Sister Carrie, Theodore Dreiser [ebook reader below 3000 .TXT] 📗

pleasure he felt in Carrie, of the zest this new pursuit of pleasure lent to his days. Mrs. Hurstwood felt something, sniffing change, as animals do danger, afar off.

This feeling was strengthened by actions of a direct and more potent nature on the part of Hurstwood. We have seen with what irritation he shirked those little duties which no longer contained any amusement or satisfaction for him, and the open snarls with which, more recently, he resented her irritating goads. These little rows were really precipitated by an atmosphere which was surcharged with dissension. That it would shower, with a sky so full of blackening thunderclouds, would scarcely be thought worthy of comment. Thus, after leaving the breakfast table this morning, raging inwardly at his blank declaration of indifference at her plans, Mrs. Hurstwood encountered Jessica in her dressing-room, very leisurely arranging her hair. Hurstwood had already left the house.

“I wish you wouldn’t be so late coming down to breakfast,” she said, addressing Jessica, while making for her crochet basket. “Now here the things are quite cold, and you haven’t eaten.”

Her natural composure was sadly ruffled, and Jessica was doomed to feel the fag end of the storm.

“I’m not hungry,” she answered.

“Then why don’t you say so, and let the girl put away the things, instead of keeping her waiting all morning?”

“She doesn’t mind,” answered Jessica, coolly.

“Well, I do, if she doesn’t,” returned the mother, “and, anyhow, I don’t like you to talk that way to me. You’re too young to put on such an air with your mother.”

“Oh, mamma, don’t row,” answered Jessica. “What’s the matter this morning, anyway?”

“Nothing’s the matter, and I’m not rowing. You mustn’t think because I indulge you in some things that you can keep everybody waiting. I won’t have it.”

“I’m not keeping anybody waiting,” returned Jessica, sharply, stirred out of a cynical indifference to a sharp defence. “I said I wasn’t hungry. I don’t want any breakfast.”

“Mind how you address me, missy. I’ll not have it. Hear me now; I’ll not have it!”

Jessica heard this last while walking out of the room, with a toss of her head and a flick of her pretty skirts indicative of the independence and indifference she felt. She did not propose to be quarrelled with.

Such little arguments were all too frequent, the result of a growth of natures which were largely independent and selfish. George, Jr., manifested even greater touchiness and exaggeration in the matter of his individual rights, and attempted to make all feel that he was a man with a man’s privileges⁠—an assumption which, of all things, is most groundless and pointless in a youth of nineteen.

Hurstwood was a man of authority and some fine feeling, and it irritated him excessively to find himself surrounded more and more by a world upon which he had no hold, and of which he had a lessening understanding.

Now, when such little things, such as the proposed earlier start to Waukesha, came up, they made clear to him his position. He was being made to follow, was not leading. When, in addition, a sharp temper was manifested, and to the process of shouldering him out of his authority was added a rousing intellectual kick, such as a sneer or a cynical laugh, he was unable to keep his temper. He flew into hardly repressed passion, and wished himself clear of the whole household. It seemed a most irritating drag upon all his desires and opportunities.

For all this, he still retained the semblance of leadership and control, even though his wife was straining to revolt. Her display of temper and open assertion of opposition were based upon nothing more than the feeling that she could do it. She had no special evidence wherewith to justify herself⁠—the knowledge of something which would give her both authority and excuse. The latter was all that was lacking, however, to give a solid foundation to what, in a way, seemed groundless discontent. The clear proof of one overt deed was the cold breath needed to convert the lowering clouds of suspicion into a rain of wrath.

An inkling of untoward deeds on the part of Hurstwood had come. Doctor Beale, the handsome resident physician of the neighbourhood, met Mrs. Hurstwood at her own doorstep some days after Hurstwood and Carrie had taken the drive west on Washington Boulevard. Dr. Beale, coming east on the same drive, had recognised Hurstwood, but not before he was quite past him. He was not so sure of Carrie⁠—did not know whether it was Hurstwood’s wife or daughter.

“You don’t speak to your friends when you meet them out driving, do you?” he said, jocosely, to Mrs. Hurstwood.

“If I see them, I do. Where was I?”

“On Washington Boulevard,” he answered, expecting her eye to light with immediate remembrance.

She shook her head.

“Yes, out near Hoyne Avenue. You were with your husband.”

“I guess you’re mistaken,” she answered. Then, remembering her husband’s part in the affair, she immediately fell a prey to a host of young suspicions, of which, however, she gave no sign.

“I know I saw your husband,” he went on. “I wasn’t so sure about you. Perhaps it was your daughter.”

“Perhaps it was,” said Mrs. Hurstwood, knowing full well that such was not the case, as Jessica had been her companion for weeks. She had recovered herself sufficiently to wish to know more of the details.

“Was it in the afternoon?” she asked, artfully, assuming an air of acquaintanceship with the matter.

“Yes, about two or three.”

“It must have been Jessica,” said Mrs. Hurstwood, not wishing to seem to attach any importance to the incident.

The physician had a thought or two of his own, but dismissed the matter as worthy of no further discussion on his part at least.

Mrs. Hurstwood gave this bit of information considerable thought during the next few hours, and even days. She took it for granted that the doctor had really seen her husband, and that he had been riding, most likely, with some other woman, after announcing himself as busy to her. As a consequence, she recalled, with