherefore some plaintive note goes wandering about the
world, undying; make clear the rose’s subtle alchemy evolving its ruddy
lamp in light and rain. In the essence of these facts lie the first
principles of morals.

“Oh,” thought Drouet, “how delicious is my conquest.”

“Ah,” thought Carrie, with mournful misgivings, “what is it I have
lost?”

Before this world-old proposition we stand, serious, interested,
confused; endeavouring to evolve the true theory of morals—the true
answer to what is right.

In the view of a certain stratum of society, Carrie was comfortably
established—in the eyes of the starveling, beaten by every wind and
gusty sheet of rain, she was safe in a halcyon harbour. Drouet had
taken three rooms, furnished, in Ogden Place, facing Union Park, on the
West Side. That was a little, green-carpeted breathing spot, than
which, to-day, there is nothing more beautiful in Chicago. It afforded
a vista pleasant to contemplate. The best room looked out upon the lawn
of the park, now sear and brown, where a little lake lay sheltered.
Over the bare limbs of the trees, which now swayed in the wintry wind,
rose the steeple of the Union Park Congregational Church, and far off
the towers of several others.

The rooms were comfortably enough furnished. There was a good Brussels
carpet on the floor, rich in dull red and lemon shades, and
representing large jardinières filled with gorgeous, impossible
flowers. There was a large pier-glass mirror between the two windows. A
large, soft, green, plush-covered couch occupied one corner, and
several rocking-chairs were set about. Some pictures, several rugs, a
few small pieces of bric-à-brac, and the tale of contents is told.

In the bedroom, off the front room, was Carrie’s trunk, bought by
Drouet, and in the wardrobe built into the wall quite an array of
clothing—more than she had ever possessed before, and of very becoming
designs. There was a third room for possible use as a kitchen, where
Drouet had Carrie establish a little portable gas stove for the
preparation of small lunches, oysters, Welsh rarebits, and the like, of
which he was exceedingly fond; and, lastly, a bath. The whole place was
cosey, in that it was lighted by gas and heated by furnace registers,
possessing also a small grate, set with an asbestos back, a method of
cheerful warming which was then first coming into use. By her industry
and natural love of order, which now developed, the place maintained an
air pleasing in the extreme.

Here, then, was Carrie, established in a pleasant fashion, free of
certain difficulties which most ominously confronted her, laden with
many new ones which were of a mental order, and altogether so turned
about in all of her earthly relationships that she might well have been
a new and different individual. She looked into her glass and saw a
prettier Carrie than she had seen before; she looked into her mind, a
mirror prepared of her own and the world’s opinions, and saw a worse.
Between these two images she wavered, hesitating which to believe.

“My, but you’re a little beauty,” Drouet was wont to exclaim to her.

She would look at him with large, pleased eyes.

“You know it, don’t you?” he would continue.

“Oh, I don’t know,” she would reply, feeling delight in the fact that
one should think so, hesitating to believe, though she really did, that
she was vain enough to think so much of herself.

Her conscience, however, was not a Drouet, interested to praise. There
she heard a different voice, with which she argued, pleaded, excused.
It was no just and sapient counsellor, in its last analysis. It was
only an average little conscience, a thing which represented the world,
her past environment, habit, convention, in a confused way. With it,
the voice of the people was truly the voice of God.

“Oh, thou failure!” said the voice.

“Why?” she questioned.

“Look at those about,” came the whispered answer. “Look at those who
are good. How would they scorn to do what you have done. Look at the
good girls; how will they draw away from such as you when they know you
have been weak. You had not tried before you failed.”

It was when Carrie was alone, looking out across the park, that she
would be listening to this. It would come infrequently—when something
else did not interfere, when the pleasant side was not too apparent,
when Drouet was not there. It was somewhat clear in utterance at first,
but never wholly convincing. There was always an answer, always the
December days threatened. She was alone; she was desireful; she was
fearful of the whistling wind. The voice of want made answer for her.

