“I didn’t get to see any one,” said Carrie. “I just walked, and walked, and waited around.”
Hurstwood only looked at her.
“I suppose you have to have some friends before you can get in,” she added, disconsolately.
Hurstwood saw the difficulty of this thing, and yet it did not seem so terrible. Carrie was tired and dispirited, but now she could rest. Viewing the world from his rocking-chair, its bitterness did not seem to approach so rapidly. To-morrow was another day.
To-morrow came, and the next, and the next.
Carrie saw the manager at the Casinoak once.
“Come around,” he said, “the first of next week. I may make some changes then.”
He was a large and corpulent individual, surfeited with good clothes and good eating, who judged women as another would horseflesh. Carrie was pretty and graceful. She might be put in even if she did not have any experience. One of the proprietors had suggested that the chorus was a little weak on looks.
The first of next week was some days off yet. The first of the month was drawing near. Carrie began to worry as she had never worried before.
“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.”
“You have?” he said, breathing a better breath.
“Yes.”
“What sort of a place is it?” he asked, feeling in his veins as if now he might get something good also.
“In the chorus,” she answered.
“Is it the Casino show you told me about?”
“Yes,” she answered. “I begin rehearsing tomorrow.”
There was more explanation volunteered by Carrie, because she was happy. At last Hurstwood said:
“Do you know how much you’ll get?”
“No, I didn’t want to ask,” said Carrie. “I guess they pay twelve or fourteen dollars a week.”
“About that, I guess,” said Hurstwood.
There was a good dinner in the flat that evening, owing to the mere lifting of the terrible strain. Hurstwood went out for a shave, and returned with a fair-sized sirloin steak.
“Now, to-morrow,” he thought, “I’ll look around myself,” and with renewed hope he lifted his eyes from the ground.
On the morrow Carrie reported promptly and was given a place in the line. She saw a large, empty, shadowy play-house, still redolent of the perfumes and blazonry of the night, and notable for its rich, oriental appearance. The wonder of it awed and delighted her. Blessed be its wondrous reality. How hard she would try to be worthy of it. It was above the common mass, above idleness, above want, above insignificance. People came to it in finery and carriages to see. It was ever a center of light and mirth. And here she was of it. Oh, if she could only remain, how happy would be her days!
“What is your name?” said the manager, who was conducting the drill.
“Madenda,” she replied, instantly mindful of the name Drouet had selected in Chicago. “Carrie Madenda.”
“Well, now, Miss Madenda,” he said, very affably, as Carrie thought, “you go over there.”
Then he called to a young woman who was already of the company:
“Miss Clark, you pair with Miss Madenda.”
This young lady stepped forward, so that Carrie saw where to go, and the rehearsal began.
Carrie soon found that while this drilling had some slight resemblance to the rehearsals as conducted at Avery Hall, the attitude of the manager was much more pronounced. She had marvelled at the insistence and superior airs of Mr. Millice, but the individual conducting here had the same insistence, coupled with almost brutal roughness. As the drilling proceeded, he seemed to wax exceedingly wroth over trifles, and to increase his lung power in proportion. It was very evident that he had a great contempt for any assumption of dignity or innocence on the part of these young women.
“Clark,” he would call—meaning, of course, Miss dark—“why don’t you catch step there?”
“By fours, right! Right, I said, right! For heaven’s sake, get on to yourself! Right!” and in saying this he would lift the last sounds into a vehement roar.
“Maitland! Maitland!” he called once.
A nervous, comely-dressed little girl stepped out. Carrie trembled for her out of the fulness of her own sympathies and fear.
“Yes, sir,” said Miss Maitland.
“Is there anything the matter with your ears?”
“No, sir.”
“Do you know what ‘column left’ means?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, what are you stumbling around the right for? Want to break up the line?”
“I was just—”
“Never mind what you were just. Keep your ears open.”
Carrie pitied, and trembled for her turn.
Yet another suffered the pain of personal rebuke.
“Hold on a minute,” cried the manager, throwing up his hands, as if in despair. His demeanour was fierce.