Sister Carrie: Chapters 8–15

Hanson jumped out of bed with more celerity than he usually displayed and looked at the note.

If the digression is unusual enough, the drag of habit will be heavy enough to cause the unreasoning victim to return and perform the perfunctory thing.

He had long since wearied of discussing the rancorous subject.

He was not garrulous by any means. On the contrary, there was a fine reserve in his manner toward the entire domestic economy of his life which was all that is comprehended by the popular term, gentlemanly.

She was in the high school, and had notions of life which were decidedly those of a patrician. She liked nice clothes and urged for them constantly.

Mrs. Hurstwood was the type of woman who has ever endeavoured to shine and has been more or less chagrined at the evidences of superior capability in this direction elsewhere.

They wanted no scandals. A man, to hold his position, must have a dignified manner, a clean record, a respectable home anchorage. Therefore he was circumspect in all he did, and whenever he appeared in the public ways in the afternoon, or on Sunday, it was with his wife, and sometimes his children.

If it came up for discussion among such friends as with him passed for close, he would deprecate the folly of the thing.

“That was just something for evening wear,” returned his wife complacently.

On one occasion recently a local aldermanic junket had been arranged to visit Philadelphia—a junket that was to last ten days.

Actions such as hers are measured by an arbitrary scale.

Answer, first, why the heart thrills; explain wherefore some plaintive note goes wandering about the world, undying; make clear the rose’s subtle alchemy evolving its ruddy lamp in light and rain.

In the view of a certain stratum of society, Carrie was comfortably established—in the eyes of the starveling, beaten by every wind and gusty sheet of rain, she was safe in a halcyon harbour.

In the view of a certain stratum of society, Carrie was comfortably established—in the eyes of the starveling, beaten by every wind and gusty sheet of rain, she was safe in a halcyon harbour.

Not poets alone, nor artists, nor that superior order of mind which arrogates to itself all refinement, feel this, but dogs and all men.

He saw how they set their little feet, how they carried their chins, with what grace and sinuosity they swung their bodies.

He loved the thing that women love in themselves, grace. At this, their own shrine, he knelt with them, an ardent devotee.

She was delicately moulded in sentiment, and answered with vague ruminations to certain wistful chords.

Now she sat looking out across the park as wistful and depressed as the nature which craves variety and life can be under such circumstances.

In that large clear eye he could see nothing that his blasé nature could understand as guile.

He was merely floating those gossamer threads of thought which, like the spider’s, he hoped would lay hold somewhere.

A few weeks later Drouet, in his peregrinations, encountered one of his well-dressed lady acquaintances in Chicago on his return from a short trip to Omaha.

He sent Drouet after a programme, and then discoursed to Carrie concerning Jefferson as he had heard of him.

The former was pleased beyond expression, and was really hypnotised by the environment, the trappings of the box, the elegance of her companion.

She would wait and brood, studying the details and adding to them until her power might be commensurate with her desire for revenge.

She was in a position to become refractory with considerable advantage, and Hurstwood conducted himself circumspectly because he felt that he could not be sure of anything once she became dissatisfied.

That young lady, under the stress of her situation and the tutelage of her new friend, changed effectively.

Mrs. Hale’s extended harangues upon the subjects of wealth and position taught her to distinguish between degrees of wealth.

She had heard so much of the canting philosophy of the grapeless fox.

They have no method, no understanding of how to ingratiate themselves in youthful favour, save when they find virtue in the toils.

He was a youth again in feeling—a cavalier in action.

Carrie had thought of going for a walk, and had put on a light grey woollen dress with a jaunty double-breasted jacket.

Hurstwood glowed with his own intensity, and the heat of his passion was already melting the wax of his companion’s scruples.

At worst, they were gilded affairs, and with what leniency are gilded errors viewed.

“Served him right,” said Drouet afterward, even in view of her keen expiation of her error.

The plea was that of a gaunt-faced man of about thirty, who looked the picture of privation and wretchedness.

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

He had been thinking all the time of his “pull” with the race-track magnates.

The mouth had the expression at times, in talking and in repose, of one who might be upon the verge of tears.

Life had not taught her domination—superciliousness of grace, which is the lordly power of some women.