Sister Carrie - Драйзер Теодор - Страница 44

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For her part, Carrie had experienced a world of fancy and feeling since she had left him, the night before. She had listened to Drouet’s enthusiastic maunderings with much regard for that part which concerned herself, with very little for that which affected his own gain. She kept him at such lengths as she could, because her thoughts were with her own triumph. She felt Hurstwood’s passion as a delightful background to her own achievement, and she wondered what he would have to say. She was sorry for him, too, with that peculiar sorrow which finds something complimentary to itself in the misery of another. She was now experiencing the first shades of feeling of that subtle change which removes one out of the ranks of the suppliants into the lines of the dispensers of charity. She was, all in all, exceedingly happy.

On the morrow, however, there was nothing in the papers concerning the event, and, in view of the flow of common, everyday things about, it now lost a shade of the glow of the previous evening. Drouet himself was not talking so much of as for her. He felt instinctively that, for some reason or other, he needed reconstruction in her regard.

“I think,” he said, as he spruced around their chambers the next morning, preparatory to going down town, “that I’ll straighten out that little deal of mine this month and then we’ll get married. I was talking with Mosher about that yesterday.”

“No, you won’t,” said Carrie, who was coming to feel a certain faint power to jest with the drummer.

“Yes, I will,” he exclaimed, more feelingly than usual, adding, with the tone of one who pleads, “Don’t you believe what I’ve told you?”

Carrie laughed a little.

“Of course I do,” she answered.

Drouet’s assurance now misgave him. Shallow as was his mental observation, there was that in the things which had happened which made his little power of analysis useless. Carrie was still with him, but not helpless and pleading. There was a lilt in her voice which was new. She did not study him with eyes expressive of dependence. The drummer was feeling the shadow of something which was coming. It coloured his feelings and made him develop those little attentions and say those little words which were mere forefendations against danger.

Shortly afterward he departed, and Carrie prepared for her meeting with Hurstwood. She hurried at her toilet, which was soon made, and hastened down the stairs. At the corner she passed Drouet, but they did not see each other.

The drummer had forgotten some bills which he wished to turn into his house. He hastened up the stairs and burst into the room, but found only the chambermaid, who was cleaning up.

“Hello,” he exclaimed, half to himself, “has Carrie gone?”

“Your wife? Yes, she went out just a few minutes ago.”

“That’s strange,” thought Drouet. “She didn’t say a word to me. I wonder where she went?”

He hastened about, rummaging in his valise for what he wanted, and finally pocketing it. Then he turned his attention to his fair neighbour, who was good-looking and kindly disposed towards him.

“What are you up to?” he said, smiling.

“Just cleaning,” she replied, stopping and winding a dusting towel about her hand.

“Tired of it?”

“Not so very.”

“Let me show you something,” he said, affably, coming over and taking out of his pocket a little lithographed card which had been issued by a wholesale tobacco company. On this was printed a picture of a pretty girl, holding a striped parasol, the colours of which could be changed by means of a revolving disk in the back, which showed red, yellow, green, and blue through little interstices made in the ground occupied by the umbrella top.

“Isn’t that clever?” he said, handing it to her and showing her how it worked. “You never saw anything like that before.”

“Isn’t it nice?” she answered.

“You can have it if you want it,” he remarked.

“That’s a pretty ring you have,” he said, touching a common-place setting which adorned the hand holding the card he had given her.

“Do you think so?”

“That’s right,” he answered, making use of a pretence at examination to secure her finger. “That’s fine.”

The ice being thus broken, he launched into further observation, pretending to forget that her fingers were still retained by his. She soon withdrew them, however, and retreated a few feet to rest against the window-sill.

“I didn’t see you for a long time,” she said, coquettishly, repulsing one of his exuberant approaches. “You must have been away.”

“I was,” said Drouet.

“Do you travel far?”

“Pretty far—yes.”

“Do you like it?”

“Oh, not very well. You get tired of it after a while.”

“I wish I could travel,” said the girl, gazing idly out of the window.

“What has become of your friend, Mr. Hurstwood?” she suddenly asked, bethinking herself of the manager, who, from her own observation, seemed to contain promising material.

“He’s here in town. What makes you ask about him?”

“Oh, nothing, only he hasn’t been here since you got back.”

“How did you come to know him?”

“Didn’t I take up his name a dozen times in the last month?”

“Get out,” said the drummer, lightly. “He hasn’t called more than half a dozen times since we’ve been here.”

“He hasn’t, eh?” said the girl, smiling. “That’s all you know about it.”

Drouet took on a slightly more serious tone. He was uncertain as to whether she was joking or not.

“Tease,” he said, “what makes you smile that way?”

“Oh, nothing.”

“Have you seen him recently?”

“Not since you came back,” she laughed.

“Before?”

“Certainly.”

“How often?”

“Why, nearly every day.”

She was a mischievous newsmonger, and was keenly wondering what the effect of her words would be.

“Who did he come to see?” asked the drummer, incredulously.

“Mrs. Drouet.”

He looked rather foolish at this answer, and then attempted to correct himself so as not to appear a dupe.

“Well,” he said, “what of it?”

“Nothing,” replied the girl, her head cocked coquettishly on one side.

“He’s an old friend,” he went on, getting deeper into the mire.

He would have gone on further with his little flirtation, but the taste for it was temporarily removed. He was quite relieved when the girl’s name was called from below.

“I’ve got to go,” she said, moving away from him airily.

“I’ll see you later,” he said, with a pretence of disturbance at being interrupted.

When she was gone, he gave freer play to his feelings. His face, never easily controlled by him, expressed all the perplexity and disturbance which he felt. Could it be that Carrie had received so many visits and yet said nothing about them? Was Hurstwood lying? What did the chambermaid mean by it, anyway? He had thought there was something odd about Carrie’s manner at the time. Why did she look so disturbed when he had asked her how many times Hurstwood had called? By George! he remembered now. There was something strange about the whole thing.

He sat down in a rocking-chair to think the better, drawing up one leg on his knee and frowning mightily. His mind ran on at a great rate.

And yet Carrie hadn’t acted out of the ordinary. It couldn’t be, by George, that she was deceiving him. She hadn’t acted that way. Why, even last night she had been as friendly toward him as could be, and Hurstwood too. Look how they acted! He could hardly believe they would try to deceive him.

His thoughts burst into words.

“She did act sort of funny at times. Here she had dressed and gone out this morning and never said a word.”

He scratched his head and prepared to go down town. He was still frowning. As he came into the hall he encountered the girl, who was now looking after another chamber. She had on a white dusting cap, beneath which her chubby face shone good-naturedly. Drouet almost forgot his worry in the fact that she was smiling on him. He put his hand familiarly on her shoulder, as if only to greet her in passing.

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