Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Mistresses -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
She had forgotten, in considering and explaining the result of her day,
that Drouet might come. Now, when she saw how unreceptive these two
people were, she hoped he would not. She did not know exactly what she
would do or how she would explain to Drouet, if he came. After supper
she changed her clothes. When she was trimly dressed she was rather a
sweet little being, with large eyes and a sad mouth. Her face expressed
the mingled expectancy, dissatisfaction, and depression she felt. She
wandered about after the dishes were put away, talked a little with
Minnie, and then decided to go down and stand in the door at the foot
of the stairs. If Drouet came, she could meet him there. Her face took
on the semblance of a look of happiness as she put on her hat to go
below.
“Carrie doesn’t seem to like her place very well,” said Minnie to her
husband when the latter came out, paper in hand, to sit in the
dining-room a few minutes.
“She ought to keep it for a time, anyhow,” said Hanson. “Has she gone
downstairs?”
“Yes,” said Minnie.
“I’d tell her to keep it if I were you. She might be here weeks without
getting another one.”
Minnie said she would, and Hanson read his paper.
“If I were you,” he said a little later, “I wouldn’t let her stand in
the door down there. It don’t look good.”
“I’ll tell her,” said Minnie.
The life of the streets continued for a long time to interest Carrie.
She never wearied of wondering where the people in the cars were going
or what their enjoyments were. Her imagination trod a very narrow
round, always winding up at points which concerned money, looks,
clothes, or enjoyment. She would have a far-off thought of Columbia
City now and then, or an irritating rush of feeling concerning her
experiences of the present day, but, on the whole, the little world
about her enlisted her whole attention.
The first floor of the building, of which Hanson’s flat was the third,
was occupied by a bakery, and to this, while she was standing there,
Hanson came down to buy a loaf of bread. She was not aware of his
presence until he was quite near her.
“I’m after bread,” was all he said as he passed.
The contagion of thought here demonstrated itself. While Hanson really
came for bread, the thought dwelt with him that now he would see what
Carrie was doing. No sooner did he draw near her with that in mind than
she felt it. Of course, she had no understanding of what put it into
her head, but, nevertheless, it aroused in her the first shade of real
antipathy to him. She knew now that she did not like him. He was
suspicious.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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