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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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"Do you really look for anything when you go out?" she asked Hurstwood one morning as a climax to some painful thoughts of her own. "Of course I do," he said pettishly, troubling only a little over the disgrace of the insinuation. "I’d take anything," she said, "for the present. It will soon be the first of the month again." She looked the picture of despair. Hurstwood quit reading his paper and changed his clothes. "He would look for something," he thought. "He would go and see if some brewery couldn’t get him in somewhere. Yes, he would take a position as bartender, if he could get it." It was the same sort of pilgrimage he had made before. One or two slight rebuffs, and the bravado disappeared. "No use," he thought. "I might as well go on back home." Now that his money was so low, he began to observe his clothes and feel that even his best ones were beginning to look commonplace. This was a bitter thought. Carrie came in after he did. "I went to see some of the variety managers," she said, aimlessly. "You have to have an act. They don’t want anybody that hasn’t." "I saw some of the brewery people to-day," said Hurstwood. "One man told me he’d try to make a place for me in two or three weeks." In the face of so much distress on Carrie’s part, he had to make some showing, and it was thus he did so. It was lassitude’s apology to energy. Monday Carrie went again to the Casino. "Did I tell you to come around to-day?" said the manager, looking her over as she stood before him. "You said the first of the week," said Carrie, greatly abashed. "Ever had any experience?" he asked again, almost severely. Carrie owned to ignorance. He looked her over again as he stirred among some papers. He was secretly pleased with this pretty, disturbed-looking young woman. "Come around to the theatre to-morrow morning." Carrie’s heart bounded to her throat. "I will," she said with difficulty. She could see he wanted her, and turned to go. "Would he really put her to work? Oh, blessed fortune, could it be?" Already the hard rumble of the city through the open windows became pleasant. A sharp voice answered her mental interrogation, driving away all immediate fears on that score. "Be sure you’re there promptly," the manager said roughly. "You’ll be dropped if you’re not." Carrie hastened away. She did not quarrel now with Hurstwood’s idleness. She had a place-she had a place! This sang in her ears. In her delight she was almost anxious to tell Hurstwood. But, as she walked homeward, and her survey of the facts of the case became larger, she began to think of the anomaly of her finding work in several weeks and his lounging in idleness for a number of months. "Why don’t he get something?" she openly said to herself. "If I can he surely ought to. It wasn’t very hard for me." She forgot her youth and her beauty. The handicap of age she did not, in her enthusiasm, perceive. Thus, ever, the voice of success. Still, she could not keep her secret. She tried to be calm and indifferent, but it was a palpable sham. "Well?" he said, seeing her relieved face. "I have a place." |
