The complete ignoring by Hurstwood of his own home came with the growthof his affection for Carrie. His actions, in all that related to hisfamily, were of the most perfunctory kind. He sat at breakfast with hiswife and children, absorbed in his own fancies, which reached farwithout the realm of their interests. He read his paper, which washeightened in interest by the shallowness of the themes discussed by hisson and daughter. Between himself and his wife ran a river ofindifference.

Now that Carrie had come, he was in a fair way to be blissful again.There was delight in going down town evenings. When he walked forth inthe short days, the street lamps had a merry twinkle. He began toexperience the almost forgotten feeling which hastens the lover's feet.When he looked at his fine clothes, he saw them with her eyes--and hereyes were young.

When in the flush of such feelings he heard his wife's voice, when theinsistent demands of matrimony recalled him from dreams to a stalepractice, how it grated. He then knew that this was a chain which boundhis feet.

"George," said Mrs. Hurstwood, in that tone of voice which had longsince come to be associated in his mind with demands, "we want you toget us a season ticket to the races."

"Do you want to go to all of them?" he said with a rising inflection.

"Yes," she answered.

The races in question were soon to open at Washington Park, on the SouthSide, and were considered quite society affairs among those who did notaffect religious rectitude and conservatism. Mrs. Hurstwood had neverasked for a whole season ticket before, but this year certainconsiderations decided her to get a box. For one thing, one of herneighbours, a certain Mr. and Mrs. Ramsey, who were possessors of money,made out of the coal business, had done so. In the next place, herfavourite physician, Dr. Beale, a gentleman inclined to horses andbetting, had talked with her concerning his intention to enter atwo-year-old in the Derby. In the third place, she wished to exhibitJessica, who was gaining in maturity and beauty, and whom she hoped tomarry to a man of means. Her own desire to be about in such things andparade among her acquaintances and the common throng was as much anincentive as anything.

Hurstwood thought over the proposition a few moments without answering.They were in the sitting-room on the second floor, waiting for supper.It was the evening of his engagement with Carrie and Drouet to see "TheCovenant," which had brought him home to make some alterations in hisdress.

"You're sure separate tickets wouldn't do as well?" he asked, hesitatingto say anything more rugged.

"No," she replied impatiently.

"Well," he said, taking offence at her manner, "you needn't get madabout it. I'm just asking you."

"I'm not mad," she snapped. "I'm merely asking you for a season ticket."

"And I'm telling you," he returned, fixing a clear, steady eye on her,"that it's no easy thing to get. I'm not sure whether the manager willgive it to me."

He had been thinking all the time of his "pull" with the race-trackmagnates.

"We can buy it then," she exclaimed sharply.

"You talk easy," he said. "A season family ticket costs one hundred andfifty dollars."

"I'll not argue with you," she replied with determination. "I want theticket and that's all there is to it."

She had risen, and now walked angrily out of the room.

"Well, you get it then," he said grimly, though in a modified tone ofvoice.

As usual, the table was one short that evening.

The next morning he had cooled down considerably, and later the ticketwas duly secured, though it did not heal matters. He did not mind givinghis family a fair share of all that he earned, but he did not like to beforced to provide against his will.

"Did you know, mother," said Jessica another day, "the Spencers aregetting ready to go away?"

"No. Where, I wonder?"

"Europe," said Jessica. "I met Georgine yesterday and she told me. Shejust put on more airs about it."

"Did she say when?"

"Monday, I think. They'll get a notice in the papers again--they alwaysdo."

"Never mind," said Mrs. Hurstwood consolingly, "we'll go one of thesedays."

Hurstwood moved his eyes over the paper slowly, but said nothing.

"'We sail for Liverpool from New York,'" Jessica exclaimed, mocking heracquaintance. "'Expect to spend most of the "summah" in France,'--vainthing. As if it was anything to go to Europe."

"It must be if you envy her so much," put in Hurstwood.

It grated upon him to see the feeling his daughter displayed.

"Don't worry over them, my dear," said Mrs. Hurstwood.

"Did George get off?" asked Jessica of her mother another day, thusrevealing something that Hurstwood had heard nothing about.

"Where has he gone?" he asked, looking up. He had never before been keptin ignorance concerning departures.

"He was going to Wheaton," said Jessica, not noticing the slight putupon her father.

"What's out there?" he asked, secretly irritated and chagrined to thinkthat he should be made to pump for information in this manner.

"A tennis match," said Jessica.

"He didn't say anything to me," Hurstwood concluded, finding itdifficult to refrain from a bitter tone.

"I guess he must have forgotten," exclaimed his wife blandly.

