It was on her lips to say,
“What was it?” when he added,
“I saw your husband.”
Her wonder was at once replaced by the more subtle quality of suspicion.
“Yes,” she said, cautiously, “was it pleasant?
He did not tell me much about it.”
“Very.
Really one of the best private theatricals I ever attended.
There was one actress who surprised us all.”
“Indeed,” said Mrs. Hurstwood.
“It’s too bad you couldn’t have been there, really.
I was sorry to hear you weren’t feeling well.”
Feeling well!
Mrs. Hurstwood could have echoed the words after him open-mouthed.
As it was, she extricated herself from her mingled impulse to deny and question, and said, almost raspingly:
“Yes, it is too bad.”
“Looks like there will be quite a crowd here today, doesn’t it?” the acquaintance observed, drifting off upon another topic.
The manager’s wife would have questioned farther, but she saw no opportunity.
She was for the moment wholly at sea, anxious to think for herself, and wondering what new deception was this which caused him to give out that she was ill when she was not.
Another case of her company not wanted, and excuses being made.
She resolved to find out more.
“Were you at the performance last evening?” she asked of the next of Hurstwood’s friends who greeted her as she sat in her box.
“Yes.
You didn’t get around.”
“No,” she answered, “I was not feeling very well.”
“So your husband told me,” he answered.
“Well, it was really very enjoyable.
Turned out much better than I expected.”
“Were there many there?”
“The house was full.
It was quite an Elk night.
I saw quite a number of your friends — Mrs. Harrison, Mrs. Barnes, Mrs. Collins.”
“Quite a social gathering.”
“Indeed it was.
My wife enjoyed it very much.”
Mrs. Hurstwood bit her lip.
“So,” she thought, “that’s the way he does.
Tells my friends I am sick and cannot come.”
She wondered what could induce him to go alone.
There was something back of this.
She rummaged her brain for a reason.
By evening, when Hurstwood reached home, she had brooded herself into a state of sullen desire for explanation and revenge.
She wanted to know what this peculiar action of his imported.
She was certain there was more behind it all than what she had heard, and evil curiosity mingled well with distrust and the remnants of her wrath of the morning.
She, impending disaster itself, walked about with gathered shadow at the eyes and the rudimentary muscles of savagery fixing the hard lines of her mouth.
On the other hand, as we may well believe, the manager came home in the sunniest mood.
His conversation and agreement with Carrie had raised his spirits until he was in the frame of mind of one who sings joyously.
He was proud of himself, proud of his success, proud of Carrie.
He could have been genial to all the world, and he bore no grudge against his wife.
He meant to be pleasant, to forget her presence, to live in the atmosphere of youth and pleasure which had been restored to him.