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Once at home, she changed her
clothes and straightened the rooms for herself.
In the matter of the arrangement of the furniture she never took the
housemaid's opinion. That young
woman invariably put one of the rocking-chairs in the corner, and Carrie as
regularly moved it out. To-day
she hardly noticed that it was in the wrong place, so absorbed was she in
her own thoughts. She worked
about the room until Drouet put in appearance at five o'clock.
The drummer was flushed and excited and full of determination to know
all about her relations with Hurstwood.
Nevertheless, after going over the subject in his mind the livelong
day, he was rather weary of it and wished it over with.
He did not foresee serious consequences of any sort, and yet he
rather hesitated to begin. Carrie
was sitting by the window when he came in, rocking and looking out.
"Well," she said innocently, weary of her own mental discussion
and wondering at his haste and ill-concealed excitement, "what makes
you hurry so?"
Drouet hesitated, now that he was
in her presence, uncertain as to what course to pursue. He was no diplomat. He
could neither read nor see.
"When did you get
home?" he asked foolishly.
"Oh, an hour or so ago.
What makes you ask that?"
"You weren't here," he
said, "when I came back this morning, and I thought you had gone
out."
"So I did," said Carrie
simply. "I went for a
walk."
Drouet looked at her wonderingly.
For all his lack of dignity in such matters he did not know how to
begin. He stared at her in the
most flagrant manner until at last she said:
"What makes you stare at me
so? What's the matter?"
"Nothing," he answered.
"I was just thinking."
"Just thinking what?"
she returned smilingly, puzzled by his attitude.
"Oh, nothing--nothing
much."
"Well, then, what makes you
look so?"
Drouet was standing by the
dresser, gazing at her in a comic manner.
He had laid off his hat and gloves and was now fidgeting with the
little toilet pieces which were nearest him.
He hesitated to believe that the pretty woman before him was involved
in anything so unsatisfactory to himself.
He was very much inclined to feel that it was all right, after all.
Yet the knowledge imparted to him by the chambermaid was rankling in
his mind. He wanted to plunge
in with a straight remark of some sort, but he knew not what.
"Where did you go this
morning?" he finally asked weakly.
"Why, I went for a
walk," said Carrie.
"Sure you did?" he
asked.
"Yes, what makes you
ask?"
She was beginning to see now that
he knew something. Instantly
she drew herself into a more reserved position.
Her cheeks blanched slightly.
"I thought maybe you
didn't," he said, beating about the bush in the most useless manner.
Carrie gazed at him, and as she
did so her ebbing courage halted. She saw that he himself was hesitating,
and with a woman's intuition realised that there was no occasion for great
alarm.
"What makes you talk like
that?" she asked, wrinkling her pretty forehead.
"You act so funny to-night."
"I feel funny," he
answered. They looked at one another for a moment, and then Drouet plunged
desperately into his subject.
"What's this about you and
Hurstwood?" he asked.
"Me and Hurstwood--what do
you mean?"
"Didn't he come here a dozen
times while I was away?"
"A dozen times,"
repeated Carrie, guiltily. "No,
but what do you mean?"
"Somebody said that you went
out riding with him and that he came here every night."
"No such thing,"
answered Carrie. "It isn't
true. Who told you that?"
She was flushing scarlet to the
roots of her hair, but Drouet did not catch the full hue of her face, owing
to the modified light of the room. He
was regaining much confidence as Carrie defended herself with denials.
"Well, some one," he
said. "You're sure you
didn't?"
"Certainly," said
Carrie. "You know how
often he came."
Drouet paused for a moment and
thought.
"I know what you told
me," he said finally.
He moved nervously about, while
Carrie looked at him confusedly.
"Well, I know that I didn't
tell you any such thing as that," said Carrie, recovering herself.
"If I were you," went
on Drouet, ignoring her last remark, "I wouldn't have anything to do
with him. He's a married man,
you know."
"Who--who is?" said
Carrie, stumbling at the word.
"Why, Hurstwood," said
Drouet, noting the effect and feeling that he was delivering a telling blow.
"Hurstwood!" exclaimed
Carrie, rising. Her face had
changed several shades since this announcement was made.
She looked within and without herself in a half-dazed way.
