HIS CREDENTIALS ACCEPTED: A BABEL OF TONGUES
It was not quite two days after the scene between Carrie and Hurstwood
in the Ogden Place parlour before he again put in his appearance. He had
been thinking almost uninterruptedly of her. Her leniency had, in a way,
inflamed his regard. He felt that he must succeed with her, and that
speedily.
The reason for his interest, not to say fascination, was deeper than
mere desire. It was a flowering out of feelings which had been withering
in dry and almost barren soil for many years. It is probable that Carrie
represented a better order of woman than had ever attracted him before.
He had had no love affair since that which culminated in his marriage,
and since then time and the world had taught him how raw and erroneous
was his original judgment. Whenever he thought of it, he told himself
that, if he had it to do over again, he would never marry such a woman.
At the same time, his experience with women in general had lessened his
respect for the sex. He maintained a cynical attitude, well grounded on
numerous experiences. Such women as he had known were of nearly one
type, selfish, ignorant, flashy. The wives of his friends were not
inspiring to look upon. His own wife had developed a cold, commonplace
nature which to him was anything but pleasing. What he knew of that
under-world where grovel the beast-men of society (and he knew a great
deal) had hardened his nature. He looked upon most women with
suspicion--a single eye to the utility of beauty and dress. He followed
them with a keen, suggestive glance. At the same time, he was not so
dull but that a good woman commanded his respect. Personally, he did not
attempt to analyse the marvel of a saintly woman. He would take off his
hat, and would silence the light-tongued and the vicious in her
presence--much as the Irish keeper of a Bowery hall will humble himself
before a Sister of Mercy, and pay toll to charity with a willing and
reverent hand. But he would not think much upon the question of why he
did so.
A man in his situation who comes, after a long round of worthless or
hardening experiences, upon a young, unsophisticated, innocent soul, is
apt either to hold aloof, out of a sense of his own remoteness, or to
draw near and become fascinated and elated by his discovery. It is only
by a roundabout process that such men ever do draw near such a girl.
They have no method, no understanding of how to ingratiate themselves in
youthful favour, save when they find virtue in the toils. If,
unfortunately, the fly has got caught in the net, the spider can come
forth and talk business upon its own terms. So when maidenhood has
wandered into the moil of the city, when it is brought within the circle
of the "rounder" and the roue, even though it be at the outermost rim,
they can come forth and use their alluring arts.
Hurstwood had gone, at Drouet's invitation, to meet a new baggage of
fine clothes and pretty features. He entered, expecting to indulge in an
evening of lightsome frolic, and then lose track of the newcomer
forever. Instead he found a woman whose youth and beauty attracted him.
In the mild light of Carrie's eye was nothing of the calculation of the
mistress. In the diffident manner was nothing of the art of the
courtesan. He saw at once that a mistake had been made, that some
difficult conditions had pushed this troubled creature into his
presence, and his interest was enlisted. Here sympathy sprang to the
rescue, but it was not unmixed with selfishness. He wanted to win Carrie
because he thought her fate mingled with his was better than if it were
united with Drouet's. He envied the drummer his conquest as he had never
envied any man in all the course of his experience.
Carrie was certainly better than this man, as she was superior,
mentally, to Drouet. She came fresh from the air of the village, the
light of the country still in her eye. Here was neither guile nor
rapacity. There were slight inherited traits of both in her, but they
were rudimentary. She was too full of wonder and desire to be greedy.
She still looked about her upon the great maze of the city without
understanding. Hurstwood felt the bloom and the youth. He picked her as
he would the fresh fruit of a tree. He felt as fresh in her presence as
one who is taken out of the flash of summer to the first cool breath of
spring.
Carrie, left alone since the scene in question, and having no one with
whom to counsel, had at first wandered from one strange mental
conclusion to another, until at last, tired out, she gave it up. She
owed something to Drouet, she thought. It did not seem more than
yesterday that he had aided her when she was worried and distressed. She
had the kindliest feelings for him in every way. She gave him credit for
his good looks, his generous feelings, and even, in fact, failed to
recollect his egotism when he was absent; but she could not feel any
binding influence keeping her for him as against all others. In fact,
such a thought had never had any grounding, even in Drouet's desires.
The truth is, that this goodly drummer carried the doom of all enduring
relationships in his own lightsome manner and unstable fancy. He went
merrily on, assured that he was alluring all, that affection followed
tenderly in his wake, that things would endure unchangingly for his
pleasure. When he missed some old face, or found some door finally shut
to him, it did not grieve him deeply. He was too young, too successful.
He would remain thus young in spirit until he was dead.
As for Hurstwood, he was alive with thoughts and feelings concerning
Carrie. He had no definite plans regarding her, but he was determined to
make her confess an affection for him. He thought he saw in her drooping
eye, her unstable glance, her wavering manner, the symptoms of a budding
passion. He wanted to stand near her and make her lay her hand in
his--he wanted to find out what her next step would be--what the next
sign of feeling for him would be. Such anxiety and enthusiasm had not
affected him for years. He was a youth again in feeling--a cavalier in
action.