Once the bright days of summer pass by, a city takes on that sombre
garb of grey, wrapt in which it goes about its labours during the long
winter. Its endless buildings look grey, its sky and its streets assume
a sombre hue; the scattered, leafless trees and wind-blown dust and
paper but add to the general solemnity of colour. There seems to be
something in the chill breezes which scurry through the long, narrow
thoroughfares productive of rueful thoughts. Not poets alone, nor
artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all
refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men. These feel as much as the
poet, though they have not the same power of expression. The sparrow
upon the wire, the cat in the doorway, the dray horse tugging his weary
load, feel the long, keen breaths of winter. It strikes to the heart of
all life, animate and inanimate. If it were not for the artificial
fires of merriment, the rush of profit-seeking trade, and
pleasure-selling amusements; if the various merchants failed to make
the customary display within and without their establishments; if our
streets were not strung with signs of gorgeous hues and thronged with
hurrying purchasers, we would quickly discover how firmly the chill
hand of winter lays upon the heart; how dispiriting are the days during
which the sun withholds a portion of our allowance of light and warmth.
We are more dependent upon these things than is often thought. We are
insects produced by heat, and pass without it.

In the drag of such a grey day the secret voice would reassert itself,
feebly and more feebly.

Such mental conflict was not always uppermost. Carrie was not by any
means a gloomy soul. More, she had not the mind to get firm hold upon a
definite truth. When she could not find her way out of the labyrinth of
ill-logic which thought upon the subject created, she would turn away
entirely.

Drouet, all the time, was conducting himself in a model way for one of
his sort. He took her about a great deal, spent money upon her, and
when he travelled took her with him. There were times when she would be
alone for two or three days, while he made the shorter circuits of his
business, but, as a rule, she saw a great deal of him.

“Say, Carrie,” he said one morning, shortly after they had so
established themselves, “I’ve invited my friend Hurstwood to come out
some day and spend the evening with us.”

“Who is he?” asked Carrie doubtfully.

“Oh, he’s a nice man. He’s manager of Fitzgerald and Moy’s.”

“What’s that?” said Carrie.

“The finest resort in town. It’s a way-up, swell place.”

Carrie puzzled a moment. She was wondering what Drouet had told him,
what her attitude would be.

“That’s all right,” said Drouet, feeling her thought. “He doesn’t know
anything. You’re Mrs. Drouet now.”

There was something about this which struck Carrie as slightly
inconsiderate. She could see that Drouet did not have the keenest
sensibilities.

“Why don’t we get married?” she inquired, thinking of the voluble
promises he had made.

“Well, we will,” he said, “just as soon as I get this little deal of
mine closed up.”

He was referring to some property which he said he had, and which
required so much attention, adjustment, and what not, that somehow or
other it interfered with his free moral, personal actions.

“Just as soon as I get back from my Denver trip in January we’ll do
it.”

Carrie accepted this as basis for hope—it was a sort of salve to her
conscience, a pleasant way out. Under the circumstances, things would
be righted. Her actions would be justified. She really was not
enamoured of Drouet. She was more clever than he. In a dim way, she was
beginning to see where he lacked. If it had not been for this, if she
had not been able to measure and judge him in a way, she would have
been worse off than she was. She would have adored him. She would have
been utterly wretched in her fear of not gaining his affection, of
losing his interest, of being swept away and left without an anchorage.
As it was, she wavered a little, slightly anxious, at first, to gain
him completely, but later feeling at ease in waiting. She was not
exactly sure what she thought of him—what she wanted to do.

When Hurstwood called, she met a man who was more clever than Drouet in
a hundred ways. He paid that peculiar deference to women which every
member of the sex appreciates. He was not overawed, he was not
overbold. His great charm was attentiveness. Schooled in winning those
birds of fine feather among his own sex, the merchants and
professionals who visited his resort, he could use even greater tact
when endeavouring to prove agreeable to some one who charmed him. In a
pretty woman of any refinement of feeling whatsoever he found his
greatest incentive. He was mild, placid, assured, giving the impression
that he wished to be of service only—to do something which would make
the lady more pleased.

