Читать книгу Sister Carrie / Сестра Кэрри. Книга для чтения на английском языке онлайн | страница 51

Such mental conflict was not always uppermost. Carrie was not by any means a gloomy soul. More, she had not the mind to get firm hold upon a definite truth. When she could not find her way out of the labyrinth of ill-logic which thought upon the subject created, she would turn away entirely.

Drouet, all the time, was conducting himself in a model way for one of his sort. He took her about a great deal, spent money upon her, and when he traveled took her with him. There were times when she would be alone for two or three days, while he made the shorter circuits of his business, but, as a rule, she saw a great deal of him.

“Say. Carrie,” he said one morning, shortly after they had so established themselves, “I’ve invited my friend Hurstwood to come out some day and spend the evening with us.”

“Who is he?” asked Carrie, doubtfully.

“Oh, he’s a nice man. He’s manager of Fitzgerald and Moy’s.”

“What that?” said Carrie.

“The finest resort in town. It’s a way-up, smell place.”[46]

Carrie puzzled a moment. She was wondering what Drouet had told him, what her attitude would be.

“That’s all right,” said Drouet, feeling her thought.

“He doesn’t know anything. You’re Mrs. Drouet now.”

There was something about this which struck Carrie as slightly inconsiderate. She could see that Drouet did not have the keenest sensibilities.

“Why don’t we got married?” she inquired, thinking of the voluble promise he had made.

“Well, we will,” he said, “just as soon as I get this little deal of mine closed up.”

He was referring to some property which he said he had, and which required so much attention, adjustment, and what not, that somehow or other it interfered with his free moral, personal actions.

“Just as soon as I get back from my Denver trip in January we’ll do it.”

Carrie accepted this as basis for hope – it was a sort of salve to her conscience, a pleasant way out. Under the circumstances, things would be righted. Her actions would be justified.

She really was not enamored of Drouet. She was more clever than he. In a dim way, she was beginning to see where he lacked. If it had not been for this, if she had not been able to measure and judge him a way, she would have been utterly wretched in her fear of not gaining his affection, of losing his interest, of being swept away and left without an anchorage. As it was, she wavered a little, slightly anxious, at first, to gain him completely, but later feelings at ease in waiting. She was not exactly sure what she thought of him – what she wanted to do.