In his position opportunity for taking his evenings out was excellent.
He was a most faithful worker in general, and a man who commanded the
confidence of his employers in so far as the distribution of his time
was concerned. He could take such hours off as he chose, for it was well
known that he fulfilled his managerial duties successfully, whatever
time he might take. His grace, tact, and ornate appearance gave the
place an air which was most essential, while at the same time his long
experience made him a most excellent judge of its stock necessities.
Bartenders and assistants might come and go, singly or in groups, but,
so long as he was present, the host of old-time customers would barely
notice the change. He gave the place the atmosphere to which they were
used. Consequently, he arranged his hours very much to suit himself,
taking now an afternoon, now an evening, but invariably returning
between eleven and twelve to witness the last hour or two of the day's
business and look after the closing details.
"You see that things are safe and all the employees are out when you go
home, George," Moy had once remarked to him, and he never once, in all
the period of his long service, neglected to do this. Neither of the
owners had for years been in the resort after five in the afternoon, and
yet their manager as faithfully fulfilled this request as if they had
been there regularly to observe.
On this Friday afternoon, scarcely two days after his previous visit, he
made up his mind to see Carrie. He could not stay away longer.
"Evans," he said, addressing the head barkeeper, "if any one calls, I
will be back between four and five."
He hurried to Madison Street and boarded a horse-car, which carried him
to Ogden Place in half an hour.
Carrie had thought of going for a walk, and had put on a light grey
woollen dress with a jaunty double-breasted jacket. She had out her hat
and gloves, and was fastening a white lace tie about her throat when the
house-maid brought up the information that Mr. Hurstwood wished to see
her.
She started slightly at the announcement, but told the girl to say that
she would come down in a moment, and proceeded to hasten her dressing.
Carrie could not have told herself at this moment whether she was glad
or sorry that the impressive manager was awaiting her presence. She was
slightly flurried and tingling in the cheeks, but it was more
nervousness than either fear or favour. She did not try to conjecture
what the drift of the conversation would be. She only felt that she must
be careful, and that Hurstwood had an indefinable fascination for her.
Then she gave her tie its last touch with her fingers and went below.
The deep-feeling manager was himself a little strained in the nerves by
the thorough consciousness of his mission. He felt that he must make a
strong play on this occasion, but now that the hour was come, and he
heard Carrie's feet upon the stair, his nerve failed him. He sank a
little in determination, for he was not so sure, after all, what her
opinion might be.
When she entered the room, however, her appearance gave him courage. She
looked simple and charming enough to strengthen the daring of any lover.
Her apparent nervousness dispelled his own.
"How are you?" he said, easily. "I could not resist the temptation to
come out this afternoon, it was so pleasant."
"Yes," said Carrie, halting before him, "I was just preparing to go for
a walk myself."
"Oh, were you?" he said. "Supposing, then, you get your hat and we both
go?"
They crossed the park and went west along Washington Boulevard,
beautiful with its broad macadamised road, and large frame houses set
back from the sidewalks. It was a street where many of the more
prosperous residents of the West Side lived, and Hurstwood could not
help feeling nervous over the publicity of it. They had gone but a few
blocks when a livery stable sign in one of the side streets solved the
difficulty for him. He would take her to drive along the new Boulevard.
The Boulevard at that time was little more than a country road. The part
he intended showing her was much farther out on this same West Side,
where there was scarcely a house. It connected Douglas Park with
Washington or South Park, and was nothing more than a neatly made road,
running due south for some five miles over an open, grassy prairie, and
then due east over the same kind of prairie for the same distance. There
was not a house to be encountered anywhere along the larger part of the
route, and any conversation would be pleasantly free of interruption.
At the stable he picked a gentle horse, and they were soon out of range
of either public observation or hearing.
"Can you drive?" he said, after a time.
"I never tried," said Carrie.
He put the reins in her hand, and folded his arms.
"You see there's nothing to it much," he said, smilingly.
"Not when you have a gentle horse," said Carrie.
"You can handle a horse as well as any one, after a little practice," he
added, encouragingly.
He had been looking for some time for a break in the conversation when
he could give it a serious turn. Once or twice he had held his peace,
hoping that in silence her thoughts would take the colour of his own,
but she had lightly continued the subject. Presently, however, his
silence controlled the situation. The drift of his thoughts began to
tell. He gazed fixedly at nothing in particular, as if he were thinking
of something which concerned her not at all. His thoughts, however,
spoke for themselves. She was very much aware that a climax was pending.
"Do you know," he said, "I have spent the happiest evenings in years
since I have known you?"
"Have you?" she said, with assumed airiness, but still excited by the
conviction which the tone of his voice carried.
"I was going to tell you the other evening," he added, "but somehow the
opportunity slipped away."
Carrie was listening without attempting to reply. She could think of
nothing worth while to say. Despite all the ideas concerning right which
had troubled her vaguely since she had last seen him, she was now
influenced again strongly in his favour.