"Who told you this?"
she asked, forgetting that her interest was out of order and exceedingly
incriminating.
"Why, I know it.
I've always known it," said Drouet.
Carrie was feeling about for a
right thought. She was making a
most miserable showing, and yet feelings were generating within her which
were anything but crumbling cowardice.
"I thought I told you,"
he added.
"No, you didn't," she
contradicted, suddenly recovering her voice.
"You didn't do anything of the kind."
Drouet listened to her in
astonishment. This was
something new.
"I thought I did," he
said.
Carrie looked around her very
solemnly, and then went over to the window.
"You oughtn't to have had
anything to do with him," said Drouet in an injured tone, "after
all I've done for you."
"You," said Carrie,
"you! What have you done for me?"
Her little brain had been surging
with contradictory feelings-- shame at exposure, shame at Hurstwood's
perfidy, anger at Drouet's deception, the mockery he had made at her.
Now one clear idea came into her head.
He was at fault. There was no doubt about it.
Why did he bring Hurstwood out--Hurstwood, a married man, and never
say a word to her? Never mind now about Hurstwood's perfidy--why had he done
this? Why hadn't he warned her? There he stood now, guilty of this miserable
breach of confidence and talking about what he had done for her!
"Well, I like that,"
exclaimed Drouet, little realising the fire his remark had generated.
"I think I've done a good deal."
"You have, eh?" she
answered. "You've deceived
me--that's what you've done. You've
brought your old friends out here under false pretences.
You've made me out to be--Oh," and with this her voice broke and
she pressed her two little hands together tragically.
"I don't see what that's got
to do with it," said the drummer quaintly.
"No," she answered,
recovering herself and shutting her teeth. "No, of course you don't
see. There isn't anything you
see. You couldn't have told me
in the first place, could you? You had to make me out wrong until it was too
late. Now you come sneaking
around with your information and your talk about what you have done."
Drouet had never suspected this
side of Carrie's nature. She
was alive with feeling, her eyes snapping, her lips quivering, her whole
body sensible of the injury she felt, and partaking of her wrath.
"Who's sneaking?" he
asked, mildly conscious of error on his part, but certain that he was
wronged.
"You are," stamped
Carrie. "You're a horrid,
conceited coward, that's what you are.
If you had any sense of manhood in you, you wouldn't have thought of
doing any such thing."
The drummer stared.
"I'm not a coward," he
said. "What do you mean by
going with other men, anyway?"
"Other men!" exclaimed
Carrie. "Other men--you
know better than that. I did go
with Mr. Hurstwood, but whose fault was it? Didn't you bring him here? You
told him yourself that he should come out here and take me out.
Now, after it's all over, you come and tell me that I oughtn't to go
with him and that he's a married man."
She paused at the sound of the
last two words and wrung her hands. The
knowledge of Hurstwood's perfidy wounded her like a knife. "Oh,"
she sobbed, repressing herself wonderfully and keeping her eyes dry.
"Oh, oh!"
"Well, I didn't think you'd
be running around with him when I was away," insisted Drouet.
"Didn't think!" said
Carrie, now angered to the core by the man's peculiar attitude. "Of course not. You
thought only of what would be to your satisfaction. You thought you'd make a toy of me--a plaything.
Well, I'll show you that you won't.
I'll have nothing more to do with you at all.
You can take your old things and keep them," and unfastening a
little pin he had given her, she flung it vigorously upon the floor and
began to move about as if to gather up the things which belonged to her.
By this Drouet was not only
irritated but fascinated the more. He looked at her in amazement, and
finally said:
"I don't see where your
wrath comes in. I've got the
right of this thing. You
oughtn't to have done anything that wasn't right after all I did for
you."
"What have you done for
me?" asked Carrie blazing, her head thrown back and her lips parted.
"I think I've done a good
deal," said the drummer, looking around.
"I've given you all the clothes you wanted, haven't I? I've
taken you everywhere you wanted to go.
You've had as much as I've had, and more too."
Carrie was not ungrateful,
whatever else might be said of her. In so far as her mind could construe,
she acknowledged benefits received. She
hardly knew how to answer this, and yet her wrath was not placated. She felt that the drummer had injured her irreparably.
"Did I ask you to?" she
returned.
