Chicago (Ill.) -- Fiction; Didactic fiction; Mistresses -- Fiction; New York (N.Y.) -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
“What?” said Hanson.
“Sister Carrie has gone to live somewhere else.”
Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed
and looked at the note. The only indication of his thoughts came in the
form of a little clicking sound made by his tongue; the sound some
people make when they wish to urge on a horse.
“Where do you suppose she’s gone to?” said Minnie, thoroughly aroused.
“I don’t know,” a touch of cynicism lighting his eye. “Now she has gone
and done it.”
Minnie moved her head in a puzzled way.
“Oh, oh,” she said, “she doesn’t know what she has done.”
“Well,” said Hanson, after a while, sticking his hands out before him,
“what can you do?”
Minnie’s womanly nature was higher than this. She figured the
possibilities in such cases.
“Oh,” she said at last, “poor Sister Carrie!”
At the time of this particular conversation, which occurred at 5 A.M.,
that little soldier of fortune was sleeping a rather troubled sleep in
her new room, alone.
Carrie’s new state was remarkable in that she saw possibilities in it.
She was no sensualist, longing to drowse sleepily in the lap of luxury.
She turned about, troubled by her daring, glad of her release,
wondering whether she would get something to do, wondering what Drouet
would do. That worthy had his future fixed for him beyond a
peradventure. He could not help what he was going to do. He could not
see clearly enough to wish to do differently. He was drawn by his
innate desire to act the old pursuing part. He would need to delight
himself with Carrie as surely as he would need to eat his heavy
breakfast. He might suffer the least rudimentary twinge of conscience
in whatever he did, and in just so far he was evil and sinning. But
whatever twinges of conscience he might have would be rudimentary, you
may be sure.
The next day he called upon Carrie, and she saw him in her chamber. He
was the same jolly, enlivening soul.
“Aw,” he said, “what are you looking so blue about? Come on out to
breakfast. You want to get your other clothes to-day.”
Carrie looked at him with the hue of shifting thought in her large
eyes.
“I wish I could get something to do,” she said.
“You’ll get that all right,” said Drouet. “What’s the use worrying
right now? Get yourself fixed up. See the city. I won’t hurt you.”
“I know you won’t,” she remarked, half truthfully.
“Got on the new shoes, haven’t you? Stick ’em out. George, they look
fine. Put on your jacket.”
Carrie obeyed.
“Say, that fits like a T, don’t it?” he remarked, feeling the set of it
at the waist and eyeing it from a few paces with real pleasure. “What
you need now is a new skirt. Let’s go to breakfast.”
Carrie put on her hat.
“Where are the gloves?” he inquired.
“Here,” she said, taking them out of the bureau drawer.
“Now, come on,” he said.
Thus the first hour of misgiving was swept away.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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