The Essential Works of Theodore Dreiser. Theodore Dreiser

arrayed herself most carefully and they started off, extending excuses upstairs.

      “I say,” said Hurstwood, as they came up the theatre lobby, “we are exceedingly charming this evening.”

      Carrie fluttered under his approving glance.

      “Now, then,” he said, leading the way up the foyer into the theatre.

      If ever there was dressiness it was here. It was the personification of the old term spick and span.

      “Did you ever see Jefferson?” he questioned, as he leaned toward Carrie in the box.

      “I never did,” she returned.

      “He’s delightful, delightful,” he went on, giving the commonplace rendition of approval which such men know. He sent Drouet after a programme, and then discoursed to Carrie concerning Jefferson as he had heard of him. The former was pleased beyond expression, and was really hypnotised by the environment, the trappings of the box, the elegance of her companion. Several times their eyes accidentally met, and then there poured into hers such a flood of feeling as she had never before experienced. She could not for the moment explain it, for in the next glance or the next move of the hand there was seeming indifference, mingled only with the kindest attention.

      Drouet shared in the conversation, but he was almost dull in comparison. Hurstwood entertained them both, and now it was driven into Carrie’s mind that here was the superior man. She instinctively felt that he was stronger and higher, and yet withal so simple. By the end of the third act she was sure that Drouet was only a kindly soul, but otherwise defective. He sank every moment in her estimation by the strong comparison.

      “I have had such a nice time,” said Carrie, when it was all over and they were coming out.

      “Yes, indeed,” added Drouet, who was not in the least aware that a battle had been fought and his defences weakened. He was like the Emperor of China, who sat glorying in himself, unaware that his fairest provinces were being wrested from him.

      “Well, you have saved me a dreary evening,” returned Hurstwood. “Good-night.”

      He took Carrie’s little hand, and a current of feeling swept from one to the other.

      “I’m so tired,” said Carrie, leaning back in the car when Drouet began to talk.

      “Well, you rest a little while I smoke,” he said, rising, and then he foolishly went to the forward platform of the car and left the game as it stood.

      Chapter XII

      Of the Lamps of the Mansions — The Ambassador Plea

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      Mrs. Hurstwood was not aware of any of her husband’s moral defections, though she might readily have suspected his tendencies, which she well understood. She was a woman upon whose action under provocation you could never count. Hurstwood, for one, had not the slightest idea of what she would do under certain circumstances. He had never seen her thoroughly aroused. In fact, she was not a woman who would fly into a passion. She had too little faith in mankind not to know that they were erring. She was too calculating to jeopardize any advantage she might gain in the way of information by fruitless clamour. Her wrath would never wreak itself in one fell blow. She would wait and brood, studying the details and adding to them until her power might be commensurate with her desire for revenge. At the same time, she would not delay to inflict any injury, big or little, which would wound the object of her revenge and still leave him uncertain as to the source of the evil. She was a cold, self-centred woman, with many a thought of her own which never found expression, not even by so much as the glint of an eye.

      Hurstwood felt some of this in her nature, though he did not actually perceive it. He dwelt with her in peace and some satisfaction. He did not fear her in the least — there was no cause for it. She still took a faint pride in him, which was augmented by her desire to have her social integrity maintained. She was secretly somewhat pleased by the fact that much of her husband’s property was in her name, a precaution which Hurstwood had taken when his home interests were somewhat more alluring than at present. His wife had not the slightest reason to feel that anything would ever go amiss with their household, and yet the shadows which run before gave her a thought of the good of it now and then. She was in a position to become refractory with considerable advantage, and Hurstwood conducted himself circumspectly because he felt that he could not be sure of anything once she became dissatisfied.

      It so happened that on the night when Hurstwood, Carrie, and Drouet were in the box at McVickar’s, George, Jr., was in the sixth row of the parquet with the daughter of H. B. Carmichael, the third partner of a wholesale dry-goods house of that city. Hurstwood did not see his son, for he sat, as was his wont, as far back as possible, leaving himself just partially visible, when he bent forward, to those within the first six rows in question. It was his wont to sit this way in every theatre — to make his personality as inconspicuous as possible where it would be no advantage to him to have it otherwise.

      He never moved but what, if there was any danger of his conduct being misconstrued or ill-reported, he looked carefully about him and counted the cost of every inch of conspicuity.

      The next morning at breakfast his son said:

      “I saw you, Governor, last night.”

      “Were you at McVickar’s?” said Hurstwood, with the best grace in the world.

      “Yes,” said young George.

      “Who with?”

      “Miss Carmichael.”

      Mrs. Hurstwood directed an inquiring glance at her husband, but could not judge from his appearance whether it was any more than a casual look into the theatre which was referred to.

      “How was the play?” she inquired.

      “Very good,” returned Hurstwood, “only it’s the same old thing, ‘Rip Van Winkle.’”

      “Whom did you go with?” queried his wife, with assumed indifference.

      “Charlie Drouet and his wife. They are friends of Moy’s, visiting here.”

      Owing to the peculiar nature of his position, such a disclosure as this would ordinarily create no difficulty. His wife took it for granted that his situation called for certain social movements in which she might not be included. But of late he had pleaded office duty on several occasions when his wife asked for his company to any evening entertainment. He had done so in regard to the very evening in question only the morning before.

      “I thought you were going to be busy,” she remarked, very carefully.

      “So I was,” he exclaimed. “I couldn’t help the interruption, but I made up for it afterward by working until two.”

      This settled the discussion for the time being, but there was a residue of opinion which was not satisfactory. There was no time at which the claims of his wife could have been more unsatisfactorily pushed. For years he had been steadily modifying his matrimonial devotion, and found her company dull. Now that a new light shone upon the horizon, this older luminary paled in the west. He was satisfied to turn his face away entirely, and any call to look back was irksome.

      She, on the contrary, was not at all inclined to accept anything less than a complete fulfilment of the letter of their relationship, though the spirit might be wanting.

      “We are coming down town this afternoon,” she remarked, a few days later. “I want you to come over to Kinsley’s and meet Mr. Phillips and his wife. They’re stopping at the Tremont, and we’re going to show them around a little.”

      After the occurrence of Wednesday, he could not refuse, though the Phillips were about as uninteresting as vanity and ignorance could make them. He agreed, but it was with short grace. He was angry when he left the house.

      “I’ll put a stop to this,”