Drouet had ability in this line himself when the game was worth the
candle, but he was too much the egotist to reach the polish which
Hurstwood possessed. He was too buoyant, too full of ruddy life, too
assured. He succeeded with many who were not quite schooled in the art
of love. He failed dismally where the woman was slightly experienced
and possessed innate refinement. In the case of Carrie he found a woman
who was all of the latter, but none of the former. He was lucky in the
fact that opportunity tumbled into his lap, as it were. A few years
later, with a little more experience, the slightest tide of success,
and he had not been able to approach Carrie at all.

“You ought to have a piano here, Drouet,” said Hurstwood, smiling at
Carrie, on the evening in question, “so that your wife could play.”

Drouet had not thought of that.

“So we ought,” he observed readily.

“Oh, I don’t play,” ventured Carrie.

“It isn’t very difficult,” returned Hurstwood. “You could do very well
in a few weeks.”

He was in the best form for entertaining this evening. His clothes were
particularly new and rich in appearance. The coat lapels stood out with
that medium stiffness which excellent cloth possesses. The vest was of
a rich Scotch plaid, set with a double row of round mother-of-pearl
buttons. His cravat was a shiny combination of silken threads, not
loud, not inconspicuous. What he wore did not strike the eye so
forcibly as that which Drouet had on, but Carrie could see the elegance
of the material. Hurstwood’s shoes were of soft, black calf, polished
only to a dull shine. Drouet wore patent leather but Carrie could not
help feeling that there was a distinction in favour of the soft
leather, where all else was so rich. She noticed these things almost
unconsciously. They were things which would naturally flow from the
situation. She was used to Drouet’s appearance.

“Suppose we have a little game of euchre?” suggested Hurstwood, after a
light round of conversation. He was rather dexterous in avoiding
everything that would suggest that he knew anything of Carrie’s past.
He kept away from personalities altogether, and confined himself to
those things which did not concern individuals at all. By his manner,
he put Carrie at her ease, and by his deference and pleasantries he
amused her. He pretended to be seriously interested in all she said.

“I don’t know how to play,” said Carrie.

“Charlie, you are neglecting a part of your duty,” he observed to
Drouet most affably. “Between us, though,” he went on, “we can show
you.”

By his tact he made Drouet feel that he admired his choice. There was
something in his manner that showed that he was pleased to be there.
Drouet felt really closer to him than ever before. It gave him more
respect for Carrie. Her appearance came into a new light, under
Hurstwood’s appreciation. The situation livened considerably.

“Now, let me see,” said Hurstwood, looking over Carrie’s shoulder very
deferentially. “What have you?” He studied for a moment. “That’s rather
good,” he said.

“You’re lucky. Now, I’ll show you how to trounce your husband. You take
my advice.”

“Here,” said Drouet, “if you two are going to scheme together, I won’t
stand a ghost of a show. Hurstwood’s a regular sharp.”

“No, it’s your wife. She brings me luck. Why shouldn’t she win?”

Carrie looked gratefully at Hurstwood, and smiled at Drouet. The former
took the air of a mere friend. He was simply there to enjoy himself.
Anything that Carrie did was pleasing to him, nothing more.

“There,” he said, holding back one of his own good cards, and giving
Carrie a chance to take a trick. “I count that clever playing for a
beginner.”

The latter laughed gleefully as she saw the hand coming her way. It was
as if she were invincible when Hurstwood helped her.

He did not look at her often. When he did, it was with a mild light in
his eye. Not a shade was there of anything save geniality and kindness.
He took back the shifty, clever gleam, and replaced it with one of
innocence. Carrie could not guess but that it was pleasure with him in
the immediate thing. She felt that he considered she was doing a great
deal.

“It’s unfair to let such playing go without earning something,” he said
after a time, slipping his finger into the little coin pocket of his
coat. “Let’s play for dimes.”

“All right,” said Drouet, fishing for bills.