"Well, I did it," said
Drouet, "and you took it."
"You talk as though I had
persuaded you," answered Carrie. "You
stand there and throw up what you've done.
I don't want your old things. I'll
not have them. You take them
to-night and do what you please with them. I'll not stay here another minute."
"That's nice!" he
answered, becoming angered now at the sense of his own approaching loss.
"Use everything and abuse me and then walk off.
That's just like a woman. I
take you when you haven't got anything, and then when some one else comes
along, why I'm no good. I
always thought it'd come out that way."
He felt really hurt as he thought
of his treatment, and looked as if he saw no way of obtaining justice.
"It's not so," said
Carrie, "and I'm not going with anybody else. You have been as
miserable and inconsiderate as you can be.
I hate you, I tell you, and I wouldn't live with you another minute.
You're a big, insulting"--here she hesitated and used no word at
all--"or you wouldn't talk that way."
She had secured her hat and
jacket and slipped the latter on over her little evening dress. Some wisps of wavy hair had loosened from the bands at the
side of her head and were straggling over her hot, red cheeks.
She was angry, mortified, grief-stricken. Her large eyes were full of
the anguish of tears, but her lids were not yet wet.
She was distracted and uncertain, deciding and doing things without
an aim or conclusion, and she had not the slightest conception of how the
whole difficulty would end.
"Well, that's a fine
finish," said Drouet. "Pack
up and pull out, eh? You take the cake.
I bet you were knocking around with Hurstwood or you wouldn't act
like that. I don't want the old
rooms. You needn't pull out for
me. You can have them for all I
care, but b'George, you haven't done me right."
"I'll not live with
you," said Carrie. "I
don't want to live with you. You've
done nothing but brag around ever since you've been here."
"Aw, I haven't anything of
the kind," he answered.
Carrie walked over to the door.
"Where are you going?"
he said, stepping over and heading her off.
"Let me out," she said.
"Where are you going?"
he repeated.
He was, above all, sympathetic,
and the sight of Carrie wandering out, he knew not where, affected him,
despite his grievance.
Carrie merely pulled at the door.
The strain of the situation was
too much for her, however. She
made one more vain effort and then burst into tears.
"Now, be reasonable,
Cad," said Drouet gently. "What
do you want to rush out for this way? You haven't any place to go.
Why not stay here now and be quiet? I'll not bother you.
I don't want to stay here any longer."
Carrie had gone sobbing from the
door to the window. She was so
overcome she could not speak.
"Be reasonable now," he
said. "I don't want to
hold you. You can go if you
want to, but why don't you think it over? Lord knows, I don't want to stop
you."
He received no answer.
Carrie was quieting, however, under the influence of his plea.
"You stay here now, and I'll
go," he added at last.
Carrie listened to this with
mingled feelings. Her mind was
shaken loose from the little mooring of logic that it had.
She was stirred by this thought, angered by that--her own injustice,
Hurstwood's, Drouet's, their respective qualities of kindness and favour,
the threat of the world outside, in which she had failed once before, the
impossibility of this state inside, where the chambers were no longer justly
hers, the effect of the argument upon her nerves, all combined to make her a
mass of jangling fibres--an anchorless, storm-beaten little craft which
could do absolutely nothing but drift.
"Say," said Drouet,
coming over to her after a few moments, with a new idea, and putting his
hand upon her.
"Don't!" said Carrie,
drawing away, but not removing her handkerchief from her eyes. "Never
mind about this quarrel now. Let
it go. You stay here until the
month's out, anyhow, and then you can tell better what you want to do. Eh?"
Carrie made no answer.
"You'd better do that,"
he said. "There's no use
your packing up now. You can't
go anywhere."
Still he got nothing for his
words.
"If you'll do that, we'll
call it off for the present and I'll get out."
Carrie lowered her handkerchief
slightly and looked out of the window.
"Will you do that?" he
asked.
Still no answer.
"Will you?" he
repeated.
She only looked vaguely into the
street.
"Aw! come on," he said,
"tell me. Will you?"
"I don't know," said
Carrie softly, forced to answer.
"Promise me you'll do
that," he said, "and we'll quit talking about it.
It'll be the best thing for you."
Carrie heard him, but she could
not bring herself to answer reasonably.
