“You need not trouble about that at all,” interrupted Mr. Withers. “We can arrange that to your entire satisfaction at any time. If three dollars a day is satisfactory to you, it will be so to us. All you have to do is to pay that sum to the clerk at the end of the week or month, just as you wish, and he will give you a receipt for what the rooms would cost if charged for at our regular rates.”
The speaker paused.
“Suppose you come and look at the rooms,” he added.
“I’d be glad to,” said Carrie, “but I have a rehearsal this morning.”
“I did not mean at once,” he returned. “Any time will do. Would this afternoon be inconvenient?”
“Not at all,” said Carrie.
Suddenly she remembered Lola, who was out at the time.
“I have a room-mate,” she added, “who will have to go wherever I do. I forgot about that.”
“Oh, very well,” said Mr. Withers, blandly. “It is for you to say whom you want with you. As I say, all that can be arranged to suit yourself.”
He bowed and backed toward the door.
“At four, then, we may expect you?”
“Yes,” said Carrie.
“I will be there to show you,” and so Mr. Withers withdrew.
After rehearsal Carrie informed Lola.
“Did they really?” exclaimed the latter, thinking of the Wellington as a group of managers. “Isn’t that fine? Oh, jolly! It’s so swell. That’s where we dined that night we went with those two Cushing boys. Don’t you know?”
“I remember,” said Carrie.
“Oh, it’s as fine as it can be.”
“We’d better be going up there,” observed Carrie, later in the afternoon.
The rooms which Mr. Withers displayed to Carrie and Lola were three and bath—a suite on the parlour floor. They were done in chocolate and dark red, with rugs and hangings to match. Three windows looked down into busy Broadway on the east, three into a side street which crossed there. There were two lovely bedrooms, set with brass and white enamel beds, white, ribbon-trimmed chairs and chiffoniers to match. In the third room, or parlour, was a piano, a heavy piano lamp, with a shade of gorgeous pattern, a library table, several huge easy rockers, some dado book shelves, and a gilt curio case, filled with oddities. Pictures were upon the walls, soft Turkish pillows upon the divan, footstools of brown plush upon the floor. Such accommodations would ordinarily cost a hundred dollars a week.
“Oh, lovely!” exclaimed Lola, walking about.
“It is comfortable,” said Carrie, who was lifting a lace curtain and looking down into crowded Broadway.
The bath was a handsome affair, done in white enamel, with a large, blue-bordered stone tub and nickel trimmings. It was bright and commodious, with a bevelled mirror set in the wall at one end and incandescent lights arranged in three places.
“Do you find these satisfactory?” observed Mr. Withers.
“Oh, very,” answered Carrie.
“Well, then, any time you find it convenient to move in, they are ready. The boy will bring you the keys at the door.”
Carrie noted the elegantly carpeted and decorated hall, the marbelled lobby, and showy waiting-room. It was such a place as she had often dreamed of occupying.
“I guess we’d better move right away, don’t you think so?” she observed to Lola, thinking of the commonplace chamber in Seventeenth Street.
“Oh, by all means,” said the latter.
The next day her trunks left for the new abode.
Dressing, after the matinee on Wednesday, a knock came at her dressing-room door.
Carrie looked at the card handed by the boy and suffered a shock of surprise.
“Tell her I’ll be right out,” she said softly. Then, looking at the card, added: “Mrs. Vance.”
“Why, you little sinner,” the latter exclaimed, as she saw Carrie coming toward her across the now vacant stage. “How in the world did this happen?”
Carrie laughed merrily. There was no trace of embarrassment in her friend’s manner. You would have thought that the long separation had come about accidentally.
“I don’t know,” returned Carrie, warming, in spite of her first troubled feelings, toward this handsome, good-natured young matron.
“Well, you know, I saw your picture in the Sunday paper, but your name threw me off. I thought it must be you or somebody that looked just like you, and I said: ‘Well, now, I will go right down there and see.’ I was never more surprised in my life. How are you, anyway?”
“Oh, very well,” returned Carrie. “How have you been?”
“Fine. But aren’t you a success! Dear, oh! All the papers talking about you. I should think you would be just too proud to breathe. I was almost afraid to come back here this afternoon.”
“Oh, nonsense,” said Carrie, blushing. “You know I’d be glad to see you.”