In the past he had always commanded a certain amount of respect, whichwas a compound of appreciation and awe. The familiarity which in partstill existed between himself and his daughter he had courted. As itwas, it did not go beyond the light assumption of words. The tone wasalways modest. Whatever had been, however, had lacked affection, and nowhe saw that he was losing track of their doings. His knowledge was nolonger intimate. He sometimes saw them at table, and sometimes did not.He heard of their doings occasionally, more often not. Some days hefound that he was all at sea as to what they were talking about--thingsthey had arranged to do or that they had done in his absence. Moreaffecting was the feeling that there were little things going on ofwhich he no longer heard. Jessica was beginning to feel that her affairswere her own. George, Jr., flourished about as if he were a man entirelyand must needs have private matters. All this Hurstwood could see, andit left a trace of feeling, for he was used to being considered--in hisofficial position, at least--and felt that his importance should notbegin to wane here. To darken it all, he saw the same indifference andindependence growing in his wife, while he looked on and paid the bills.

He consoled himself with the thought, however, that, after all, he wasnot without affection. Things might go as they would at his house, buthe had Carrie outside of it. With his mind's eye he looked into hercomfortable room in Ogden Place, where he had spent several suchdelightful evenings, and thought how charming it would be when Drouetwas disposed of entirely and she was waiting evenings in cosey littlequarters for him. That no cause would come up whereby Drouet would beled to inform Carrie concerning his married state, he felt hopeful.Things were going so smoothly that he believed they would not change.Shortly now he would persuade Carrie and all would be satisfactory.

The day after their theatre visit he began writing her regularly--aletter every morning, and begging her to do as much for him. He was notliterary by any means, but experience of the world and his growingaffection gave him somewhat of a style. This he exercised at his officedesk with perfect deliberation. He purchased a box of delicatelycoloured and scented writing paper in monogram, which he kept locked inone of the drawers. His friends now wondered at the cleric and veryofficial-looking nature of his position. The five bartenders viewed withrespect the duties which could call a man to do so much desk-work andpenmanship.

Hurstwood surprised himself with his fluency. By the natural law whichgoverns all effort, what he wrote reacted upon him. He began to feelthose subtleties which he could find words to express. With everyexpression came increased conception. Those inmost breathings whichthere found words took hold upon him. He thought Carrie worthy of allthe affection he could there express.

Carrie was indeed worth loving if ever youth and grace are to commandthat token of acknowledgment from life in their bloom. Experience hadnot yet taken away that freshness of the spirit which is the charm ofthe body. Her soft eyes contained in their liquid lustre no suggestionof the knowledge of disappointment. She had been troubled in a way bydoubt and longing, but these had made no deeper impression than could betraced in a certain open wistfulness of glance and speech. The mouth hadthe expression at times, in talking and in repose, of one who might beupon the verge of tears. It was not that grief was thus ever present.The pronunciation of certain syllables gave to her lips this peculiarityof formation--a formation as suggestive and moving as pathos itself.

There was nothing bold in her manner. Life had not taught herdomination--superciliousness of grace, which is the lordly power of somewomen. Her longing for consideration was not sufficiently powerful tomove her to demand it. Even now she lacked self-assurance, but there wasthat in what she had already experienced which left her a little lessthan timid. She wanted pleasure, she wanted position, and yet she wasconfused as to what these things might be. Every hour the kaleidoscopeof human affairs threw a new lustre upon something, and therewith itbecame for her the desired--the all. Another shift of the box, and someother had become the beautiful, the perfect.

On her spiritual side, also, she was rich in feeling, as such a naturewell might be. Sorrow in her was aroused by many a spectacle--anuncritical upwelling of grief for the weak and the helpless. She wasconstantly pained by the sight of the white-faced, ragged men whoslopped desperately by her in a sort of wretched mental stupor. Thepoorly clad girls who went blowing by her window evenings, hurrying homefrom some of the shops of the West Side, she pitied from the depths ofher heart. She would stand and bite her lips as they passed, shaking herlittle head and wondering. They had so little, she thought. It was sosad to be ragged and poor. The hang of faded clothes pained her eyes.

"And they have to work so hard!" was her only comment.

On the street sometimes she would see men working--Irishmen with picks,coal-heavers with great loads to shovel, Americans busy about some workwhich was a mere matter of strength--and they touched her fancy. Toil,now that she was free of it, seemed even a more desolate thing than whenshe was part of it. She saw it through a mist of fancy--a pale, sombrehalf-light, which was the essence of poetic feeling. Her old father, inhis flour-dusted miller's suit, sometimes returned to her in memory,revived by a face in a window. A shoemaker pegging at his last, ablastman seen through a narrow window in some basement where iron wasbeing melted, a bench-worker seen high aloft in some window, his coatoff, his sleeves rolled up; these took her back in fancy to the detailsof the mill. She felt, though she seldom expressed them, sad thoughtsupon this score. Her sympathies were ever with that under-world of toilfrom which she had so recently sprung, and which she best understood.