She felt that the man was gentle, and that his interest in her had
not abated, and it made her suffer a pang of regret.
She was in a most helpless plight.
As for Drouet, his attitude had
been that of the jealous lover. Now his feelings were a mixture of anger at
deception, sorrow at losing Carrie, misery at being defeated. He wanted his rights in some way or other, and yet his rights
included the retaining of Carrie, the making her feel her error.
"Will you?" he urged.
"Well, I'll see," said
Carrie.
This left the matter as open as
before, but it was something. It
looked as if the quarrel would blow over, if they could only get some way of
talking to one another. Carrie
was ashamed, and Drouet aggrieved. He
pretended to take up the task of packing some things in a valise.
Now, as Carrie watched him out of
the corner of her eye, certain sound thoughts came into her head.
He had erred, true, but what had she done? He was kindly and
good-natured for all his egotism. Throughout this argument he had said
nothing very harsh. On the
other hand, there was Hurstwood--a greater deceiver than he.
He had pretended all this affection, all this passion, and he was
lying to her all the while. Oh, the perfidy of men! And she had loved him.
There could be nothing more in that quarter.
She would see Hurstwood no more.
She would write him and let him know what she thought.
Thereupon what would she do? Here were these rooms.
Here was Drouet, pleading for her to remain. Evidently things could
go on here somewhat as before, if all were arranged. It would be better than the street, without a place to lay
her head.
All this she thought of as Drouet
rummaged the drawers for collars and laboured long and painstakingly at
finding a shirt- stud. He was
in no hurry to rush this matter. He
felt an attraction to Carrie which would not down.
He could not think that the thing would end by his walking out of the
room. There must be some way
round, some way to make her own up that he was right and she was wrong--to
patch up a peace and shut out Hurstwood for ever.
Mercy, how he turned at the man's shameless duplicity.
"Do you think," he
said, after a few moments' silence, "that you'll try and get on the
stage?"
He was wondering what she was
intending.
"I don't know what I'll do
yet," said Carrie.
"If you do, maybe I can help
you. I've got a lot of friends
in that line."
She made no answer to this.
"Don't go and try to knock
around now without any money. Let
me help you," he said. "It's
no easy thing to go on your own hook here."
Carrie only rocked back and forth
in her chair.
"I don't want you to go up
against a hard game that way."
He bestirred himself about some
other details and Carrie rocked on.
"Why don't you tell me all
about this thing," he said, after a time, "and let's call it off?
You don't really care for Hurstwood, do you?"
"Why do you want to start on
that again?" said Carrie. "You
were to blame."
"No, I wasn't," he
answered.
"Yes, you were, too,"
said Carrie. "You
shouldn't have ever told me such a story as that."
"But you didn't have much to
do with him, did you?" went on Drouet, anxious for his own peace of
mind to get some direct denial from her.
"I won't talk about
it," said Carrie, pained at the quizzical turn the peace arrangement
had taken.
"What's the use of acting
like that now, Cad?" insisted the drummer, stopping in his work and
putting up a hand expressively. "You might let me know where I stand,
at least."
"I won't," said Carrie,
feeling no refuge but in anger. "Whatever has happened is your own
fault."
"Then you do care for
him?" said Drouet, stopping completely and experiencing a rush of
feeling.
"Oh, stop!" said
Carrie. "Well, I'll not be made a fool of," exclaimed Drouet.
"You may trifle around with him if you want to, but you can't
lead me. You can tell me or not, just as you want to, but I won't fool any
longer!"
He shoved the last few remaining
things he had laid out into his valise and snapped it with a vengeance.
Then he grabbed his coat, which he had laid off to work, picked up
his gloves, and started out.
"You can go to the deuce as
far as I am concerned," he said, as he reached the door. "I'm no sucker," and with that he opened it with a
jerk and closed it equally vigorously.
Carrie listened at her window
view, more astonished than anything else at this sudden rise of passion in
the drummer. She could hardly
believe her senses--so good-natured and tractable had he invariably been.
It was not for her to see the wellspring of human passion.
A real flame of love is a subtle thing.
It burns as a will-o'-the-wisp, dancing onward to fairylands of
delight. It roars as a furnace. Too
often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.
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