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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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Carrie could not have told herself at this moment whether she was glad or sorry that the impressive manager was awaiting her presence. She was slightly flurried and tingling in the cheeks, but it was more nervousness than either fear or favour. She did not try to conjecture what the drift of the conversation would be. She only felt that she must be careful, and that Hurstwood had an indefinable fascination for her. Then she gave her tie its last touch with her fingers and went below. The deep-feeling manager was himself a little strained in the nerves by the thorough consciousness of his mission. He felt that he must make a strong play on this occasion, but now that the hour was come, and he heard Carrie’s feet upon the stair, his nerve failed him. He sank a little in determination, for he was not so sure, after all, what her opinion might be. When she entered the room, however, her appearance gave him courage. She looked simple and charming enough to strengthen the daring of any lover. Her apparent nervousness dispelled his own. "How are you?" he said, easily. "I could not resist the temptation to come out this afternoon, it was so pleasant." "Yes," said Carrie, halting before him, "I was just preparing to go for a walk myself." "Oh, were you?" he said. "Supposing, then, you get your hat and we both go?" They crossed the park and went west along Washington Boulevard, beautiful with its broad macadamised road, and large frame houses set back from the sidewalks. It was a street where many of the more prosperous residents of the West Side lived, and Hurstwood could not help feeling nervous over the publicity of it. They had gone but a few blocks when a livery stable sign in one of the side streets solved the difficulty for him. He would take her to drive along the new Boulevard. The Boulevard at that time was little more than a country road. The part he intended showing her was much farther out on this same West Side, where there was scarcely a house. It connected Douglas Park with Washington or South Park, and was nothing more than a neatly made road, running due south for some five miles over an open, grassy prairie, and then due east over the same kind of prairie for the same distance. There was not a house to be encountered anywhere along the larger part of the route, and any conversation would be pleasantly free of interruption. At the stable he picked a gentle horse, and they were soon out of range of either public observation or hearing. "Can you drive?" he said, after a time. "I never tried," said Carrie. He put the reins in her hand, and folded his arms. "You see there’s nothing to it much," he said, smilingly. "Not when you have a gentle horse," said Carrie. "You can handle a horse as well as any one, after a little practice," he added, encouragingly. He had been looking for some time for a break in the conversation when he could give it a serious turn. Once or twice he had held his peace, hoping that in silence her thoughts would take the colour of his own, but she had lightly continued the subject. Presently, however, his silence controlled the situation. The drift of his thoughts began to tell. He gazed fixedly at nothing in particular, as if he were thinking of something which concerned her not at all. His thoughts, however, spoke for themselves. She was very much aware that a climax was pending. "Do you know," he said, "I have spent the happiest evenings in years since I have known you?" "Have you?" she said, with assumed airiness, but still excited by the conviction which the tone of his voice carried. "I was going to tell you the other evening," he added, "but somehow the opportunity slipped away." Carrie was listening without attempting to reply. She could think of nothing worth while to say. Despite all the ideas concerning right which had troubled her vaguely since she had last seen him, she was now influenced again strongly in his favour. "I came out here to-day," he went on, solemnly, "to tell you just how I feel-to see if you wouldn’t listen to me." |
