have her enticing imaginations broken in upon; so she said little or nothing.
"What's the matter, Carrie?" said Hurstwood after a time, noticing her quiet, almost moody state.
"Nothing," said Carrie. "I don't feel very well to-night."
"Not sick, are you?" he asked, approaching very close.
"Oh, no," she said, almost pettishly, "I just don't feel very good."
"That's too bad," he said, stepping away and adjusting his vest after his slight bending over. "I was thinking we might go to a show to-night."
"I don't want to go," said Carrie, annoyed that her fine visions should have thus been broken into and driven out of her mind. "I've been to the matinée this afternoon."
"Oh, you have?" said Hurstwood. "What was it?"
"A Gold Mine."
"How was it?"
"Pretty good," said Carrie.
"And you don't want to go again to-night?"
"I don't think I do," she said.
Nevertheless, wakened out of her melancholia and called to the dinner table, she changed her mind. A little food in the stomach does wonders. She went again, and in so doing temporarily recovered her equanimity. The great awakening blow had, however, been delivered. As often as she might recover from these discontented thoughts now, they would occur again. Time and repetition—ah, the wonder of it! The dropping water and the solid stone—how utterly it yields at last!
Not long after this matinée experience—perhaps a
