“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 fairy lands of delight. It roars as a furnace. Too often jealousy is the quality upon which it feeds.
CHAPTER XXIV
ASHES OF TINDER: A FACE AT THE WINDOW
THAT NIGHT HURSTWOOD REMAINED down town entirely, going to the Palmer House
s
for a bed after his work was through. He was in a fevered state of mind, owing to the blight his wife’s action threatened to cast upon his entire future. While he was not sure how much significance might be attached to the threat she had made, he was sure that her attitude, if long continued, would cause him no end of trouble. She was determined, and had worsted him in a very important contest. How would it be from now on? He walked the floor of his little office, and later that of his room, putting one thing and another together to no avail.
Mrs. Hurstwood, on the contrary, had decided not to lose her advantage by inaction. Now that she had practically cowed him, she would follow up her work with demands, the acknowledgment of which would make her word
law
in the future. He would have to pay her the money which she would now regularly demand or there would be trouble. It did not matter what he did. She really did not care whether he came home any more or not. The household would move along much more pleasantly without him, and she could do as she wished without consulting any one. Now she proposed to consult a lawyer and hire a detective. She would find out at once just what advantages she could gain.
Hurstwood walked the floor, mentally arranging the chief points of his situation. “She has that property in her name,” he kept saying to himself. “What a fool trick that was. Curse it! What a fool move that was.”
He also thought of his managerial position. “If she raises a row now I’ll lose this thing. They won’t have me around if my name gets in the papers. My friends, too!” He grew more angry as he thought of the talk any action on her part would create. How would the papers talk about it? Every man he knew would be wondering. He would have to explain and deny and make a general mark of himself. Then Moy would come and confer with him and there would be the devil to pay.
Many little wrinkles gathered between his eyes as he contemplated this, and his brow moistened. He saw no solution of anything—not a loophole left.
Through all this thoughts of Carrie flashed upon him, and the approaching affair of Saturday. Tangled as all his matters were he did not worry over that. It was the one pleasing thing in this whole rout of trouble. He could arrange that satisfactorily, for Carrie would be glad to wait, if necessary. He would see how things turned out to-morrow, and then he would talk to her. They were going to meet as usual. He saw only her pretty face and neat figure and wondered why life was not arranged so that such joy as he found with her could be steadily maintained. How much more pleasant it would be. Then he would take up his wife’s threat again, and the wrinkles and moisture would return.