a faint protest from her.
“Why don’t you take anything, George, temporarily?” she said. “What difference does it make? Maybe, after a while, you’ll get something better.”
“I will take anything,” he said, relieved, and wincing under reproof. “I’d just as leave dig on the streets. Nobody knows me here.”
“Oh, you needn’t do that,” said Carrie, hurt by the pity of it. “But there must be other things.”
“I’ll get something!” he said, assuming determination.
Then he went back to his paper.
Chapter XXXIX
Of Lights and of Shadows — The Parting of Worlds
What Hurstwood got as the result of this determination was more self-assurance that each particular day was not the day. At the same time, Carrie passed through thirty days of mental distress.
Her need of clothes — to say nothing of her desire for ornaments — grew rapidly as the fact developed that for all her work she was not to have them. The sympathy she felt for Hurstwood, at the time he asked her to tide him over, vanished with these newer urgings of decency. He was not always renewing his request, but this love of good appearance was. It insisted, and Carrie wished to satisfy it, wished more and more that Hurstwood was not in the way.
Hurstwood reasoned, when he neared the last ten dollars, that he had better keep a little pocket change and not become wholly dependent for car-fare, shaves, and the like; so when this sum was still in his hand he announced himself as penniless.
“I’m clear out,” he said to Carrie one afternoon. “I paid for some coal this morning, and that took all but ten or fifteen cents.”
“I’ve got some money there in my purse.”
Hurstwood went to get it, starting for a can of tomatoes. Carrie scarcely noticed that this was the beginning of the new order. He took out fifteen cents and bought the can with it. Thereafter it was dribs and drabs of this sort, until one morning Carrie suddenly remembered that she would not be back until close to dinner time.
“We’re all out of flour,” she said; “you’d better get some this afternoon. We haven’t any meat, either. How would it do if we had liver and bacon?”
“Suits me,” said Hurstwood.
“Better get a half or three-quarters of a pound of that.”
“Half ‘ll be enough,” volunteered Hurstwood.
She opened her purse and laid down a half dollar. He pretended not to notice it.
Hurstwood bought the flour — which all grocers sold in 3 1/2-pound packages — for thirteen cents and paid fifteen cents for a half-pound of liver and bacon. He left the packages, together with the balance of twenty-two cents, upon the kitchen table, where Carrie found it. It did not escape her that the change was accurate. There was something sad in realising that, after all, all that he wanted of her was something to eat. She felt as if hard thoughts were unjust. Maybe he would get something yet. He had no vices.
That very evening, however, on going into the theatre, one of the chorus girls passed her all newly arrayed in a pretty mottled tweed suit, which took Carrie’s eye. The young woman wore a fine bunch of violets and seemed in high spirits. She smiled at Carrie good-naturedly as she passed, showing pretty, even teeth, and Carrie smiled back.
“She can afford to dress well,” thought Carrie, “and so could I, if I could only keep my money. I haven’t a decent tie of any kind to wear.”
She put out her foot and looked at her shoe reflectively. “I’ll get a pair of shoes Saturday, anyhow; I don’t care what happens.”
One of the sweetest and most sympathetic little chorus girls in the company made friends with her because in Carrie she found nothing to frighten her away. She was a gay little Manon, unwitting of society’s fierce conception of morality, but, nevertheless, good to her neighbour and charitable. Little license was allowed the chorus in the matter of conversation, but, nevertheless, some was indulged in.
“It’s warm to-night, isn’t it?” said this girl, arrayed in pink fleshings and an imitation golden helmet. She also carried a shining shield.
“Yes; it is,” said Carrie, pleased that some one should talk to her.
“I’m almost roasting,” said the girl.
Carrie looked into her pretty face, with its large blue eyes, and saw little beads of moisture.
“There’s more marching in this opera than ever I did before,” added the girl.
“Have you been in others?” asked Carrie, surprised at her experience.
“Lots of them,” said the girl; “haven’t you?”
“This is my first experience.”
“Oh, is it? I thought I saw you the time they ran ‘The Queen’s Mate’ here.”
“No,” said Carrie, shaking her head; “not me.”
This conversation was interrupted by the blare of the orchestra and the sputtering of the calcium lights in the wings as the line was called to form for a new entrance. No further opportunity for conversation occurred, but the next evening, when they were getting ready for the stage, this girl appeared anew at her side.
“They say this show is going on the road next month.”
“Is it?” said Carrie.
“Yes; do you think you’ll go?”
“I don’t know; I guess so, if they’ll take me.”
“Oh, they’ll take you. I wouldn’t go. They won’t give you any more, and it will cost you everything you make to live. I never leave New York. There are too many shows going on here.”
“Can you always get in another show?”
“I always have. There’s one going on up at the Broadway this month. I’m going to try and get in that if this one really goes.”
Carrie heard this with aroused intelligence. Evidently it wasn’t so very difficult to get on. Maybe she also could get a place if this show went away. “Do they all pay about the same?” she asked.
“Yes. Sometimes you get a little more. This show doesn’t pay very much.”
“I get twelve,” said Carrie.
“Do you?” said the girl. “They pay me fifteen, and you do more work than I do. I wouldn’t stand it if I were you. They’re just giving you less because they think you don’t know. You ought to be making fifteen.”
“Well, I’m not,” said Carrie.
“Well,