Though Hurstwood did not know it, he was dealing with one whose feelingswere as tender and as delicate as this. He did not know, but it was thisin her, after all, which attracted him. He never attempted to analysethe nature of his affection. It was sufficient that there wastenderness in her eye, weakness in her manner, good-nature and hope inher thoughts. He drew near this lily, which had sucked its waxen beautyand perfume from below a depth of waters which he had never penetrated,and out of ooze and mould which he could not understand. He drew nearbecause it was waxen and fresh. It lightened his feelings for him. Itmade the morning worth while.

In a material way, she was considerably improved. Her awkwardness hadall but passed, leaving, if anything, a quaint residue which was aspleasing as perfect grace. Her little shoes now fitted her smartly andhad high heels. She had learned much about laces and those littleneck-pieces which add so much to a woman's appearance. Her form hadfilled out until it was admirably plump and well-rounded.

Hurstwood wrote her one morning, asking her to meet him in JeffersonPark, Monroe Street. He did not consider it policy to call any more,even when Drouet was at home.

The next afternoon he was in the pretty little park by one, and hadfound a rustic bench beneath the green leaves of a lilac bush whichbordered one of the paths. It was at that season of the year when thefulness of spring had not yet worn quite away. At a little pond near bysome cleanly dressed children were sailing white canvas boats. In theshade of a green pagoda a bebuttoned officer of the law was resting, hisarms folded, his club at rest in his belt. An old gardener was upon thelawn, with a pair of pruning shears, looking after some bushes. Highoverhead was the clear blue sky of the new summer, and in the thicknessof the shiny green leaves of the trees hopped and twittered the busysparrows.

Hurstwood had come out of his own home that morning feeling much of thesame old annoyance. At his store he had idled, there being no need towrite. He had come away to this place with the lightness of heart whichcharacterises those who put weariness behind. Now, in the shade of thiscool, green bush, he looked about him with the fancy of the lover. Heheard the carts go lumbering by upon the neighbouring streets, but theywere far off, and only buzzed upon his ear. The hum of the surroundingcity was faint, the clang of an occasional bell was as music. He lookedand dreamed a new dream of pleasure which concerned his present fixedcondition not at all. He got back in fancy to the old Hurstwood, who wasneither married nor fixed in a solid position for life. He rememberedthe light spirit in which he once looked after the girls--how he haddanced, escorted them home, hung over their gates. He almost wished hewas back there again--here in this pleasant scene he felt as if he werewholly free.

At two Carrie came tripping along the walk toward him, rosy and clean.She had just recently donned a sailor hat for the season with a band ofpretty white-dotted blue silk. Her skirt was of a rich blue material,and her shirt waist matched it, with a thin stripe of blue upon asnow-white ground--stripes that were as fine as hairs. Her brown shoespeeped occasionally from beneath her skirt. She carried her gloves inher hand.

Hurstwood looked up at her with delight.

"You came, dearest," he said eagerly, standing to meet her and takingher hand.

"Of course," she said, smiling; "did you think I wouldn't?"

"I didn't know," he replied.

He looked at her forehead, which was moist from her brisk walk. Then hetook out one of his own soft, scented silk handkerchiefs and touched herface here and there.

"Now," he said affectionately, "you're all right."

They were happy in being near one another--in looking into each other'seyes. Finally, when the long flush of delight had subsided, he said:

"When is Charlie going away again?"

"I don't know," she answered. "He says he has some things to do for thehouse here now."

Hurstwood grew serious, and he lapsed into quiet thought. He looked upafter a time to say:

"Come away and leave him."

He turned his eyes to the boys with the boats, as if the request were oflittle importance.

"Where would we go?" she asked in much the same manner, rolling hergloves, and looking into a neighbouring tree.

"Where do you want to go?" he enquired.

There was something in the tone in which he said this which made herfeel as if she must record her feelings against any local habitation.

"We can't stay in Chicago," she replied.

He had no thought that this was in her mind--that any removal would besuggested.

"Why not?" he asked softly.

"Oh, because," she said, "I wouldn't want to."

He listened to this with but dull perception of what it meant. It had noserious ring to it. The question was not up for immediate decision.

"I would have to give up my position," he said.

