She did not wholly believe that he would, but he might.
This, she knew, would be an embarrassing thing if he made himself conspicuous in any way. It troubled her greatly.
Things were precipitated by the offer of a better part. One of the actresses playing the part of a modest sweetheart gave notice of leaving and Carrie was selected.
“How much are you going to get?” asked Miss Osborne, on hearing the good news.
“I didn’t ask him,” said Carrie.
“Well, find out.
Goodness, you’ll never get anything if you don’t ask.
Tell them you must have forty dollars, anyhow.”
“Oh, no,” said Carrie.
“Certainly!” exclaimed Lola.
“Ask ’em, anyway.”
Carrie succumbed to this prompting, waiting, however, until the manager gave her notice of what clothing she must have to fit the part.
“How much do I get?” she inquired.
“Thirty-five dollars,” he replied.
Carrie was too much astonished and delighted to think of mentioning forty.
She was nearly beside herself, and almost hugged Lola, who clung to her at the news.
“It isn’t as much as you ought to get,” said the latter, “especially when you’ve got to buy clothes.”
Carrie remembered this with a start.
Where to get the money?
She had none laid up for such an emergency.
Rent day was drawing near.
“I’ll not do it,” she said, remembering her necessity.
“I don’t use the flat.
I’m not going to give up my money this time.
I’ll move.”
Fitting into this came another appeal from Miss Osborne, more urgent than ever.
“Come live with me, won’t you?” she pleaded.
“We can have the loveliest room. It won’t cost you hardly anything that way.”
“I’d like to,” said Carrie, frankly.
“Oh, do,” said Lola.
“We’ll have such a good time.”
Carrie thought a while.
“I believe I will,” she said, and then added:
“I’ll have to see first, though.”
With the idea thus grounded, rent day approaching, and clothes calling for instant purchase, she soon found excuse in Hurstwood’s lassitude.
He said less and drooped more than ever.
As rent day approached, an idea grew in him.
It was fostered by the demands of creditors and the impossibility of holding up many more.
Twenty-eight dollars was too much for rent.
“It’s hard on her,” he thought.
“We could get a cheaper place.”
Stirred with this idea, he spoke at the breakfast table.
“Don’t you think we pay too much rent here?” he asked.
“Indeed I do,” said Carrie, not catching his drift.
“I should think we could get a smaller place,” he suggested.
“We don’t need four rooms.”
Her countenance, had he been scrutinising her, would have exhibited the disturbance she felt at this evidence of his determination to stay by her.
He saw nothing remarkable in asking her to come down lower.
“Oh, I don’t know,” she answered, growing wary.
“There must be places around here where we could get a couple of rooms, which would do just as well.”