"I came out here to-day," he went on, solemnly, "to tell you just how I
feel--to see if you wouldn't listen to me."
Hurstwood was something of a romanticist after his kind. He was capable
of strong feelings--often poetic ones--and under a stress of desire,
such as the present, he waxed eloquent. That is, his feelings and his
voice were coloured with that seeming repression and pathos which is the
essence of eloquence.
"You know," he said, putting his hand on her arm, and keeping a strange
silence while he formulated words, "that I love you?"
Carrie did not stir at the words. She was bound up completely in the
man's atmosphere. He would have church-like silence in order to express
his feelings, and she kept it. She did not move her eyes from the flat,
open scene before her. Hurstwood waited for a few moments, and then
repeated the words.
"You must not say that," she said, weakly.
Her words were not convincing at all. They were the result of a feeble
thought that something ought to be said. He paid no attention to them
whatever.
"Carrie," he said, using her first name with sympathetic familiarity, "I
want you to love me. You don't know how much I need some one to waste a
little affection on me. I am practically alone. There is nothing in my
life that is pleasant or delightful. It's all work and worry with people
who are nothing to me."
As he said this, Hurstwood really imagined that his state was pitiful.
He had the ability to get off at a distance and view himself
objectively--of seeing what he wanted to see in the things which made up
his existence. Now, as he spoke, his voice trembled with that peculiar
vibration which is the result of tensity. It went ringing home to his
companion's heart.
"Why, I should think," she said, turning upon him large eyes which were
full of sympathy and feeling, "that you would be very happy. You know so
much of the world."
"That is it," he said, his voice dropping to a soft minor, "I know too
much of the world."
It was an important thing to her to hear one so well-positioned and
powerful speaking in this manner. She could not help feeling the
strangeness of her situation. How was it that, in so little a while, the
narrow life of the country had fallen from her as a garment, and the
city, with all its mystery, taken its place? Here was this greatest
mystery, the man of money and affairs sitting beside her, appealing to
her. Behold, he had ease and comfort, his strength was great, his
position high, his clothing rich, and yet he was appealing to her. She
could formulate no thought which would be just and right. She troubled
herself no more upon the matter. She only basked in the warmth of his
feeling, which was as a grateful blaze to one who is cold. Hurstwood
glowed with his own intensity, and the heat of his passion was already
melting the wax of his companion's scruples.
"You think," he said, "I am happy; that I ought not to complain? If you
were to meet all day with people who care absolutely nothing about you,
if you went day after day to a place where there was nothing but show
and indifference, if there was not one person in all those you knew to
whom you could appeal for sympathy or talk to with pleasure, perhaps you
would be unhappy too."
He was striking a chord now which found sympathetic response in her own
situation. She knew what it was to meet with people who were
indifferent, to walk alone amid so many who cared absolutely nothing
about you. Had not she? Was not she at this very moment quite alone?
Who was there among all whom she knew to whom she could appeal for
sympathy? Not one. She was left to herself to brood and wonder.
"I could be content," went on Hurstwood, "if I had you to love me. If I
had you to go to; you for a companion. As it is, I simply move about
from place to place without any satisfaction. Time hangs heavily on my
hands. Before you came I did nothing but idle and drift into anything
that offered itself. Since you came--well, I've had you to think about."
The old illusion that here was some one who needed her aid began to grow
in Carrie's mind. She truly pitied this sad, lonely figure. To think
that all his fine state should be so barren for want of her; that he
needed to make such an appeal when she herself was lonely and without
anchor. Surely, this was too bad.
"I am not very bad," he said, apologetically, as if he owed it to her to
explain on this score. "You think, probably, that I roam around, and get
into all sorts of evil? I have been rather reckless, but I could easily
come out of that. I need you to draw me back, if my life ever amounts to
anything."
Carrie looked at him with the tenderness which virtue ever feels in its
hope of reclaiming vice. How could such a man need reclaiming? His
errors, what were they, that she could correct? Small they must be,
where all was so fine. At worst, they were gilded affairs, and with what
leniency are gilded errors viewed.
He put himself in such a lonely light that she was deeply moved.
"Is it that way?" she mused.
He slipped his arm about her waist, and she could not find the heart to
draw away. With his free hand he seized upon her fingers. A breath of
soft spring wind went bounding over the road, rolling some brown twigs
of the previous autumn before it. The horse paced leisurely on,
unguided.
"Tell me," he said, softly, "that you love me."
Her eyes fell consciously.
"Own to it, dear," he said, feelingly; "you do, don't you?"
She made no answer, but he felt his victory.
"Tell me," he said, richly, drawing her so close that their lips were
near together. He pressed her hand warmly, and then released it to touch
her cheek.
"You do?" he said, pressing his lips to her own.
For answer, her lips replied.
"Now," he said, joyously, his fine eyes ablaze, "you're my own girl,
aren't you?"
By way of further conclusion, her head lay softly upon his shoulder.