I dont 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 Hurstwoods appreciation. The situation livened considerably.
Now, let me see, said Hurstwood, looking over Carries shoulder very deferentially. What have you? He studied for a moment. Thats rather good, he said.
Youre lucky. Now, Ill show you how to trounce your husband. You take my advice.
Here, said Drouet, if you two are going to scheme together, I wont stand a ghost of a show.[48] Hurstwoods a regular sharp[49].
No, its your wife. She brings me luck. Why shouldnt 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 there it was pleasure with him in the immediate thing. She felt that he considered she was doing a great deal.
Its 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. Lets play for dimes[50].
All right, said Drouet, fishing for bills.
Hurstwood was quicker. His finger were full of new ten-cent pieces. Here we are, he said, supplying each one with a little stack.
Oh, this gambling, smiled Carrie. Its bad.
No, said Drouet, only fun. If you never play for more than that, you will go to Heaven.
Dont you moralize, said Hurstwood to Carrie gently, until you see what becomes of the money.
Drouet smiled.
If your husband gets them, hell tell you how bad it is.
Drouet laughed loud.
There was such an ingratiating tone about Hurstwoods voice, the insinuation was so perceptible that even Carrie got the humor of it.
When do you leave? said Hurstwood to Drouet.
On Wednesday, he replied.
Its rather hard to have your husband running about like that, isnt it? said Hurstwood, addressing Carrie.
Shes going along with me this time, said Drouet.
You must both go with me to the theater before you go.
Certainly, said Drouet. Eh, Carrie?
Id like it ever so much, she replied.
Hurstwood did his best to see that Carrie won the money. He rejoined 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. Ill 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.
Youre so kind, observed Carrie.
Not at all, said Hurstwood, I would want you 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.
Theres a nice man, he remarked to Carrie, as they returned to their cozy chamber. A good friend of mine, too.
He seems to be, said Carrie.
Chapter XI
The Persuasion of Fashion: Feeling Guards oer its Own
Carrie was an apt student of fortunes ways of for times superficialities. Seeing a thing, she would immediately set to inquiring how she would look, properly related to it.
My dear, said the lace collar she secured from Partridges, I fit you beautifully; dont 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.
Did you see that women who went by just now? he said to Carrie on the first day they took a walk together. Fine stepper, wasnt she?[51]
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.
Carrie took the instructions affably. She saw what Drouet liked; in vague way she saw where he was weak. It lessens a womans 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[52].
In her own apartments Carrie saw things that 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 today, who live respectably from hand to mouth. 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 managers 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 creatures mind, fell upon Carrie and for the while confused her.
On the other hand, her own feelings were a corrective influence. Their 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.
On the other hand, her own feelings were a corrective influence. Their 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 parlor, and not infrequently had heard her play. This young woman was particularly dressy for her station, and wore a jeweled 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 molded 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 cling closer to things she possessed. One shorts song the young lady played in a most soulful and tender mood. Carrie heard it through the open door from the parlor below. In 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.
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, youve been crying.
Her eyes were still wet with a few vague tears. Pshaw, he said, you dont 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; its all right. Lets waltz a little to that music.
He could not have introduced a more incongruous proposition. It made clear to Carrie that he could not sympathize with her. She could not have framed thoughts which would have expressed his defect or make clear the difference between them, but she felt it. It was his first great mistake.
What Drouet said about the girls grace, as she tripped out evening accompanied by her mother, caused Carrie to perceive the nature and value of those little moodish ways which women adopt when they would presume to be something. She looked in the mirror and pursed up her lips, accomplishing it with a little toss of the head, as she had seen the railroad treasurers 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 shorts, 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 arraying 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 treasurers daughters graceful carriage. How much influence the presence of that young women 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.[53] 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 Carries face. He was pondering over the delight of youthful beauty.
Ill have a bouquet for her, he though. Drouet wont mind.
He never for a moment concealed the fact of her attraction for himself. He troubled himself not at all about Drouets priority. He was merely floating those gossamer threads[54] of thought which, like the spiders 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.
Lets go to dinner, he said, little recking any chance meeting which might trouble his way.
Certainty, 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 Hurstwoods 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 though, and then, with a touch of righteous sympathy, thats pretty hard on the little girl.
Drouet jumped from one easy thought to another as he caught Hurstwoods eye. He felt but every little misgiving, until he saw that Hurstwood was cautiously pretending not to see. Then some of the latters 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 hew was not guilty. He broke up the dinner by becoming dull, and saw his companion on her car. Then he went home.
He hasnt talked to me about any of these later flames, thought Hurstwood to himself. He thinks I think he cares for the girl out there.