Miss Osborne took it for granted that, like herself, Carrie’s time was her own. She invariably asked her to stay, proposing little outings and other things of that sort until Carrie began neglecting her dinner hours. Hurstwood noticed it, but felt in no position to quarrel with her. Several times she came so late as scarcely to have an hour in which to patch up a meal and start for the theatre.
“Do you rehearse in the afternoons?” Hurstwood once asked, concealing almost completely the cynical protest and regret which prompted it.
“No; I was looking around for another place,” said Carrie.
As a matter of fact she was, but only in such a way as furnished the least straw of an excuse. Miss Osborne and she had gone to the office of the manager who was to produce the new opera at the Broadway and returned straight to the former’s room, where they had been since three o’clock.
Carrie felt this question to be an infringement on her liberty. She did not take into account how much liberty she was securing. Only the last step, the newest freedom, must not be questioned.
Hurstwood saw it all clearly enough. He was shrewd after his kind, and yet there was enough decency in the man to stop him from making an effectual protest. In his almost inexplicable apathy he was content to droop supinely while Carrie drifted out of his life, just as he was willing supinely to see opportunity pass beyond his control. He could not help clinging and protesting in a mild, irritating, and ineffectual way, however—a way that simply widened the breach by slow degrees.
A further enlargement of this chasm between them came when the manager, looking between the wings upon the brightly lighted stage where the chorus was going through some of its glittering evolutions, said to the master of the ballet:
“Who is that fourth girl there on the right—the one coming round at the end now?”
“Oh”, said the ballet-master, “that’s Miss Madenda.”
“She’s good looking. Why don’t you let her head that line?”
“I will,” said the man.
“Just do that. She’ll look better there than the woman you’ve got.”
“All right. I will do that,” said the master.
The next evening Carrie was called out, much as if for an error.
“You lead your company to-night,” said the master.
“Yes, sir,” said Carrie.
“Put snap into it,” he added. “We must have snap.”
“Yes, sir,” replied Carrie.
Astonished at this change, she thought that the heretofore leader must be ill; but when she saw her in the line, with a distinct expression of something unfavourable in her eye, she began to think that perhaps it was merit.
She had a chic way of tossing her head to one side, and holding her arms as if for action—not listlessly. In front of the line this showed up even more effectually.
“That girl knows how to carry herself,” said the manager, another evening. He began to think that he should like to talk with her. If he hadn’t made it a rule to have nothing to do with the members of the chorus, he would have approached her most unbendingly.
“Put that girl at the head of the white column,” he suggested to the man in charge of the ballet.
This white column consisted of some twenty girls, all in snow-white flannel trimmed with silver and blue. Its leader was most stunningly arrayed in the same colours, elaborated, however, with epaulets and a belt of silver, with a short sword dangling at one side. Carrie was fitted for this costume, and a few days later appeared, proud of her new laurels. She was especially gratified to find that her salary was now eighteen instead of twelve.
Hurstwood heard nothing about this.
“I’ll not give him the rest of my money,” said Carrie. “I do enough. I am going to get me something to wear.”
As a matter of fact, during this second month she had been buying for herself as recklessly as she dared, regardless of the consequences. There were impending more complications rent day, and more extension of the credit system in the neighbourhood. Now, however, she proposed to do better by herself.
Her first move was to buy a shirt waist, and in studying these she found how little her money would buy—how much, if she could only use all. She forgot that if she were alone she would have to pay for a room and board, and imagined that every cent of her eighteen could be spent for clothes and things that she liked.
At last she picked upon something, which not only used up all her surplus above twelve, but invaded that sum. She knew she was going too far, but her feminine love of finery prevailed. The next day Hurstwood said:
“We owe the grocer five dollars and forty cents this week.”
“Do we?” said Carrie, frowning a little.
She looked in her purse to leave it.
“I’ve only got eight dollars and twenty cents altogether.”
“We owe the milkman sixty cents,” added Hurstwood.
“Yes, and there’s the coal man,” said Carrie.
Hurstwood said nothing. He had seen the new things she was buying; the way she was neglecting household duties; the readiness with which she was slipping out afternoons and staying. He felt that something was going to happen. All at once she spoke:
“I don’t know,” she said; “I can’t do it all. I don’t earn enough.”
This was a direct challenge. Hurstwood had to take it up. He tried to be calm.
“I don’t want you to do it all,” he said. “I only want a little help until I can get something to do.”
“Oh, yes,” answered Carrie. “That’s always the way. It takes more than I can earn to pay for things. I don’t see what I’m going to do.”
“Well, I’ve tried to get something,” he exclaimed. “What do you want me to do?”
“You couldn’t have tried so very hard,” said Carrie. “I got something.”
“Well, I did,” he said, angered almost to harsh words. “You needn’t throw up your success to me. All I asked was a little help until I could get something. I’m not down yet. I’ll come up all right.”
He tried to speak steadily, but his voice trembled a little.
Carrie’s anger melted on the instant. She felt ashamed.
“Well,” she said, “here’s the money,” and emptied it out on the table. “I haven’t got quite enough to pay it all. If they can wait until Saturday, though, I’ll have some more.”
“You keep it,” said Hurstwood, sadly. “I only want enough to pay the grocer.”
She put it back, and proceeded to get dinner early and in good time. Her little bravado made her feel as if she ought to make amends.
In a little while their old thoughts returned to both.
“She’s making more than she says,” thought Hurstwood. “She says she’s making twelve, but that wouldn’t buy all those things. I don’t care. Let her keep her money. I’ll get something again one of these days. Then she can go to the deuce.”
He only said this in his anger, but it prefigured a possible course of action and attitude well enough.
“I don’t care,” thought Carrie. “He ought to be told to get out and do something. It isn’t right that I should support him.”
In these days Carrie was introduced to several youths, friends of Miss Osborne, who were of the kind most aptly described as gay and festive. They called once to get Miss Osborne for an afternoon drive. Carrie was with her at the time.
“Come and go along,” said Lola.
“No, I can’t,” said Carrie.
“Oh, yes, come and go. What have you got to do?”
“I have to be home by five,” said Carrie.
“What for?”
“Oh, dinner.”
“They’ll take us to dinner,” said Lola.
“Oh, no,” said Carrie. “I won’t go. I can’t.”
“Oh, do come. They’re awful nice boys. We’ll get you back in time. We’re only going for a drive in Central Park.”
Carrie thought a while, and at last yielded.
“Now, I must be back by half-past four,” she said.
The information went in one ear of Lola and out the other.