Hurstwood was quicker. His fingers were full of new ten-cent pieces.
“Here we are,” he said, supplying each one with a little stack.

“Oh, this is gambling,” smiled Carrie. “It’s bad.”

“No,” said Drouet, “only fun. If you never play for more than that, you
will go to Heaven.”

“Don’t you moralise,” said Hurstwood to Carrie gently, “until you see
what becomes of the money.”

Drouet smiled.

“If your husband gets them, he’ll tell you how bad it is.”

Drouet laughed loud.

There was such an ingratiating tone about Hurstwood’s voice, the
insinuation was so perceptible that even Carrie got the humour of it.

“When do you leave?” said Hurstwood to Drouet.

“On Wednesday,” he replied.

“It’s rather hard to have your husband running about like that, isn’t
it?” said Hurstwood, addressing Carrie.

“She’s going along with me this time,” said Drouet.

“You must both go with me to the theatre before you go.”

“Certainly,” said Drouet. “Eh, Carrie?”

“I’d like it ever so much,” she replied.

Hurstwood did his best to see that Carrie won the money. He rejoiced in
her success, kept counting her winnings, and finally gathered and put
them in her extended hand. They spread a little lunch, at which he
served the wine, and afterwards he used fine tact in going.

“Now,” he said, addressing first Carrie and then Drouet with his eyes,
“you must be ready at 7.30. I’ll come and get you.”

They went with him to the door and there was his cab waiting, its red
lamps gleaming cheerfully in the shadow.

“Now,” he observed to Drouet, with a tone of good-fellowship, “when you
leave your wife alone, you must let me show her around a little. It
will break up her loneliness.”

“Sure,” said Drouet, quite pleased at the attention shown.

“You’re so kind,” observed Carrie.

“Not at all,” said Hurstwood, “I would want your husband to do as much
for me.”

He smiled and went lightly away. Carrie was thoroughly impressed. She
had never come in contact with such grace. As for Drouet, he was
equally pleased.

“There’s a nice man,” he remarked to Carrie, as they returned to their
cosey chamber. “A good friend of mine, too.”

“He seems to be,” said Carrie.


Chapter XI. THE PERSUASION OF FASHION: FEELING GUARDS O’ER ITS OWN

Carrie was an apt student of fortune’s ways—of fortune’s
superficialities. Seeing a thing, she would immediately set to
inquiring how she would look, properly related to it. Be it known that
this is not fine feeling, it is not wisdom. The greatest minds are not
so afflicted; and on the contrary, the lowest order of mind is not so
disturbed. Fine clothes to her were a vast persuasion; they spoke
tenderly and Jesuitically for themselves. When she came within earshot
of their pleading, desire in her bent a willing ear. The voice of the
so-called inanimate! Who shall translate for us the language of the
stones?

“My dear,” said the lace collar she secured from Partridge’s, “I fit
you beautifully; don’t give me up.”

“Ah, such little feet,” said the leather of the soft new shoes; “how
effectively I cover them. What a pity they should ever want my aid.”

Once these things were in her hand, on her person, she might dream of
giving them up; the method by which they came might intrude itself so
forcibly that she would ache to be rid of the thought of it, but she
would not give them up. “Put on the old clothes—that torn pair of
shoes,” was called to her by her conscience in vain. She could possibly
have conquered the fear of hunger and gone back; the thought of hard
work and a narrow round of suffering would, under the last pressure of
conscience, have yielded, but spoil her appearance?—be old-clothed and
poor-appearing?—never!

Drouet heightened her opinion on this and allied subjects in such a
manner as to weaken her power of resisting their influence. It is so
easy to do this when the thing opined is in the line of what we desire.
In his hearty way, he insisted upon her good looks. He looked at her
admiringly, and she took it at its full value. Under the circumstances,
she did not need to carry herself as pretty women do. She picked that
knowledge up fast enough for herself. Drouet had a habit,
characteristic of his kind, of looking after stylishly dressed or
pretty women on the street and remarking upon them. He had just enough
of the feminine love of dress to be a good judge—not of intellect, but
of clothes. He saw how they set their little feet, how they carried
their chins, with what grace and sinuosity they swung their bodies. A
dainty, self-conscious swaying of the hips by a woman was to him as
alluring as the glint of rare wine to a toper. He would turn and follow
the disappearing vision with his eyes. He would thrill as a child with
the unhindered passion that was in him. He loved the thing that women
love in themselves, grace. At this, their own shrine, he knelt with
them, an ardent devotee.

