Sister Carrie by Theodore Dreiser

“I have a room-mate,” she added, “who will have to go wherever I do. I forgot about that.”

“Oh, very well,” said Mr. Withers, blandly. “It is for you to say whom you want with you. As I say, all that can be arranged to suit yourself.”

He bowed and backed toward the door.

“At four, then, we may expect you?”

“Yes,” said Carrie.

“I will be there to show you,” and so Mr. Withers withdrew.

After rehearsal Carrie informed Lola. “Did they really?” exclaimed the latter, thinking of the Wellington as a group of managers. “Isn’t that fine? Oh, jolly! It’s so swell. That’s where we dined that night we went with those two Cushing boys. Don’t you know?”

“I remember,” said Carrie.

“Oh, it’s as fine as it can be.”

“We’d better be going up there,” observed Carrie later in the afternoon.

The rooms which Mr. Withers displayed to Carrie and Lola were three and bath—a suite on the parlour floor. They were done in chocolate and dark red, with rugs and hangings to match. Three windows looked down into busy Broadway on the east, three into a side street which crossed there. There were two lovely bedrooms, set with brass and white enamel beds, white ribbon-trimmed chairs and chiffoniers to match. In the third room, or parlour, was a piano, a heavy piano lamp, with a shade of gorgeous pattern, a library table, several huge easy rockers, some dado book shelves, and a gilt curio case, filled with oddities. Pictures were upon the walls, soft Turkish pillows upon the divan footstools of brown plush upon the floor. Such accommodations would ordinarily cost a hundred dollars a week.

“Oh, lovely!” exclaimed Lola, walking about.

“It is comfortable,” said Carrie, who was lifting a lace curtain and looking down into crowded Broadway.

The bath was a handsome affair, done in white enamel, with a large, blue-bordered stone tub and nickel trimmings. It was bright and commodious, with a bevelled mirror set in the wall at one end and incandescent lights arranged in three places.

“Do you find these satisfactory?” observed Mr. Withers.

“Oh, very,” answered Carrie.

“Well, then, any time you find it convenient to move in, they are ready. The boy will bring you the keys at the door.”

Carrie noted the elegantly carpeted and decorated hall, the marbled lobby, and showy waiting-room. It was such a place as she had often dreamed of occupying.

“I guess we’d better move right away, don’t you think so?” she observed to Lola, thinking of the commonplace chamber in Seventeenth Street.

“Oh, by all means,” said the latter.

The next day her trunks left for the new abode.

Dressing, after the matinee on Wednesday, a knock came at her dressing-room door.

Carrie looked at the card handed by the boy and suffered a shock of surprise.

“Tell her I’ll be right out,” she said softly. Then, looking at the card, added: “Mrs. Vance.”

“Why, you little sinner,” the latter exclaimed, as she saw Carrie coming toward her across the now vacant stage. “How in the world did this happen?”

Carrie laughed merrily. There was no trace of embarrassment in her friend’s manner. You would have thought that the long separation had come about accidentally.

“I don’t know,” returned Carrie, warming, in spite of her first troubled feelings, toward this handsome, good-natured young matron.

“Well, you know, I saw your picture in the Sunday paper, but your name threw me off. I thought it must be you or somebody that looked just like you, and I said: ‘Well, now, I will go right down there and see.’ I was never more surprised in my life. How are you, anyway?”

“Oh, very well,” returned Carrie. “How have you been?”

“Fine. But aren’t you a success! Dear, oh! All the papers talking about you. I should think you would be just too proud to breathe. I was almost afraid to come back here this afternoon.”

“Oh, nonsense,” said Carrie, blushing. “You know I’d be glad to see you.”

“Well, anyhow, here you are. Can’t you come up and take dinner with me now? Where are you stopping?”

“At the Wellington,” said Carrie, who permitted herself a touch of pride in the acknowledgment.

“Oh, are you?” exclaimed the other, upon whom the name was not without its proper effect.

