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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 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 girl’s 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 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 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 treasurer’s daughter’s 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 - It was the ancient attraction of the fresh for the stale. – Вечное влечение увядающего к юному и свежему.] 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 though. “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[54 - gossamer threads – легкие нити паутины] 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.
“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 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 though, 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 every 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 hew 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.[55 - I’m afraid you keep her cooped up out there. – Мне кажется, вы держите ее взаперти.] I’ll get a box for Joe Jefferson.”
“Not me[56 - Not me – Вот уж неправда],” 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 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 it thought, almost exulting, the while he laughed and chatted, and Drouet felt nothing. He had no power of analyzing 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 knock came at their door and the maidservant handed a letter in.
“He says there’s an answer expected,” she explained.
“It’s from Hurstwood,” said Drouet, noting the superscription as he tore it open.
“You are to come down and see Joe Jefferson with me tonight,” it ran in part. “It’s my turn, as we agreed the other day. All other bets are off.”
“Well, what do you say to this?” asked Drouet, innocently, while Carrie’s mind bubbled with favorable replies.
“You had better decide, Charlie,” she said, reservedly.
“I guess we had better go, if you can break that engagement upstairs,” said Drouet.
“Oh, I can,” returned Carrie without thinking.
Drouet selected writing paper while Carrie went to change her dress. She hardly explained to herself why this latest invitation appealed to her most.
“Shall I wear my hair as I did yesterday?” she asked, as she came out with several articles of apparel pending.
“Sure,” he returned, pleasantly.
She was relieved to see that he felt nothing. She did not credit her willingness to go to any fascination Hurstwood held for her. It seemed that the combination of Hurstwood, Drouet, and herself was more agreeable than anything else that had been suggested. She arrayed Herself most carefully and they started off, extending excuses upstairs.
“I say,” said Hurstwood as they came up the theatre lobby, “we are exceedingly charming this evening.”
Carrie fluttered under his approving glance.
“Now, then,” he said, leading the way up the foyer into the theater.
If ever there was dressiness it was here. It was the personification of the old term spick and span[57 - spick and span – с иголочки, нарядно, изящно].
“Did you ever see Jefferson?” he questioned, as he leaned toward Carrie in the box.
“I never did,” she returned.
“He’s delightful, delightful,” he went on, giving the commonplace rendition of approval which such men know. He sent Drouet after a program, and then discoursed to Carrie concerning Jefferson as he had heard of him. The former was pleased beyond expression, and was really hypnotized by the environment, the trappings of the box, the elegance of her companion. Several times their eyes accidentally met, and then there poured into hers such a flood of feeling as she had never before experienced. She could not for the moment explain it, for in the next glance or the next move of the hand there was seeming indifference, mingled only with the kindest attention.
Drouet shared in the conversation, but he was almost dull in comparison. Hurstwood entertained them both, and now it was driven into Carrie’s mind that here was the superior man. She instinctively felt that he was stronger and higher, and yet withal so simple. By the end of the third act she was sure that Drouet was only a kindly soul, but otherwise defective. He sank every moment in her estimation by the strong comparison.
“I have had such a nice time,” said Carrie, when it was all over and they were coming out.
“Yes, indeed,” added Drouet, who was not in the least aware that a battle had been fought and his defenses weakened. He was like the Emperor of China, who sat glorying in himself, unaware that his fairest provinces were being wrested from him.
“Well, you have saved me a dreary evening,” returned Hurstwood. “Good-night.”
He took Carrie’s little hand, and a current of feeling swept from one to the other.
“I’m so tried,” said Carrie, leaning back in the car when Drouet began to talk.
“Well, you rest a little while I smoke,” he said, rising and then he foolishly went to the forward platform of the car and left the game as it stood.
Chapter XII
Of the Lamps of the Mansions: The Ambassador Plea
Mrs. Hurstwood was not aware of any of her husband’s moral defections, though she might readily have suspected his tendencies, which she well understood. She was a woman upon whose action under provocation you could never count. Hurstwood, for one, had not the slightest idea of what she would do under certain circumstances. He had never seen her thoroughly aroused. In fact, she was not a woman who would fly into a passion. She had too little faith in mankind not to know that they were erring. She was too calculating to jeopardize any advantage she might gain in the way of information by fruitless clamor. Her wrath would never wreak itself in one fell blow. She would wait and brood, studying the details and adding to them until her power might be commensurate with her desire for revenge. At the same time, she would not delay to inflict any injury, big or little, which would wound the object of her revenge and still leave him uncertain as to the source of the evil. She was a cold, self-centered woman, with many a thought of her own which never found expression, not even by so much as the glint of an eye.
