Sister Carrie - Драйзер Теодор. Страница 23

“You’re lucky. Now, I’ll show you how to trounce your husband. You take my advice.”

“Here,” said Drouet, “if you two are going to scheme together, I won’t stand a ghost of a show. Hurstwood’s a regular sharp.”

“No, it’s your wife. She brings me luck. Why shouldn’t she win?”

Carrie looked gratefully at Hurstwood, and smiled at Drouet. The former took the air of a mere friend. He was simply there to enjoy himself. Anything that Carrie did was pleasing to him, nothing more.

“There,” he said, holding back one of his own good cards, and giving Carrie a chance to take a trick. “I count that clever playing for a beginner.”

The latter laughed gleefully as she saw the hand coming her way. It was as if she were invincible when Hurstwood helped her.

He did not look at her often. When he did, it was with a mild light in his eye. Not a shade was there of anything save geniality and kindness. He took back the shifty, clever gleam, and replaced it with one of innocence. Carrie could not guess but that it was pleasure with him in the immediate thing. She felt that he considered she was doing a great deal.

“It’s unfair to let such playing go without earning something,” he said after a time, slipping his finger into the little coin pocket of his coat. “Let’s play for dimes.”

“All right,” said Drouet, fishing for bills.

Hurstwood was quicker. His fingers were full of new ten-cent pieces. “Here we are,” he said, supplying each one with a little stack.

“Oh, this is gambling,” smiled Carrie. “It’s bad.”

“No,” said Drouet, “only fun. If you never play for more than that, you will go to Heaven.”

“Don’t you moralise,” said Hurstwood to Carrie gently, “until you see what becomes of the money.”

Drouet smiled.

“If your husband gets them, he’ll tell you how bad it is.”

Drouet laughed loud.

There was such an ingratiating tone about Hurstwood’s voice, the insinuation was so perceptible that even Carrie got the humour of it.

“When do you leave?” said Hurstwood to Drouet.

“On Wednesday,” he replied.

“It’s rather hard to have your husband running about like that, isn’t it?” said Hurstwood, addressing Carrie.

“She’s going along with me this time,” said Drouet.

“You must both go with me to the theatre before you go.”

“Certainly,” said Drouet. “Eh, Carrie?”

“I’d like it ever so much,” she replied.

Hurstwood did his best to see that Carrie won the money. He rejoiced in her success, kept counting her winnings, and finally gathered and put them in her extended hand. They spread a little lunch, at which he served the wine, and afterwards he used fine tact in going.

“Now,” he said, addressing first Carrie and then Drouet with his eyes, “you must be ready at 7:30. I’ll come and get you.”

They went with him to the door and there was his cab waiting, its red lamps gleaming cheerfully in the shadow.

“Now,” he observed to Drouet, with a tone of good-fellowship, “when you leave your wife alone, you must let me show her around a little. It will break up her loneliness.”

“Sure,” said Drouet, quite pleased at the attention shown.

“You’re so kind,” observed Carrie.

“Not at all,” said Hurstwood, “I would want your husband to do as much for me.”

He smiled and went lightly away. Carrie was thoroughly impressed. She had never come in contact with such grace. As for Drouet, he was equally pleased.

“There’s a nice man,” he remarked to Carrie, as they returned to their cosey chamber. “A good friend of mine, too.”

“He seems to be,” said Carrie.

CHAPTER XI

THE PERSUASION OF FASHION:

FEELING GUARDS O’ER ITS OWN

CARRIE WAS AN APT student of fortune’s ways—of fortune’s superficialities. Seeing a thing, she would immediately set to inquiring how she would look, properly related to it. Be it known that this is not fine feeling, it is not wisdom. The greatest minds are not so afflicted; and, on the contrary, the lowest order of mind is not so disturbed. Fine clothes to her were a vast persuasion; they spoke tenderly and Jesuitically for themselves. When she came within earshot of their pleading, desire in her bent a willing ear. The voice of the so-called inanimate! Who shall translate for us the language of the stones?

“My dear,” said the lace collar she secured from Partridge’s, “I fit you beautifully; don’t give me up.”

“Ah, such little feet,” said the leather of the soft new shoes; “how effectively I cover them. What a pity they should ever want my aid.”

Once these things were in her hand, on her person, she might dream of giving them up; the method by which they came might intrude itself so forcibly that she would ache to be rid of the thought of it, but she would not give them up. “Put on the old clothes—that torn pair of shoes,” was called to her by her conscience in vain. She could possibly have conquered the fear of hunger and gone back; the thought of hard work and a narrow round of suffering would, under the last pressure of conscience, have yielded, but spoil her appearance?—be old-clothed and poor-appearing?—never!

Drouet heightened her opinion on this and allied subjects in such a manner as to weaken her power of resisting their influence. It is so easy to do this when the thing opined is in the line of what we desire. In his hearty way, he insisted upon her good looks. He looked at her admiringly, and she took it at its full value. Under the circumstances, she did not need to carry herself as pretty women do. She picked that knowledge up fast enough for herself. Drouet had a habit, characteristic of his kind, of looking after stylishly dressed or pretty women on the street and remarking upon them. He had just enough of the feminine love of dress to be a good judge—not of intellect, but of clothes. He saw how they set their little feet, how they carried their chins, with what grace and sinuosity they swung their bodies. A dainty, self-conscious swaying of the hips by a woman was to him as alluring as the glint of rare wine to a toper. He would turn and follow the disappearing vision with his eyes. He would thrill as a child with the unhindered passion that was in him. He loved the thing that women love in themselves, grace. At this, their own shrine, he knelt with them, an ardent devotee.

“Did you see that woman who went by just now?” he said to Carrie on the first day they took a walk together. “Fine stepper, wasn’t she?”

Carrie looked, and observed the grace commended.

“Yes, she is,” she returned, cheerfully, a little suggestion of possible defect in herself awakening in her mind. If that was so fine, she must look at it more closely. Instinctively, she felt a desire to imitate it. Surely she could do that too.

When one of her mind sees many things emphasized and reemphasized and admired, she gathers the logic of it and applies accordingly. Drouet was not shrewd enough to see that this was not tactful. He could not see that it would be better to make her feel that she was competing with herself, not others better than herself. He would not have done it with an older, wiser woman, but in Carrie he saw only the novice. Less clever than she, he was naturally unable to comprehend her sensibility. He went on educating and wounding her, a thing rather foolish in one whose admiration for his pupil and victim was apt to grow.

Carrie took the instructions affably. She saw what Drouet liked; in a vague way she saw where he was weak. It lessens a woman’s opinion of a man when she learns that his admiration is so pointedly and generously distributed. She sees but one object of supreme compliment in this world, and that is herself. If a man is to succeed with many women, he must be all in all to each.

In her own apartments Carrie saw things which were lessons in the same school.