“Did you see that woman who went by just now?” he said to Carrie on the
first day they took a walk together. “Fine stepper, wasn’t she?”

Carrie looked, and observed the grace commended.

“Yes, she is,” she returned, cheerfully, a little suggestion of
possible defect in herself awakening in her mind. If that was so fine,
she must look at it more closely. Instinctively, she felt a desire to
imitate it. Surely she could do that too.

When one of her mind sees many things emphasized and re-emphasized and
admired, she gathers the logic of it and applies accordingly. Drouet
was not shrewd enough to see that this was not tactful. He could not
see that it would be better to make her feel that she was competing
with herself, not others better than herself. He would not have done it
with an older, wiser woman, but in Carrie he saw only the novice. Less
clever than she, he was naturally unable to comprehend her sensibility.
He went on educating and wounding her, a thing rather foolish in one
whose admiration for his pupil and victim was apt to grow.

Carrie took the instructions affably. She saw what Drouet liked; in a
vague way she saw where he was weak. It lessens a woman’s opinion of a
man when she learns that his admiration is so pointedly and generously
distributed. She sees but one object of supreme compliment in this
world, and that is herself. If a man is to succeed with many women, he
must be all in all to each.

In her own apartments Carrie saw things which were lessons in the same
school.

In the same house with her lived an official of one of the theatres,
Mr. Frank A. Hale, manager of the Standard, and his wife, a
pleasing-looking brunette of thirty-five. They were people of a sort
very common in America to-day, who live respectably from hand to mouth.
Hale received a salary of forty-five dollars a week. His wife, quite
attractive, affected the feeling of youth, and objected to that sort of
home life which means the care of a house and the raising of a family.
Like Drouet and Carrie, they also occupied three rooms on the floor
above.

Not long after she arrived Mrs. Hale established social relations with
her, and together they went about. For a long time this was her only
companionship, and the gossip of the manager’s wife formed the medium
through which she saw the world. Such trivialities, such praises of
wealth, such conventional expression of morals as sifted through this
passive creature’s mind, fell upon Carrie and for the while confused
her.

On the other hand, her own feelings were a corrective influence. The
constant drag to something better was not to be denied. By those things
which address the heart was she steadily recalled. In the apartments
across the hall were a young girl and her mother. They were from
Evansville, Indiana, the wife and daughter of a railroad treasurer. The
daughter was here to study music, the mother to keep her company.

Carrie did not make their acquaintance, but she saw the daughter coming
in and going out. A few times she had seen her at the piano in the
parlour, and not infrequently had heard her play. This young woman was
particularly dressy for her station, and wore a jewelled ring or two
which flashed upon her white fingers as she played.

Now Carrie was affected by music. Her nervous composition responded to
certain strains, much as certain strings of a harp vibrate when a
corresponding key of a piano is struck. She was delicately moulded in
sentiment, and answered with vague ruminations to certain wistful
chords. They awoke longings for those things which she did not have.
They caused her to cling closer to things she possessed. One short song
the young lady played in a most soulful and tender mood. Carrie heard
it through the open door from the parlour below. It was at that hour
between afternoon and night when, for the idle, the wanderer, things
are apt to take on a wistful aspect. The mind wanders forth on far
journeys and returns with sheaves of withered and departed joys. Carrie
sat at her window looking out. Drouet had been away since ten in the
morning. She had amused herself with a walk, a book by Bertha M. Clay
which Drouet had left there, though she did not wholly enjoy the
latter, and by changing her dress for the evening. Now she sat looking
out across the park as wistful and depressed as the nature which craves
variety and life can be under such circumstances. As she contemplated
her new state, the strain from the parlour below stole upward. With it
her thoughts became coloured and enmeshed. She reverted to the things
which were best and saddest within the small limit of her experience.
She became for the moment a repentant.