“Well, anyhow, here you are. Can’t you come up and take dinner with me now? Where are you stopping?”
“At the Wellington,” said Carrie, who permitted herself a touch of pride in the acknowledgment.
“Oh, are you?” exclaimed the other, upon whom the name was not without its proper effect.
Tactfully, Mrs. Vance avoided the subject of Hurstwood, of whom she could not help thinking. No doubt Carrie had left him. That much she surmised.
“Oh, I don’t think I can,” said Carrie, “to-night. I have so little time. I must be back here by 7.30. Won’t you come and dine with me?”
“I’d be delighted, but I can’t to-night,” said Mrs. Vance, studying Carrie’s fine appearance. The latter’s good fortune made her seem more than ever worthy and delightful in the other’s eyes. “I promised faithfully to be home at six.” Glancing at the small gold watch pinned to her bosom, she added: “I must be going, too. Tell me when you’re coming up, if at all.”
“Why, any time you like,” said Carrie.
“Well, to-morrow then. I’m living at the Chelsea now.”
15
“Moved again?” exclaimed Carrie, laughing.
“Yes. You know I can’t stay six months in one place. I just have to move. Remember now—half-past five.”
“I won’t forget,” said Carrie, casting a glance at her as she went away. Then it came to her that she was as good as this woman now—perhaps better. Something in the other’s solicitude and interest made her feel as if she were the one to condescend.
Now, as on each preceding day, letters were handed her by the doorman at the Casino. This was a feature which had rapidly developed since Monday. What they contained she well knew.
Mash notes
were old affairs in their mildest form. She remembered having received her first one far back in Columbia City. Since then, as a chorus girl, she had received others—gentlemen who prayed for an engagement. They were common sport between her and Lola, who received some also. They both frequently made light of them.
Now, however, they came thick and fast. Gentlemen with fortunes did not hesitate to note, as an addition to their own amiable collection of virtues, that they had their horses and carriages. Thus one:
I have a million in my own right. I could give you every luxury. There isn’t anything you could ask for that you couldn’t have. I say this, not because I want to speak of my money, but because I love you and wish to gratify your every desire. It is love that prompts me to write. Will you not give me one half-hour in which to plead my cause?
Such of these letters as came while Carrie was still in the Seventeenth Street place were read with more interest—though never delight—than those which arrived after she was installed in her luxurious quarters at the Wellington. Even there her vanity—or that self-appreciation which, in its more rabid form, is called vanity—was not sufficiently cloyed to make these things wearisome. Adulation, being new in any form, pleased her. Only she was sufficiently wise to distinguish between her old condition and her new one. She had not had fame or money before. Now they had come. She had not had adulation and affectionate propositions before. Now they had come. Wherefore? She smiled to think that men should suddenly find her so much more attractive. In the least way it incited her to coolness and indifference.
“Do look here,” she remarked to Lola. “See what this man says: ‘If you will only deign to grant me one half-hour,’ ” she repeated, with an imitation of languor. “The idea. Aren’t men silly?”
“He must have lots of money, the way he talks,” observed Lola.
“That’s what they all say,” said Carrie, innocently.
“Why don’t you see him,” suggested Lola, “and hear what he has to say?”
“Indeed I won’t,” said Carrie. “I know what he’d say. I don’t want to meet anybody that way.”
Lola looked at her with big, merry eyes.
“He couldn’t hurt you,” she returned. “You might have some fun with him.”
Carrie shook her head.
“You’re awfully queer,” returned the little, blue-eyed soldier.
Thus crowded fortune. For this whole week, though her large salary had not yet arrived, it was as if the world understood and trusted her. Without money—or the requisite sum, at least—she enjoyed the luxuries which money could buy. For her the doors of fine places seemed to open quite without the asking. These palatial chambers, how marvellously they came to her. The elegant apartments of Mrs. Vance in the Chelsea—these were hers. Men sent flowers, love notes, offers of fortune. And still her dreams ran riot. The one hundred and fifty! the one hundred and fifty! What a door to an Aladdin’s cave it seemed to be. Each day, her head almost turned by developments, her fancies of what her fortune must be, with ample money, grew and multiplied. She conceived of delights which were not—saw lights of joy that never were on land or sea. Then, at last, after a world of anticipation, came her first installment of one hundred and fifty dollars.