The tone he used made it seem as if the matter deserved only slightconsideration. Carrie thought a little, the while enjoying the prettyscene.

"I wouldn't like to live in Chicago and him here," she said, thinking ofDrouet.

"It's a big town, dearest," Hurstwood answered. "It would be as good asmoving to another part of the country to move to the South Side."

He had fixed upon that region as an objective point.

"Anyhow," said Carrie, "I shouldn't want to get married as long as he ishere. I wouldn't want to run away."

The suggestion of marriage struck Hurstwood forcibly. He saw clearlythat this was her idea--he felt that it was not to be gotten overeasily. Bigamy lightened the horizon of his shadowy thoughts for amoment. He wondered for the life of him how it would all come out. Hecould not see that he was making any progress save in her regard. Whenhe looked at her now, he thought her beautiful. What a thing it was tohave her love him, even if it be entangling! She increased in value inhis eyes because of her objection. She was something to struggle for,and that was everything. How different from the women who yieldedwillingly! He swept the thought of them from his mind.

"And you don't know when he'll go away?" asked Hurstwood, quietly.

She shook her head.

He sighed.

"You're a determined little miss, aren't you?" he said, after a fewmoments, looking up into her eyes.

She felt a wave of feeling sweep over her at this. It was pride at whatseemed his admiration--affection for the man who could feel thisconcerning her.

"No," she said coyly, "but what can I do?"

Again he folded his hands and looked away over the lawn into the street.

"I wish," he said pathetically, "you would come to me. I don't like tobe away from you this way. What good is there in waiting? You're not anyhappier, are you?"

"Happier!" she exclaimed softly, "you know better than that."

"Here we are then," he went on in the same tone, "wasting our days. Ifyou are not happy, do you think I am? I sit and write to you the biggestpart of the time. I'll tell you what, Carrie," he exclaimed, throwingsudden force of expression into his voice and fixing her with his eyes,"I can't live without you, and that's all there is to it. Now," heconcluded, showing the palm of one of his white hands in a sort ofat-an-end, helpless expression, "what shall I do?"

This shifting of the burden to her appealed to Carrie. The semblance ofthe load without the weight touched the woman's heart.

"Can't you wait a little while yet?" she said tenderly. "I'll try andfind out when he's going."

"What good will it do?" he asked, holding the same strain of feeling.

"Well, perhaps we can arrange to go somewhere."

She really did not see anything clearer than before, but she was gettinginto that frame of mind where, out of sympathy, a woman yields.

Hurstwood did not understand. He was wondering how she was to bepersuaded--what appeal would move her to forsake Drouet. He began towonder how far her affection for him would carry her. He was thinking ofsome question which would make her tell.

Finally he hit upon one of those problematical propositions which oftendisguise our own desires while leading us to an understanding of thedifficulties which others make for us, and so discover for us a way. Ithad not the slightest connection with anything intended on his part, andwas spoken at random before he had given it a moment's serious thought.

"Carrie," he said, looking into her face and assuming a serious lookwhich he did not feel, "suppose I were to come to you next week; or thisweek for that matter--to-night say--and tell you I had to go away--thatI couldn't stay another minute and wasn't coming back any more--wouldyou come with me?"

His sweetheart viewed him with the most affectionate glance, her answerready before the words were out of his mouth.

"Yes," she said.

"You wouldn't stop to argue or arrange?"

"Not if you couldn't wait."

He smiled when he saw that she took him seriously, and he thought what achance it would afford for a possible junket of a week or two. He had anotion to tell her that he was joking and so brush away her sweetseriousness, but the effect of it was too delightful. He let it stand.

"Suppose we didn't have time to get married here?" he added, anafterthought striking him.

"If we got married as soon as we got to the other end of the journey itwould be all right."

"I meant that," he said.

"Yes."

The morning seemed peculiarly bright to him now. He wondered whatevercould have put such a thought into his head. Impossible as it was, hecould not help smiling at its cleverness. It showed how she loved him.There was no doubt in his mind now, and he would find a way to win her.

"Well," he said, jokingly, "I'll come and get you one of theseevenings," and then he laughed.

"I wouldn't stay with you, though, if you didn't marry me," Carrie addedreflectively.

"I don't want you to," he said tenderly, taking her hand.

She was extremely happy now that she understood. She loved him the morefor thinking that he would rescue her so. As for him, the marriageclause did not dwell in his mind. He was thinking that with suchaffection there could be no bar to his eventual happiness.

"Let's stroll about," he said gayly, rising and surveying all the lovelypark.

"All right," said Carrie.

They passed the young Irishman, who looked after them with envious eyes.

"Tis a foine couple," he observed to himself. "They must be rich."