Tactfully, Mrs. Vance avoided the subject of Hurstwood, of whom she could not help thinking. No doubt Carrie had left him. That much she surmised.

“Oh, I don’t think I can,” said Carrie, “to-night. I have so little time. I must be back here by 7.30. Won’t you come and dine with me?”

“I’d be delighted, but I can’t to-night,” said Mrs. Vance studying Carrie’s fine appearance. The latter’s good fortune made her seem more than ever worthy and delightful in the others eyes. “I promised faithfully to be home at six.” Glancing at the small gold watch pinned to her bosom, she added: “I must be going, too. Tell me when you’re coming up, if at all.”

“Why, any time you like,” said Carrie.

“Well, to-morrow then. I’m living at the Chelsea now.”

“Moved again?” exclaimed Carrie, laughing.

“Yes. You know I can’t stay six months in one place. I just have to move. Remember now—half-past five.”

“I won’t forget,” said Carrie, casting a glance at her as she went away. Then it came to her that she was as good as this woman now—perhaps better. Something in the other’s solicitude and interest made her feel as if she were the one to condescend.

Now, as on each preceding day, letters were handed her by the doorman at the Casino. This was a feature which had rapidly developed since Monday. What they contained she well knew. MASH NOTES were old affairs in their mildest form. She remembered having received her first one far back in Columbia City. Since then, as a chorus girl, she had received others—gentlemen who prayed for an engagement. They were common sport between her and Lola, who received some also. They both frequently made light of them.

Now, however, they came thick and fast. Gentlemen with fortunes did not hesitate to note, as an addition to their own amiable collection of virtues, that they had their horses and carriages. Thus one:

“I have a million in my own right. I could give you every luxury. There isn’t anything you could ask for that you couldn’t have. I say this, not because I want to speak of my money, but because I love you and wish to gratify your every desire. It is love that prompts me to write. Will you not give me one halfhour in which to plead my cause?”

Such of these letters as came while Carrie was still in the Seventeenth Street place were read with more interest—though never delight—than those which arrived after she was installed in her luxurious quarters at the Wellington. Even there her vanity—or that self-appreciation which, in its more rabid form, is called vanity—was not sufficiently cloyed to make these things wearisome. Adulation, being new in any form, pleased her. Only she was sufficiently wise to distinguish between her old condition and her new one. She had not had fame or money before. Now they had come. She had not had adulation and affectionate propositions before. Now they had come. Wherefore? She smiled to think that men should suddenly find her so much more attractive. In the least way it incited her to coolness and indifference.

“Do look here,” she remarked to Lola. “See what this man says: ‘If you will only deign to grant me one half-hour,’” she repeated, with an imitation of languor. “The idea. Aren’t men silly?”

“He must have lots of money, the way he talks,” observed Lola. “That’s what they all say,” said Carrie, innocently.

“Why don’t you see him,” suggested Lola, “and hear what he has to say?”

“Indeed I won’t,” said Carrie. “I know what he’d say. I don’t want to meet anybody that way.”

Lola looked at her with big, merry eyes.

“He couldn’t hurt you,” she returned. “You might have some fun with him.”

Carrie shook her head.

“You’re awfully queer,” returned the little, blue-eyed soldier.

Thus crowded fortune. For this whole week, though her large salary had not yet arrived, it was as if the world understood and trusted her. Without money—or the requisite sum, at least—she enjoyed the luxuries which money could buy. For her the doors of fine places seemed to open quite without the asking. These palatial chambers, how marvellously they came to her. The elegant apartments of Mrs. Vance in the Chelsea—these were hers. Men sent flowers, love notes, offers of fortune. And still her dreams ran riot. The one hundred and fifty! the one hundred and fifty! What a door to an Aladdin’s cave it seemed to be. Each day, her head almost turned by developments, her fancies of what her fortune must be, with ample money, grew and multiplied. She conceived of delights which were not—saw lights of joy that never were on land or sea. Then, at last, after a world of anticipation, came her first installment of one hundred and fifty dollars.