While she was in this mood Drouet came in, bringing with him an
entirely different atmosphere. It was dusk and Carrie had neglected to
light the lamp. The fire in the grate, too, had burned low.

“Where are you, Cad?” he said, using a pet name he had given her.

“Here,” she answered.

There was something delicate and lonely in her voice, but he could not
hear it. He had not the poetry in him that would seek a woman out under
such circumstances and console her for the tragedy of life. Instead, he
struck a match and lighted the gas.

“Hello,” he exclaimed, “you’ve been crying.”

Her eyes were still wet with a few vague tears.

“Pshaw,” he said, “you don’t want to do that.”

He took her hand, feeling in his good-natured egotism that it was
probably lack of his presence which had made her lonely.

“Come on, now,” he went on; “it’s all right. Let’s waltz a little to
that music.”

He could not have introduced a more incongruous proposition. It made
clear to Carrie that he could not sympathise with her. She could not
have framed thoughts which would have expressed his defect or made
clear the difference between them, but she felt it. It was his first
great mistake.

What Drouet said about the girl’s grace, as she tripped out evenings
accompanied by her mother, caused Carrie to perceive the nature and
value of those little modish ways which women adopt when they would
presume to be something. She looked in the mirror and pursed up her
lips, accompanying it with a little toss of the head, as she had seen
the railroad treasurer’s daughter do. She caught up her skirts with an
easy swing, for had not Drouet remarked that in her and several others,
and Carrie was naturally imitative. She began to get the hang of those
little things which the pretty woman who has vanity invariably adopts.
In short, her knowledge of grace doubled, and with it her appearance
changed. She became a girl of considerable taste.

Drouet noticed this. He saw the new bow in her hair and the new way of
arranging her locks which she affected one morning.

“You look fine that way, Cad,” he said.

“Do I?” she replied, sweetly. It made her try for other effects that
selfsame day.

She used her feet less heavily, a thing that was brought about by her
attempting to imitate the treasurer’s daughter’s graceful carriage. How
much influence the presence of that young woman in the same house had
upon her it would be difficult to say. But, because of all these
things, when Hurstwood called he had found a young woman who was much
more than the Carrie to whom Drouet had first spoken. The primary
defects of dress and manner had passed. She was pretty, graceful, rich
in the timidity born of uncertainty, and with a something childlike in
her large eyes which captured the fancy of this starched and
conventional poser among men. It was the ancient attraction of the
fresh for the stale. If there was a touch of appreciation left in him
for the bloom and unsophistication which is the charm of youth, it
rekindled now. He looked into her pretty face and felt the subtle waves
of young life radiating therefrom. In that large clear eye he could see
nothing that his _blasé_ nature could understand as guile. The little
vanity, if he could have perceived it there, would have touched him as
a pleasant thing.

“I wonder,” he said, as he rode away in his cab, “how Drouet came to
win her.”

He gave her credit for feelings superior to Drouet at the first glance.

The cab plopped along between the far-receding lines of gas lamps on
either hand. He folded his gloved hands and saw only the lighted
chamber and Carrie’s face. He was pondering over the delight of
youthful beauty.

“I’ll have a bouquet for her,” he thought. “Drouet won’t mind.” He
never for a moment concealed the fact of her attraction for himself. He
troubled himself not at all about Drouet’s priority. He was merely
floating those gossamer threads of thought which, like the spider’s, he
hoped would lay hold somewhere. He did not know, he could not guess,
what the result would be.

A few weeks later Drouet, in his peregrinations, encountered one of his
well-dressed lady acquaintances in Chicago on his return from a short
trip to Omaha. He had intended to hurry out to Ogden Place and surprise
Carrie, but now he fell into an interesting conversation and soon
modified his original intention.

