Sister Carrie (Barnes & Noble Classics S - Theodore Dreiser [100]
“I see,” said this individual, who wore sporting clothes of the most attractive pattern, and had a field-glass strung over his shoulder, “that you did not get over to our little entertainment last evening.”
“No?” said Mrs. Hurstwood, inquiringly, and wondering why he should be using the tone he did in noting the fact that she had not been to something she knew nothing about. It was on her lips to say, “What was it?” when he added, “I saw your husband.”
Her wonder was at once replaced by the more subtle quality of suspicion.
“Yes,” she said, cautiously, “was it pleasant? He did not tell me much about it.”
“Very. Really one of the best private theatricals I ever attended. There was one actress who surprised us all.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Hurstwood.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t have been there, really. I was sorry to hear you weren’t feeling well.”
Feeling well! Mrs. Hurstwood could have echoed the words after him open-mouthed. As it was, she extricated herself from her mingled impulse to deny and question, and said, almost raspingly:
“Yes, it is too bad.”
“Looks like there will be quite a crowd here to-day, doesn’t it?” the acquaintance observed, drifting off upon another topic.
The manager’s wife would have questioned farther, but she saw no opportunity. She was for the moment wholly at sea, anxious to think for herself, and wondering what new deception was this which caused him to give out that she was ill when she was not. Another case of her company not wanted, and excuses being made. She resolved to find out more.
“Were you at the performance last evening?” she asked of the next of Hurstwood’s friends who greeted her, as she sat in her box.
“Yes. You didn’t get around.”
“No,” she answered, “I was not feeling very well.”
“So your husband told me,” he answered. “Well, it was really very enjoyable. Turned out much better than I expected.”
“Were there many there?”
“The house was full. It was quite an Elk night. I saw quite a number of your friends—Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Collins.”
“Quite a social gathering.”
“Indeed it was. My wife enjoyed it very much.”
Mrs. Hurstwood bit her lip.
“So,” she thought, “that’s the way he does. Tells my friends I am sick and cannot come.”
She wondered what could induce him to go alone. There was something back of this. She rummaged her brain for a reason.
By evening, when Hurstwood reached home, she had brooded herself into a state of sullen desire for explanation and revenge. She wanted to know what this peculiar action of his imported. She was certain there was more behind it all than what she had heard, and evil curiosity mingled well with distrust and the remnants of her wrath of the morning. She, impending disaster itself, walked about with gathered shadow at the eyes and the rudimentary muscles of savagery fixing the hard lines of her mouth.
On the other hand, as we may well believe, the manager came home in the sunniest mood. His conversation and agreement with Carrie had raised his spirits until he was in the frame of mind of one who sings joyously. He was proud of himself, proud of his success, proud of Carrie. He could have been genial to all the world, and he bore no grudge against his wife. He meant to be pleasant, to forget her presence, to live in the atmosphere of youth and pleasure which had been restored to him.
So now, the house, to his mind, had a most pleasing and comfortable appearance. In the hall he found an evening paper, laid there by the maid and forgotten by Mrs. Hurstwood. In the dining-room the table was clean laid with linen and napery and shiny with glasses and decorated china. Through an open door he saw into the kitchen, where the fire was crackling in the stove and the evening meal already well under way. Out in the small back yard was George, Jr., frolicking. with a young dog he had recently purchased, and in the parlour Jessica was playing at the piano, the sound of a merry waltz filling every nook and corner of the comfortable home. Every one, like himself, seemed to have regained his good spirits, to be in sympathy with youth and beauty, to be inclined to joy and merry-making. He felt as if he could say a good word all around himself, and took a most genial glance at the spread table and polished sideboard before going upstairs to read his paper in the comfortable arm-chair of the sitting-room which looked through the open windows into the street. When he entered there, however, he found his wife brushing her hair and musing to herself the while.