Naturally, being about the house, he noticed the way Carrie did things. She was far from perfect in household methods and economy, and her little deviations on this score first caught his eye. Not, however, before her regular demand for her allowance became a grievous thing. Sitting around as he did, the weeks seemed to pass very quickly. Every Tuesday Carrie asked for her money.
“Do you think we live as cheaply as we might?” he asked one Tuesday morning.
“I do the best I can,” said Carrie.
Nothing was added to this at the moment, but the next day he said:
“Do you ever go to the Gansevoort Market over here?”
“I didn’t know there was such a market,” said Carrie.
“They say you can get things lots cheaper there.”
Carrie was very indifferent to the suggestion. These were things which she did not like at all.
“How much do you pay for a pound of meat?” he asked one day.
“Oh, there are different prices,” said Carrie. “Sirloin steak is twenty-two cents.”
“That’s steep, isn’t it?” he answered.
So he asked about other things, until finally, with the passing days, it seemed to become a mania with him. He learned the prices and remembered them. His errand-running capacity also improved. It began in a small way, of course. Carrie, going to get her hat one morning, was stopped by him.
“Where are you going, Carrie?” he asked.
“Over to the baker’s,” she answered.
“I’d just as leave go for you,” he said.
She acquiesced, and he went. Each afternoon he would go to the corner for the papers.
“Is there anything you want?” he would say.
By degrees she began to use him. Doing this, however, she lost the weekly payment of twelve dollars.
“You want to pay me to-day,” she said one Tuesday, about this time.
“How much?” he asked.
She understood well enough what it meant.
“Well, about five dollars,” she answered. “I owe the coal man.”
The same day he said:
“I think this Italian up here on the corner sells coal at twentyfive cents a bushel. I’ll trade with him.”
Carrie heard this with indifference.
“All right,” she said.
Then it came to be:
“George, I must have some coal to-day,” or, “You must get some meat of some kind for dinner.”
He would find out what she needed and order.
Accompanying this plan came skimpiness.
“I only got a half-pound of steak,” he said, coming in one afternoon with his papers. “We never seem to eat very much.”
These miserable details ate the heart out of Carrie. They blackened her days and grieved her soul. Oh, how this man had changed! All day and all day, here he sat, reading his papers. The world seemed to have no attraction. Once in a while he would go out, in fine weather, it might be four or five hours, between eleven and four. She could do nothing but view him with gnawing contempt.
It was apathy with Hurstwood, resulting from his inability to see his way out. Each month drew from his small store. Now, he had only five hundred dollars left, and this he hugged, half feeling as if he could stave off absolute necessity for an indefinite period. Sitting around the house, he decided to wear some old clothes he had. This came first with the bad days. Only once he apologised in the very beginning:
“It’s so bad to-day, I’ll just wear these around.” Eventually these became the permanent thing.
Also, he had been wont to pay fifteen cents for a shave, and a tip of ten cents. In his first distress, he cut down the tip to five, then to nothing. Later, he tried a ten-cent barber shop, and, finding that the shave was satisfactory, patronised regularly. Later still, he put off shaving to every other day, then to every third, and so on, until once a week became the rule. On Saturday he was a sight to see.
Of course, as his own self-respect vanished, it perished for him in Carrie. She could not understand what had gotten into the man. He had some money, he had a decent suit remaining, he was not bad looking when dressed up. She did not forget her own difficult struggle in Chicago, but she did not forget either that she had never ceased trying. He never tried. He did not even consult the ads in the papers any more.
Finally, a distinct impression escaped from her.
“What makes you put so much butter on the steak?” he asked her one evening, standing around in the kitchen.
“To make it good, of course,” she answered.
“Butter is awful dear these days,” he suggested.
“You wouldn’t mind it if you were working,” she answered.
He shut up after this, and went in to his paper, but the retort rankled in his mind. It was the first cutting remark that had come from her.
That same evening, Carrie, after reading, went off to the front room to bed. This was unusual. When Hurstwood decided to go, he retired, as usual, without a light. It was then that he discovered Carrie’s absence.
“That’s funny,” he said; “maybe she’s sitting up.”
He gave the matter no more thought, but slept. In the morning she was not beside him. Strange to say, this passed without comment.
Night approaching, and a slightly more conversational feeling prevailing, Carrie said:
“I think I’ll sleep alone to-night. I have a headache.”
“All right,” said Hurstwood.
The third night she went to her front bed without apologies.
This was a grim blow to Hurstwood, but he never mentioned it.
“All right,” he said to himself, with an irrepressible frown, “let her sleep alone.”
Chapter XXXVI
* * *
A Grim Retrogression — The Phantom Of Chance
The Vances, who had been back in the city ever since Christmas, had not forgotten Carrie; but they, or rather Mrs. Vance, had never called on her, for the very simple reason that Carrie had never sent her address. True to her nature, she corresponded with Mrs. Vance as long as she still lived in Seventy-eighth Street, but when she was compelled to move into Thirteenth, her fear that the latter would take it as an indication of reduced circumstances caused her to study some way of avoiding the necessity of giving her address. Not finding any convenient method, she sorrowfully resigned the privilege of writing to her friend entirely. The latter wondered at this strange silence, thought Carrie must have left the city, and in the end gave her up as lost. So she was thoroughly surprised to encounter her in Fourteenth Street, where she had gone shopping. Carrie was there for the same purpose.
“Why, Mrs. Wheeler,” said Mrs. Vance, looking Carrie over in a glance, “where have you been? Why haven’t you been to see me? I’ve been wondering all this time what had become of you. Really, I—”
“I’m so glad to see you,” said Carrie, pleased and yet nonplussed. Of all times, this was the worst to encounter Mrs. Vance. “Why, I’m living down town here. I’ve been intending to come and see you. Where are you living now?”
“In Fifty-eighth Street,” said Mrs. Vance, “just off Seventh Avenue—218. Why don’t you come and see me?”
“I will,” said Carrie. “Really, I’ve been wanting to come. I know I ought to. It’s a shame. But you know—”
“What’s your number?” said Mrs. Vance.
“Thirteenth Street,” said Carrie, reluctantly. “112 West.”
“Oh,” said Mrs. Vance, “that’s right near here, isn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Carrie. “You must come down and see me some time.”
“Well, you’re a fine one,” said Mrs. Vance, laughing, the while noting that Carrie’s appearance had modified somewhat. “The address, too,” she added to herself. “They must be hard up.”
Still she liked Carrie well enough to take her in tow.
“Come with me in here a minute,” she exclaimed, turning into a store.
When Carrie returned home, there was Hurstwood, reading as usual. He seemed to take his condition with the utmost nonchalance. His beard was at least four days old.
“Oh,” thought Carrie, “if she were to come here and see him?”
She shook her head in absolute misery. It looked as if her situation was becoming unbearable.
Driven to desperation, she asked at dinner:
“Did you ever hear any more from that wholesale house?”
“No,” he said. “They don’t want an inexperienced man.”
Carrie dropped the subject, feeling unable to say more.
“I met Mrs. Vance this afternoon,” she said, after a time.
“Did, eh?” he answered.
“They’re back in New York now,” Carrie went on. “She did look so nice.”
“Well, she can afford it as long as he puts up for it,” returned Hurstwood. “He’s got a soft job.”
Hurstwood was looking into the paper. He could not see the look of infinite weariness and discontent Carrie gave him.
“She said she thought she’d call here some day.”