Hurstwood felt some of this in her nature, though he did not actually perceive it. He dwelt with her in peace and some satisfaction. He did not fear her in the least – there was no cause for it. She still took a faint pride in him, which was augmented by her desire to have her social integrity maintained. She was secretly somewhat pleased by the fact that much of her husband’s property was in her name, a precaution which Hurstwood had taken when his home interests were somewhat more alluring than at present. His wife had not the slightest reason to feel that anything would ever go amiss with their household, and yet the shadows which run before gave her a thought of the good of it now and then. She was in a position to become refractory with considerable advantage, and Hurstwood conducted himself circumspectly because he felt that he could not be sure of anything once she became dissatisfied.
It so happened that on the night when Hurstwood, Carrie, and Drouet were in the box at McVickar’s, George, Jr., was in the sixth row of the parquet[58 - parquet – (амер.) передние ряды партера] with the daughter of H. B. Carmichael, the third partner of a wholesale dry-goods house of that city. Hurstwood did not see his son, for he sat, as was his wont, as far back as possible, leaving himself just partially visible, when he bent forward, to those within the first six rows in question. It was his wont to sit this way in every theatre – to make his personality as inconspicuous as possible where it would be no advantage to him to have it otherwise.
He never moved but what, if there was any danger of his conduct being misconstrued or ill-reported, he looked carefully about him and counted the cost of every inch of conspicuity[59 - he looked carefully about him and counted the cost of every inch of conspicuity – он внимательно следил, чтобы его присутствие не было замечено].
The next morning at breakfast his son said:
“I saw you, Governor[60 - Governor – (разг.) отец], last night.”
“Were you at McVickar’s?” said Hurstwood, with the best grace in the world.
“Yes,” said young George.
“Who with?”
“Miss Carmichael.”
Mrs. Hurstwood directed an inquiring glance at her husband, but could not judge from his appearance whether it was any more than a casual look into the theatre which was referred to.
“How was the play?” she inquired.
“Very good,” returned Hurstwood, “only it’s the same old thing, ’Rip Van Winkle.’”
“Whom did you go with?” queried his wife, with assumed indifference.
“Charlie Drouet and his wife. They are friends of Moy’s, visiting here.”
Owing to the peculiar nature of his position, such a disclosure as this would ordinarily create no difficulty. His wife took it for granted that his situation called for certain social movements in which she might not be included. But of late he had pleaded office duty on several occasions when his wife asked for his company to any evening entertainment. He had done so in regard to the very evening in question only the morning before.
“I thought you were going to be busy,” she remarked, very carefully.
“So I was,” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t help the interruption, but I made up for it afterward by working until two.”
This settled the discussion for the time being, but there was a residue of opinion which was not satisfactory. There was no time at which the claims of his wife could have been more unsatisfactorily pushed. For years he had been steadily modifying his matrimonial devotion, and found her company dull. Now that a new light shone upon the horizon, this older luminary paled in the west. He was satisfied to turn his face away entirely, and any call to look back was irksome.
She, on the contrary, was not at all inclined to accept anything less than a complete fulfillment of the letter of their relationship, though the spirit might be wanting.
“We are coming down town this afternoon,” she remarked, a few days later. “I want you to come over to Kinsley’s and meet Mr. Phillips and his wife. They’re stopping at the Tremont, and we’re going to show them around a little.”
After the occurrence of Wednesday, he could not refuse, though the Phillips were about as uninteresting as vanity and ignorance could make them. He agreed, but it was with short grace. He was angry when he left the house.
“I’ll put a stop to this,” he thought. “I’m not going to be bothered fooling around with visitors when I have work to do.”
Not long after this Mrs. Hurstwood came with a similar proposition, only it was to a matinee this time.
“My dear,” he returned, “I haven’t time. I’m too busy.”
“You find time to go with other people, though,” she replied, with considerable irritation.
“Nothing of the kind,” he answered. “I can’t avoid business relations, and that’s all there is to it.”
“Well, never mind,” she exclaimed. Her lips tightened. The feeling of mutual antagonism was increased.