It was paid to her in greenbacks—three twenties, six tens, and six fives. Thus collected it made a very convenient roll. It was accompanied by a smile and a salutation from the cashier who paid it.
“Ah, yes,” said the latter, when she applied; “Miss Madenda— one hundred and fifty dollars. Quite a success the show seems to have made.”
“Yes, indeed,” returned Carrie.
Right after came one of the insignificant members of the company, and she heard the changed tone of address.
“How much?” said the same cashier, sharply. One, such as she had only recently been, was waiting for her modest salary. It took her back to the few weeks in which she had collected—or rather had received—almost with the air of a domestic, four-fifty per week from a lordly foreman in a shoe factory—a man who, in distributing the envelopes, had the manner of a prince doling out favours to a servile group of petitioners. She knew that out in Chicago this very day the same factory chamber was full of poor homely-clad girls working in long lines at clattering machines; that at noon they would eat a miserable lunch in a half-hour; that Saturday they would gather, as they had when she was one of them, and accept the small pay for work a hundred times harder than she was now doing. Oh, it was so easy now! The world was so rosy and bright. She felt so thrilled that she must needs walk back to the hotel to think, wondering what she should do.
It does not take money long to make plain its impotence, providing the desires are in the realm of affection. With her one hundred and fifty in hand, Carrie could think of nothing particularly to do. In itself, as a tangible, apparent thing which she could touch and look upon, it was a diverting thing for a few days, but this soon passed. Her hotel bill did not require its use. Her clothes had for some time been wholly satisfactory. Another day or two and she would receive another hundred and fifty. It began to appear as if this were not so startlingly necessary to maintain her present state. If she wanted to do anything better or move higher she must have more—a great deal more.
Now a critic called to get up one of those tinsel interviews which shine with clever observations, show up the wit of critics, display the folly of celebrities, and divert the public. He liked Carrie, and said so, publicly—adding, however, that she was merely pretty, good-natured, and lucky. This cut like a knife. The “Herald,” getting up an entertainment for the benefit of its free ice fund, did her the honour to beg her to appear along with celebrities for nothing.
She was visited by a young author, who had a play which he thought she could produce. Alas, she could not judge. It hurt her to think it. Then she found she must put her money in the bank for safety, and so moving, finally reached the place where it struck her that the door to life’s perfect enjoyment was not open.
Gradually she began to think it was because it was summer. Nothing was going on much save such entertainments as the one in which she was star. Fifth Avenue was boarded up where the rich had deserted their mansions. Madison Avenue was little better. Broadway was full of loafing thespians in search of next season engagements. The whole city was quiet and her nights were taken up with her work. Hence the feeling that there was little to do.
“I don’t know,” she said to Lola one day, sitting at one of the windows which looked down into Broadway, “I get lonely; don’t you?”
“No,” said Lola, “not very often. You won’t go anywhere. That’s what’s the matter with you.”
“Where can I go?”
“Why, there’re lots of places,” returned Lola, who was thinking of her own lightsome tourneys with the gay youths. “You won’t go with anybody.”
“I don’t want to go with these people who write to me. I know what kind they are.”
“You oughtn’t to be lonely,” said Lola, thinking of Carrie’s success. “There’re lots would give their ears to be in your shoes.”
Carrie looked out again at the passing crowd.
“I don’t know,” she said.
Unconsciously her idle hands were beginning to weary.
CHAPTER XLV
CURIOUS SHIFTS OF THE POOR
THE GLOOMY HURSTWOOD, SITTING in his cheap hotel, where he had taken refuge with seventy dollars—the price of his furniture—between him and nothing, saw a hot summer out and a cool fall in, reading. He was not wholly indifferent to the fact that his money was slipping away. As fifty cents after fifty cents were paid out for a day’s lodging he became uneasy, and finally took a cheaper room—thirty-five cents a day—to make his money last longer. Frequently he saw notices of Carrie. Her picture was in the “World” once or twice, and an old “Herald” he found in a chair informed him that she had recently appeared with some others at a benefit for something or other. He read these things with mingled feelings. Each one seemed to put her farther and farther away into a realm which became more imposing as it receded from him. On the bill-boards, too, he saw a pretty poster, showing her as the Quaker Maid, demure and dainty. More than once he stopped and looked at these, gazing at the pretty face in a sullen sort of way. His clothes were shabby, and he presented a marked contrast to all that she now seemed to be.