Carrie smiled again.She felt the acuteness of Hurstwood's position, and wished deeply that she could be alone with him, but she did not understand the change in Drouet.Hurstwood found that he could not talk, repressed as he was, and grudging Drouet every moment of his presence, he bowed himself out with the elegance of a Faust.Outside he set his teeth with envy.
"Damn it!" he said, "is he always going to be in the way?" He was moody when he got back to the box, and could not talk for thinking of his wretched situation.
As the curtain for the next act arose, Drouet came back.He was very much enlivened in temper and inclined to whisper, but Hurstwood pretended interest.He fixed his eyes on the stage, although Carrie was not there, a short bit of melodramatic comedy preceding her entrance.He did not see what was going on, however.He was thinking his own thoughts, and they were wretched.
The progress of the play did not improve matters for him.
Carrie, from now on, was easily the centre of interest.The audience, which had been inclined to feel that nothing could be good after the first gloomy impression, now went to the other extreme and saw power where it was not.The general feeling reacted on Carrie.She presented her part with some felicity, though nothing like the intensity which had aroused the feeling at the end of the long first act.
Both Hurstwood and Drouet viewed her pretty figure with rising feelings.The fact that such ability should reveal itself in her, that they should see it set forth under such effective circumstances, framed almost in massy gold and shone upon by the appropriate lights of sentiment and personality, heightened her charm for them.She was more than the old Carrie to Drouet.He longed to be at home with her until he could tell her.He awaited impatiently the end, when they should go home alone.
Hurstwood, on the contrary, saw in the strength of her new attractiveness his miserable predicament.He could have cursed the man beside him.By the Lord, he could not even applaud feelingly as he would.For once he must simulate when it left a taste in his mouth.
It was in the last act that Carrie's fascination for her lovers assumed its most effective character.
Hurstwood listened to its progress, wondering when Carrie would come on.He had not long to wait.The author had used the artifice of sending all the merry company for a drive, and now Carrie came in alone.It was the first time that Hurstwood had had a chance to see her facing the audience quite alone, for nowhere else had she been without a foil of some sort.He suddenly felt, as she entered, that her old strength--the power that had grasped him at the end of the first act--had come back.
She seemed to be gaining feeling, now that the play was drawing to a close and the opportunity for great action was passing.
"Poor Pearl," she said, speaking with natural pathos."It is a sad thing to want for happiness, but it is a terrible thing to see another groping about blindly for it, when it is almost within the grasp."
She was gazing now sadly out upon the open sea, her arm resting listlessly upon the polished door-post.
Hurstwood began to feel a deep sympathy for her and for himself.
He could almost feel that she was talking to him.He was, by a combination of feelings and entanglements, almost deluded by that quality of voice and manner which, like a pathetic strain of music, seems ever a personal and intimate thing.Pathos has this quality, that it seems ever addressed to one alone.
"And yet, she can be very happy with him," went on the little actress."Her sunny temper, her joyous face will brighten any home."
She turned slowly toward the audience without seeing.There was so much simplicity in her movements that she seemed wholly alone.
Then she found a seat by a table, and turned over some books, devoting a thought to them.
"With no longings for what I may not have," she breathed in conclusion--and it was almost a sigh--"my existence hidden from all save two in the wide world, and making my joy out of the joy of that innocent girl who will soon be his wife."
Hurstwood was sorry when a character, known as Peach Blossom, interrupted her.He stirred irritably, for he wished her to go on.He was charmed by the pale face, the lissome figure, draped in pearl grey, with a coiled string of pearls at the throat.
Carrie had the air of one who was weary and in need of protection, and, under the fascinating make-believe of the moment, he rose in feeling until he was ready in spirit to go to her and ease her out of her misery by adding to his own delight.
In a moment Carrie was alone again, and was saying, with animation:
"I must return to the city, no matter what dangers may lurk here.
I must go, secretly if I can; openly, if I must."
There was a sound of horses' hoofs outside, and then Ray's voice saying:
"No, I shall not ride again.Put him up."
He entered, and then began a scene which had as much to do with the creation of the tragedy of affection in Hurstwood as anything in his peculiar and involved career.For Carrie had resolved to make something of this scene, and, now that the cue had come, it began to take a feeling hold upon her.Both Hurstwood and Drouet noted the rising sentiment as she proceeded.
"I thought you had gone with Pearl," she said to her lover.
"I did go part of the way, but I left the Party a mile down the road."
"You and Pearl had no disagreement?"
"No--yes; that is, we always have.Our social barometers always stand at 'cloudy' and 'overcast.'"
"And whose fault is that?" she said, easily.
"Not mine," he answered, pettishly."I know I do all I can--I
say all I can--but she----"
This was rather awkwardly put by Patton, but Carrie redeemed it with a grace which was inspiring.
"But she is your wife," she said, fixing her whole attention upon the stilled actor, and softening the quality of her voice until it was again low and musical."Ray, my friend, courtship is the text from which the whole sermon of married life takes its theme.
Do not let yours be discontented and unhappy."