“Let’s go to dinner,” he said, little recking any chance meeting which
might trouble his way.

“Certainly,” said his companion.

They visited one of the better restaurants for a social chat. It was
five in the afternoon when they met; it was seven-thirty before the
last bone was picked.

Drouet was just finishing a little incident he was relating, and his
face was expanding into a smile, when Hurstwood’s eye caught his own.
The latter had come in with several friends, and, seeing Drouet and
some woman, not Carrie, drew his own conclusion.

“Ah, the rascal,” he thought, and then, with a touch of righteous
sympathy, “that’s pretty hard on the little girl.”

Drouet jumped from one easy thought to another as he caught Hurstwood’s
eye. He felt but very little misgiving, until he saw that Hurstwood was
cautiously pretending not to see. Then some of the latter’s impression
forced itself upon him. He thought of Carrie and their last meeting. By
George, he would have to explain this to Hurstwood. Such a chance
half-hour with an old friend must not have anything more attached to it
than it really warranted.

For the first time he was troubled. Here was a moral complication of
which he could not possibly get the ends. Hurstwood would laugh at him
for being a fickle boy. He would laugh with Hurstwood. Carrie would
never hear, his present companion at table would never know, and yet he
could not help feeling that he was getting the worst of it—there was
some faint stigma attached, and he was not guilty. He broke up the
dinner by becoming dull, and saw his companion on her car. Then he went
home.

“He hasn’t talked to me about any of these later flames,” thought
Hurstwood to himself. “He thinks I think he cares for the girl out
there.”

“He ought not to think I’m knocking around, since I have just
introduced him out there,” thought Drouet.

“I saw you,” Hurstwood said, genially, the next time Drouet drifted in
to his polished resort, from which he could not stay away. He raised
his forefinger indicatively, as parents do to children.

“An old acquaintance of mine that I ran into just as I was coming up
from the station,” explained Drouet. “She used to be quite a beauty.”

“Still attracts a little, eh?” returned the other, affecting to jest.

“Oh, no,” said Drouet, “just couldn’t escape her this time.”

“How long are you here?” asked Hurstwood.

“Only a few days.”

“You must bring the girl down and take dinner with me,” he said. “I’m
afraid you keep her cooped up out there. I’ll get a box for Joe
Jefferson.”

“Not me,” answered the drummer. “Sure I’ll come.”

This pleased Hurstwood immensely. He gave Drouet no credit for any
feelings toward Carrie whatever. He envied him, and now, as he looked
at the well-dressed jolly salesman, whom he so much liked, the gleam of
the rival glowed in his eye. He began to “size up” Drouet from the
standpoints of wit and fascination. He began to look to see where he
was weak. There was no disputing that, whatever he might think of him
as a good fellow, he felt a certain amount of contempt for him as a
lover. He could hoodwink him all right. Why, if he would just let
Carrie see one such little incident as that of Thursday, it would
settle the matter. He ran on in thought, almost exulting, the while he
laughed and chatted, and Drouet felt nothing. He had no power of
analysing the glance and the atmosphere of a man like Hurstwood. He
stood and smiled and accepted the invitation while his friend examined
him with the eye of a hawk.

The object of this peculiarly involved comedy was not thinking of
either. She was busy adjusting her thoughts and feelings to newer
conditions, and was not in danger of suffering disturbing pangs from
either quarter. One evening Drouet found her dressing herself before
the glass.

“Cad,” said he, catching her, “I believe you’re getting vain.”

“Nothing of the kind,” she returned, smiling.

“Well, you’re mighty pretty,” he went on, slipping his arm around her.
“Put on that navy-blue dress of yours and I’ll take you to the show.”

“Oh, I’ve promised Mrs. Hale to go with her to the Exposition
to-night,” she returned, apologetically.

“You did, eh?” he said, studying the situation abstractedly. “I
wouldn’t care to go to that myself.”

“Well, I don’t know,” answered Carrie, puzzling, but not offering to
break her promise in his favour.

Just then a knoc

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